Multilingual receptionist for estate agencies

They tapped the number on the English card

20:40. The number printed on the English listing is ringing. One of you is in a third-floor hallway in Ampelokipi, keys in the lock, a couple asking about the storage. The other is in the car between Glyfada and the office. Nobody can pick up.

The caller did not search for your firm. They searched for a two-bedroom near a metro, in English, because that is the language the portals showed them. Three cards came back. They tapped yours. They will tap the next one if this goes to a Greek greeting and a beep.

That is a normal evening in a two-agent office that lists in English. The person on the sofa in Munich, the couple who work in English in Athens, the landlord in London who wants their flat let: they start in the language of the card. German, French, Russian and Albanian show up the same week, for the same reason. You do not need a plan per language. You need someone on that number who can continue the first sentence, and who will not invent a price because they can say it clearly.

Two ways this call goes wrong

They hang up. That is the first way. They heard Greek, or four rings and a tone, and they went back to the portal. You listen to the box later and hear almost nothing, and you conclude that foreign buyers email. Some of them do. The ones who rang wanted to talk tonight.

They get an answer that is too helpful. That is the second way, and it costs Saturday rather than a lead. An assistant that speaks German well will want to close the loop: yes, that building, yes, around that price, yes, we can show it this weekend. Said slowly, it sounds like competence. It is still an invented availability and an invented figure. The caller will keep the sentence. The vendor will not care that the voice was not a named agent.

A third thing sits next to those. People who are not in the country ask whether they can buy as a non-resident, what tax they pay, whether they need a lawyer. The assistant writes those questions down in the caller’s words and stops. It does not become a solicitor because it can form the sentences. You do not want those sentences on a recording with the firm’s name at the top.

Buy, rent or sell does not change when the language does

The opening is still buy, rent or sell. The next three answers are still area, budget and size. If the assistant starts mirroring small talk because the caller is friendly in English, the note you read at 21:00 will say “nice couple, moving in the autumn, want something convenient”, and someone will have to ring them back to start the job.

Budget as a number. Size as square metres or bedrooms. Area as a neighbourhood they named, not “close to the centre”. If they name a listing, write the name down exactly, in the form they used — even if the English portal kept a Greek street name. Do not translate a status. Do not translate a price.

This is also how you stop the English enquiries picking up sloppier rules than the Greek ones. The bans are the same. The file is the same. The language is only the words.

A vendor who rings in English about their own flat is still a vendor. Do not ask them their budget. Take an address, a preferred time for someone to call, and the name of the agent if they have one.

The rule the assistant must obey

Same facts, any language.

It may repeat a published asking price that is in the record. It may confirm a listing is live if the file says so at that moment. It may book a viewing against a free agent and a confirmed property. It may do those three things in 70+ languages.

It may not convert a price into another currency to be helpful. It may not estimate. It may not say a property is available because it was on the website this morning. It may not answer a visa, tax, or title question. It may not send a Greek text after an English call.

When the file is silent, the English sentence is the same as the Greek one: I cannot confirm that from here; I have your area, budget and size; an agent will call you. That sentence, in their language, is what keeps them off the next card without committing yours.

What you configure first

1. English as a working language on the main number. Not a second line. Not a note that says if they sound foreign, transfer.
2. The same first question in every language you expect to hear — buy, rent, sell — written so it cannot be skipped.
3. Numeric fields. Budget band, size, move-in window. If these are not fields, the transcript is a story.
4. The two bans, written in the languages you actually hear, so a fluent model does not improve them only in English.
5. The confirmation text follows the language of the call. Test this. It is the thing people forget.
6. A named path for anything that sounds like law or tax. Request, in their words, flag. No answer.

Then listen to the first twenty calls that did not start in Greek. You are not grading the accent. You are checking that the fork happened, that the three fields are in the summary, that no figure appeared that is not in the file, and that no listing was confirmed from memory. If a call fails those, it failed, however smooth it sounded.

Evening in another country is still your evening

A relocator in Munich who rings at 19:30 their time is on your number at 20:30. A landlord in London rings at lunchtime there and hits your afternoon viewing block. These are not odd calls you staff with “the English-speaking agent, when she is in”. They are the same unanswered phone as Saturday, with a language on top.

20:30 in English is not a different job from 10:30 in Greek. Same questions. Same refusals. Same calendar. Same file. The only thing that changes is the words, and the text that follows them.

If you only turn this on for “international listings”, you will miss the English call about an ordinary two-bed in Ampelokipi — which is, in practice, most of them.

The assistant answers more than one of these at the same time. Saturday at 11:00 and Tuesday at 20:40 look the same from the caller’s side: they tapped a card, they expect a voice, and they have another agency on the same screen.

They are not in the country yet

A lot of the English calls are from people who cannot come to a viewing this Saturday. They land in October. They want to know whether the search is even possible. Putting them down for a weekend hour they cannot attend leaves Saturday hours reserved for people who cannot come.

Offer the callback. Capture the date they arrive, the area, the budget, the size. Do not invent a flat that matches.

If they ask for a video walk-through, that is something an agent runs, not a standard viewing, unless you have actually set it up. Do not let fluency invent a video hour you do not offer.

The same applies to “can you send the floor plan tonight”. If sending documents is how you work, write that down. If it is not, the assistant takes the request and stops. A fluent English sentence that promises a pack by morning is still a promise on your number.

Two people, the phone handed across

Couples ring together. One speaks English, one speaks Greek, and they pass the phone. The assistant should follow the language of the sentence it just heard, and it should not lose the fields already collected when the language flips. Budget said in English is still the budget when the next sentence is Greek. If the switch is messy, it reads the four fields back once, in the language that is winning, and confirms. A lost budget at the handover is how you ring them at 21:00 to ask the same thing again.

If a third person comes on — a parent, a colleague in Munich, someone who “handles the money” — take their name and whether the callback should go to them. Do not restart the fork. The buy-or-rent answer you already have is still the answer.

The landlord who rings from London

Not every English call is a buyer. Owners who live abroad ring to put a flat on the market, to ask why a viewing did not happen, to say they want it let from September. If the assistant treats them as someone looking for a home, you will spend the first two minutes in the wrong conversation.

They want a named agent, or a valuation visit, or a straight note about an offer. Take the address, the request in their words, a number that works from where they are, and the language for the callback. Do not quote a likely rent. Do not say you have tenants waiting. The assistant does not warm up a figure on a Sunday night in any language.

Shared listings make this sharper. The owner may have two agencies on the same English portal. The assistant on your number does not talk down the other card, and it does not pretend your listing is exclusive unless the file says it is.

A number on your line is your number

“What’s that in pounds.” “Give me a sense of the street.” “Around two hundred thousand?”

If the figure is not in the file, the assistant does not say it, convert it, or agree that the caller’s guess is close. A number spoken on your number is your number, in any language. The caller will keep it. The vendor will hold you to it.

The same test covers the energy certificate, the deposit in months, the square metres on a specific address. If you would print the sentence on the listing, it can be said. If you would only say it once you knew the person, it is a callback.

Non-Greek callers ask for those documents by name because they have been reading forums. Some of the answers are policy you published: you ask two months; viewings last twenty minutes; you cover Ampelokipi. Some of them are legal. The assistant may repeat a policy you wrote down. It may not explain what an energy certificate means, or whether a foreign buyer “needs” one, or how a deposit is treated if they pull out.

Hours, the areas you cover, how a viewing works, whether you take new rental applicants this month: those can be finished on the phone, in their language. A listing’s status, an asking price that is not in the record, a negotiation, a comment on a title or a tax question: those become a request.

What you do with the transcript at 21:00

You do not need to speak German to use the fields. You need the fields. Buy or rent or sell. Area. Budget. Size. Whether they are in Greece. Whether they asked for a viewing or a callback. The number that works from abroad. The listing they named, in the form they used.

The recording is there if a phrase was ambiguous. The summary is there so the callback can start in the right language with the right facts, instead of “hello, you rang, what was it about”, which is how you lose them a second time.

An agent who then needs to talk about a contract, a deposit structure, or a question of status does that themselves, or they bring in whoever the firm uses. The assistant’s job ended when the request was complete and the invented sentences did not happen.

Check the calendar before anyone offers a Saturday hour. The relocator who said October is not a viewing. The couple who are already in Athens and free this weekend might be. Those are two different notes. Mixing them is how you drive to Patission for people who are still in London.

Do not run a second, warmer agency in English

It is tempting to give English callers a longer chat and a looser hand on availability, because they are coming from abroad and you do not want to lose them. That is how the English enquiries become the sloppy ones.

Same first question. Same three fields. Same two bans. Same text rule. The language is the only extra. If an English caller needs more help than that, they need an agent, not a friendlier machine.

Put the assistant on the number already printed on the portal, the window card and the English version of the listing. One forwarding rule at the provider — everything, or only what has rung unanswered for the seconds you choose. Calls an agent takes at the desk never leave the office. You are not printing a second mobile “for international”. You are answering the number they already tapped.