The Italian translation of the telephone number request is incorrect when I activated the reminders for the customer via SMS

Hello, @PosturAle -- thanks so much for your post! I hear your concerns, and want you to know that I take them seriously. That said, I am a little confused. You say that the translation is bad, but the translation is direct English > Italian, word for word, what the English version says: “Send text messages to”.

Do you mind clarifying what the exact issue with the translation is, and what the precise, correct translation would be (in Italian) if it were to be updated?  

To be perfectly transparent, I do not speak Italian. That said, when using Google Translate to translate the Italian phrasing you included in your post: 

• “invia messaggio di testo a” directly translates to
• “send text message to”

This means that it is a direct translation (English > Italian) of the verbiage written in by our product team on all Calendly booking pages. 

The Italian phrase being translated to English: 

“Send text messages to” is what the English version of this says on all live booking pages: 

Regarding SMS Workflows and other text fields on the booking page:

• Any time you set up an SMS Workflow, this will result in the “send text messages to” field auto-populating on the booking page

• This field cannot be customized by any Calendly user, be that for translation purposes or other

• The field is labeled this way so that invitees understand they are inputting a phone number that will receive text messages

• Users (yourself included) are always free to add additional invitee questions on the booking page that ask for a mandatory phone number

  • This phone number will not be attached to SMS workflows

  • This phone number, when entered by the invitee, might be different than the number they input in the “send text messages to” field

• When a Calendly user selects “phone call: I will call my invitee” as the event type location, a mandatory phone number field is populated as well

  • This phone number is used to call the invitee for a meeting

  • This phone number might be different than what an invitee enters in the “send text messages to”  field, as well

I do hope that this information + clarification is helpful! That said, if there is an issue with the translation, please do not hesitate to respond and let me know what that issue is so that I can push that info + feedback to our product team. I cannot make any promises about if or when updates might take place, but I can certainly elevate your voice, and will be happy to do so. 

Thank you! Looking forward to hearing back from you. 

Okay the problem is that the phrase "send text message to" is not explicitly asking you to enter your phone number. "text message", or "messaggio di testo" is a very vague word in Italian, "SMS" would be much clearer.

The perfect phrase would be "receive SMS on this phone number" or something similar. I ask this because we do telephone consultations with people over 50-60 who are not familiar with technology. If we then have unclear questions, we risk lowering the conversion unnecessarily.

Furthermore, we do the consultations via telephone, so it seems strange for the user to be asked for his telephone number twice.

I hope the problem is clearer now! ;)

@Kelsi at Calendly

Hey again @PosturAle -- thanks so much for clarifying for me! 

So, to make sure I am tracking -- the issue is not the literal translation (word for word), but rather, culturally, the translation does not make sense because of the way that you actually speak Italian in Italy. Correct? We did a bit of research🕵🏼 on our end to make sure we understood your predicament, here, and it seems that what you are saying is that Italians do not say “send me a text” but rather say “send me an SMS.” If this is the case, it would absolutely make sense that “send text messages to” would cause nothing but confusion! 
​​​

I just want to make sure I am clear + understanding exactly what feedback you are offering us so that when I relay 📨 it to the product team for you, it’s not incorrect. 

All of that said - I do appreciate your feedback! We always like to hear from Calendly Customers about what their experience is like, and what they think about the way the product functions. I am going to relay this feedback to our product team. I cannot make promises about a change being made, but I can definitely raise your concerns for you! 

Note: I understand that it might seem weird for invitees to have to enter their phone numbers twice on the booking page. However, this is not likely something that will be updated. 

• SMS text fields must be opt-in and cannot be made required due to regulations surrounding SMS/text messaging
• The phone number an invitee provides for a call (if the meeting takes place via phone) might be entirely separate from the phone number an invitee chooses to provide in the SMS workflow (“send text messages to”) field
  • Some people have a landline they prefer for calls and a cell phone they prefer for texts
  • Some people prefer their cell number for texts with friends/family + provide a number assigned via an app or other service for texts from platforms like Calendly
  • There are likely endless reasons that people might have multiple phone numbers and choose to use a different number in the two fields on the booking page
• Ultimately, the SMS field must be optional, while we do like to allow users to make other fields above “mandatory”; the “phone number” field when the location is “phone call” will also be mandatory; for all of these reasons, there cannot be only one field

So, while I do understand it seems redundant, that is not something on the roadmap to be changed and I can report that it’s been brought up before, and is unlikely to change any time soon. Just wanted you have that information, as well!

I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day! 🙂

Exactly! “Send me a text or a message” is too vague in Italian, it can be confused for a message via sms, via whatsapp or via e-mail, it is not clear for the user where he will receive this message.

“Sms” instead has a unique meaning. As for the redundancy between the phone number and the number to receive the text message, I understand, we will implement both inputs. Thank you!

@Kelsi at Calendly 

Back again, @PosturAle -- and again, am grateful for your response!

My colleague and I were quite literally just discussing that WhatsApp is a very common choice for comms, there, and that + the lack of use of the term “text message” to describe SMS means this entire ask (from you) makes perfect sense. Then, I came to see you’d said the same in your response to me! 😄

I am going to make sure our product team puts eyes on this. Even though, to reiterate, I cannot make any promises -- I will absolutely make sure this feedback is seen by the right people. It matters! 

Also, glad to hear you will implement both the SMS Workflow and the phone number location fields. I do think you’ll find that part does not cause concern. It’s very common amongst our users and we do not really see any complaints from them about invitees taking issue with it at all. 

I hope you have a wonderful night!