When one must make a 911 emergency call, the goal is to get the message across as quickly as possible so first responders can get to the scene before the emergency worsens. There are many challenges to hurdle here, but one in particular rests with those who do not speak English fluently. In fact, over 67 million people speak a language other than English at home, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
Sure, 911 call centers have a paid human translator on standby to handle calls from nonnative English speakers, but that defeats the purpose of calling 911 when a real emergency is actively taking place.
Carbyne, provider of cloud-native mission-critical contact center solutions, has a solution for this with the integration of live audio language translation into its APEX emergency call-taking platform. APEX disseminates information in real-time (from callers to call-takers to field-responders) for better decisions and safer outcomes. It also reduces call-waiting time, speeds up incident resolution and improves productivity with automatic call distribution featuring skill-based routing, multiple call distribution methods and auto-call-answer mode.
Going forward, emergency call centers utilizing Carbyne's APEX platform with its official Live Audio Language Translation gain the capabilities to instantly identify the caller's spoken language from 14 available languages, display real-time and on-screen translation of the caller's audio, and record the translated and transcribed call for post-call analysis via Carbyne Events History.
The APEX platform also lets emergency call centers reduce errors that may be introduced by human translators paraphrasing the caller, support diverse communities by helping call-takers better prepare for callers who speak a language other than their own, enhance dispatch time by eliminating delays associated with human translators, and reduce costs by minimizing reliance on paid human translation services.
"An emergency situation is not the ideal time for a distressed caller to translate from their native language to English just to convey what's happening," said Alex Dizengof, Chief Technology Officer for Carbyne. "Our 'every person counts' philosophy at Carbyne means that no one should ever feel disadvantaged or treated as a second-class citizen for speaking their native language, particularly during some of the most challenging moments of their lives."
An example of how this integration works is provided by the Presidio County Sheriff's Office in Marfa, Texas. Monica Sanchez, of the sheriff's office, received a call, and the caller stated in Spanish that he was sick. Sanchez, who speaks Spanish, did not recognize the word used for “stomach” because there are variations of many words depending on country of origin. Carbyne’s translation integration helped Sanchez understand, helping the caller quickly.
While the company still recommends maintaining human translators on standby for situations where they are needed, this AI-based technology solution expedites emergency responses when every second is crucial.
Edited by
Alex Passett
