- Ellie Parpis, Adweek

Major U.S. companies are well equipped to handle Spanish-speaking customer-service calls, a recent market research study found, but few Hispanic consumers are picking up the phone.

A survey conducted by Entrevista Market Research found that the number of Spanish-speaking consumers reaching out to corporations directly is surprisingly low. “There is a very small percentage of Spanish speaking people compared to the [overall] population that are calling into companies,” said Richard Shapiro, president of Entrevista, a division of The Center for Client Retention in Berkeley Heights, N.J. The firm's clients include McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch, Bayer and Procter & Gamble.

Entrevista approached its existing clients to learn more about the Hispanic customers that were dialing into their call centers and found that there was not enough data to work from. “They said . . . there are so few calls that we get in Spanish that we wouldn’t have enough names to give you,” Shapiro said. “So we decided to do our own research.”

Entrevista conducted a two-part study in which 1,000 Latino households were called to determine what companies they admired and what they were looking for from their interactions with the companies. The survey found that the companies that scored best offered an 800 number with a Spanish-speaking option, and demonstrated respect when interacting with the consumer.

Five hundred “mystery shopper” calls were then made to the call centers of the top 75 advertisers targeting the estimated market of 35 million Latino consumers. Entrevista determined that 86 percent of the shoppers reached a Spanish-speaking representative or interpreter; more than 85 percent of callers, who reached a Spanish-speaking rep, found that they could respond to their queries directly. Nearly 90 percent of the callers felt their exchanges felt personalized and unscripted; and 80 percent felt the reps took their time to assist them.

Procter & Gamble and Home Depot both fared well. Every call to P&G reached a Spanish-speaking representative, said Shapiro, and the service level was as high as it was with English-speaking calls. Home Depot went the “extra mile,” he explained, not only telling callers which of its stores had a Spanish-speaking manager, but also taking the initiative to provide store hours when they would be on site at the store.

“[Hispanic consumers] want to talk to someone who understands their culture and langue and if they think the companies don’t have those people available to them they are not going to call,” said Shapiro. He also offered some advice to advertisers that want to reach those consumers: “Companies should reach out to the Latino community through writing case studies in Hispanic publications and talking about it in their advertising—that they really want to hear from their Spanish-speaking consumers.”