Survey Shows Hispanics’ Customer Service Experiences Are Much Worse Than Those of Anglos

Spanish speakers are three times more likely than English speakers to threaten to contact the media if their complaints are not handled appropriately.

A survey of 1,500 Spanish speaking Americans found that 90% of Spanish speakers who had a product or service problem were extremely or very upset with the problem they faced and how their complaints were handled. This compared to 70% of English speakers.

The survey by Language Line Services, also found that Spanish speakers are three times more likely than English speakers to threaten to contact the media if their complaints are not handled appropriately.

“It's amazing how little is known about the customer care experiences of a consumer base that will soon have nearly $1 trillion in buying power,” said Louis Provenzano, President and Chief Operating Officer of Language Line Services. “The study shows clearly that Hispanics have been left behind in the movement to improve customer satisfaction.”

On a sidenote - Considering that there are 45 million Hispanics in the United States representing nearly 9% of all consumer spending, the Rent to Own industry is doing a poor job of marketing to this group in the virtual world. Less than 1% of RTO industry websites offer a Spanish translation. Rent-A-Center is the only rent to own company with a national presence, or even a large regional presence, to offer a complete Spanish translation. view

According to recent Forrester Research survey, fifty-one percent of online Hispanics in the US prefer to be offered Spanish-language Web sites, and 23 percent must have Spanish online (see story).

Other findings include:

- 65% of Spanish speakers want their money back compared to only 43% of English speakers.

- Spanish speakers spent twice as much time complaining on average to resolve a problem than English speakers.

- One-third of study respondents reported that it was “difficult/very difficult” to complain in Spanish.

Provenzano noted that those finding it difficult to complain in Spanish increase market damage and complaint handling costs for the offending company/organization since they are more likely to share their story with friends, decide they’ll never do business with the company again, or take legal action. On the flip side, companies that make it easy for customers to do business in Spanish will likely find that Spanish-speaking consumers buy “significantly more” of their products and services.