Did you know that the U.S. is now the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country? According to recent studies, 13.5 % of the population of the United States speaks Spanish at home, and if you, as a business owner, are using or planning to hire a professional answering service, you need to be aware of this fact. Why? Because if your company’s answering service is not providing bilingual support, you are missing out.
In business, every client makes a difference, and while this is quite obvious, good client retention strategies don’t just create themselves. They are a product of time-consuming research and development. However, one part of that strategy can be very simply implemented: a bilingual answering service. Let’s take a look at what benefits it would create for your business and what new opportunities it would provide.
First Impression
Consider this: every potential client who calls your business is a window shopper. They will pass on you unless something about your product or service catches their attention in a way that they cannot ignore. Make the best first impression you can by making sure your answering service has bilingual operators. It is essential that your company has a great reputation for what it’s producing or offering. But if your phone answering service also provides an option of communication in both English and Spanish and goes between the two languages seamlessly and effortlessly, you’ve got a good chance of turning a window shopper into an actual customer.
Matching Your Clients’ Needs
Even if you are just starting out as a business owner, you are hoping to expand as soon as possible. And if you have been in business for a long time, you still need to be on top of your game every single day to continue to grow your company. Therefore, the answering service you hire has to be able to handle any volume of calls. If every time a Spanish speaker calls your office, your answering service cannot communicate with them, it will cause dissatisfaction and frustration on both sides, and also create an extra expense for you because you will still be paying for the time agents spend taking the calls that would lead nowhere. Your current customers will not be able to get the help they need, and your prospective clients will hang up and never call back. Make sure you give your callers what they need: clear communication in the language they are fluent in.
Consistency and Reliability
Even if your company were recommended to somebody by one of your existing clients, they would still have to find out for themselves if you were the right match for them instead of just hiring you on the recommendation only. Every person looking for a service, whether they need a plumber, a doctor, a lawyer, or party catering, probably has a list of businesses to check out. So, unless they can rely on you to do a better job than anyone else in town, you won’t get their business. Of course, some of your employees might speak Spanish fluently, but they can’t be there for your clients outside of normal business hours. Your answering service, however, can do it 24/7, including the weekend and holidays. Imagine how confident your customers will feel about your services being able to rely on you no matter when they call, and being helped by friendly Spanish-speaking operators!
Expanded Opportunities
Having a bilingual answering service at your disposal doesn’t only serve you well in communications with your customers; it also helps you when you yourself become a customer.
Every business, regardless of industry, needs a vendor from time to time. A coffee shop, a doctor’s office, a law firm, or a research center will all periodically need furniture, equipment, supplies, a cleaning service, an electrician, an IT specialist, or a plumber. Communicating with vendors and arranging appointments and deliveries is a time-consuming prosses that can be delegated to your answering service. However, if they don’t have a bilingual division, your choices will be limited to English-speaking companies which is simply not enough in the modern world. Having a bilingual answering service, however, will help you not only find the vendors you need, communicate with them, place orders, and dispatch their specialists in Spanish but inadvertently allow someone else to have a business opportunity that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. This creates a win-win situation for everybody.
Positive Impact
What sustains any business is a healthy gain-to-loss ratio where you are consistently “in the green.” Using a bilingual answering service for your company would positively impact your company’s productivity, relieve stress, and allow for new opportunities therefore, would increase your profitability as well as support your good reputation and make you stand out among similar businesses.
If you would like to have more information about the benefits of hiring a bilingual answering service, please give us a call 24/7 at 888-588-9800 for a free, no-pressure consultation.