Have Bilingual Staff for Bilingual Shoppers

Retailers often assume that if a customer is able to speak two languages, the customer is equally comfortable carrying out shopping transactions in either language. But the truth is that the whole personality of the customer and of the transaction might change between languages. Researchers at Baruch College and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied what happened to bilingual Hispanic women as they switched between speaking English and speaking Spanish in American settings.
     The researchers found that the women tended to feel more assertive when speaking Spanish than when speaking English. And when these women read Spanish text, as might be used in ads or on signage, the women were more likely to think of acting independently and taking educated risks. An assertive willingness to take educated risks is the sort of thing that can lead to larger purchases and so more profitability for you.
     If your target market includes many people who speak more than one language, here are some tips:

• Look for job candidates who have, in addition to all the other retailing skills, the ability to fluently speak and write the languages used by your customers.
• Schedule staff so that at any time, you have at least one salesperson on the floor able to understand and fluently speak the language of almost anyone who comes into your store. Then have the monolingual staff tag team whenever it's needed.
• Train and coach staff to understand the retail shopping expectations of people from different cultures who give you business. This is important not only for closing sales, but also for teaming with the customer to head off misunderstandings about item return policies, how to place a special order, what might appear to be shoplifting, and how to arrange for services offered by the business.