We speak English

vanity | 2-28-06 | Normy

[normy]

I own a sevice company in N. Texas and have considered using the phrase "We speak English" in some of my advertisement. I have competitors who have the "Se Habla Espaniol" and I am sure they recieve a good chunk of the non English speaking Hispanics business.

In Plano where I live there are a large number of middle eastern, Indian/Pak, and Asian as well as white and black Americans. I get complaints ever so often that homeowners can't communicate with the service men who show up.

I would love some input into this idea. It may cause more people to be offended than not and therefore be too big of a risk.

[normy]

Anyone?

[ken5050]

Interesting hypothesis..a question..

What percentage of your business now is to non-English speaking..? IOW..can you afford to lose it, and hope that you attract more from your ads to compensate

[Huck]

How about "We hear you" or "We listen to you." You don't even have to mention English.

[Michael Goldsberry]

¡Vaya para lo!

[HiTech RedNeck]

"We also speak English, senor."

[HiTech RedNeck]

We Speak English, Too

[wolfcreek]

I see more and more ads saying they promise to have a supervisor on every job as opposed to just a crew people who don't speak a lot of English. Myself and most of my customers prefer to be able to at least communicate with workers on our property. Alas, many times, it's good We understand some Spanish. You may find a good niche there, go with it.

[Michael81Dus]

Einstein. Learn German - it's relatively easy.

[normy]

My percentage of Hispanic non English speakers is fairly low. I do have alot of Middle Eastern and Indian customers and some of them have a hard time with English let alone Spanglish.

My white and black customers would probably love it but I hate to cause others to back off or become offended. This would be targeted to certain cities where the language thing is a problem.

[Kimmers]

I do like the "We speak English"....but you could loose some customer base with that, sticking with a phrase like Huck's suggestion in post #3

BTW...what industry are you in? My husband lives in N Dallas and will I will be joinng him when our son graduated from HS...

[normy]

Not bad, but if I read that I would assume they spoke it as a second language.

[Momaw Nadon]

I recently saw a sign on a corner store in a neighboring town that read:


No shoes
No shirt
No English
NO SERVICE

[ken5050]

Then I'd go for it...though probably restate it....along the lines of.."All our employees are fluent in English.., and se hable espanol"

[mewzilla]

How about an ad mentioning all the languages spoken by the folks who work for you, in all the languages spoken? You can mention English first :)

[HiTech RedNeck]

We hear you in English.
Le oímos en español.

[Loud Mime]

Your proposed tactic is divisive. How that division will work is a marketing question, and, possibly, a legal question. I know it's a stretch, but people file suits for anything nowadays.......could such a business tactic provide the footing for such a suit?

Eleph-Rhino.

Personally, as an American, I like it! I believe that you would have instant recognition, publicity, and a corps of willing customers if you used such a saying. Who was it that said there's no such thing as bad publicity?

[OldFriend]

You stated the problem with his approach....perfectly!

This is very risky and I can't see the point other than annoyance from a segment of the customer base.

[normy]

All my customers speak English to some degree. Many speak English + some other language, not Spanish. There are many companies who have service guys who speak Spanish + a little English. This poses a problem that really annoys homeowners because communication is so difficult.

No one in my company speaks any other language than English, besides a little Spanish and some Russian cuss words.

[SoftballMominVA]

I agree with the idea of mentioning all the languages in which you can conduct business.

We speak English

Se Hablo Espanol

E-ay eak-spay ig-pay atin-lay.