Spanish-language customer experience for a US omnichannel retailer

The challenge

English CSAT sat around 88% while Spanish CSAT sat at 71%, a gap explained by service, not product: Spanish-speaking customers (about 19% of transacting customers) were served by a thin bilingual layer inside an English operation. The gap was destroying value, with Spanish-speaking support contacts showing a 30-day repeat-purchase rate 14 points below the English equivalent. Two prior fixes had failed, and a Spanish checkout launch loomed.

Approach and methodology

• Built a Spanish-primary operation with English overflow, hiring for Spanish quality first
• Authored a written Latin American Spanish style guide, proscribing terms that had drawn complaints
• Rebuilt the knowledge base in Spanish (340 articles) rather than machine-translating it
• Ran fortnightly joint calibration against the client's US English quality rubric

Results

Spanish CSAT rose from 71% to 91% by month 12, closing and slightly exceeding the English benchmark, while first contact resolution on Spanish rose from 54% to 84%. The repeat-purchase gap closed to within three points, the Spanish checkout launched on schedule at parity, and cost per contact fell 58% against the client's blended US bilingual cost.

Enduring value

The Spanish style guide and 340-article knowledge base are client-owned assets now supporting the localised checkout, app and email marketing, and the joint calibration cadence has become the client's model for its other outsourced functions.