Dialing up a surging population
Dialing up a surging population
Moses Lake store one of state's first to receive makeover
MOSES LAKE — The local Cingular Wireless location is one of the company's first in-state to approach a rapidly growing market.
Cingular locations in Moses Lake, Kennewick and Union Gap recently underwent a makeover to incorporate Spanish language store signage, payment options and bilingual employees.
The Moses Lake store held a special community event the weekend of June 17 feting the makeover.
Cingular public relations representative Anne Marshall said the company looked at all of its stores for places where the Hispanic population can take advantage of the service for the initial rollout and decided Moses Lake to be a prime candidate for the service.
"This is a very important market," Marshall explained. "The Hispanic market is one of the fastest growing in the U.S., and it's very attractive to wireless providers, not just in terms of the growing population, but also in terms of usage."
The bilingual concept is part of Cingular's comprehensive strategy to meet the needs of Hispanic customers, Marshall said. Bilingual customer service was already in place, "but we're trying to do more for customers who want to do business in Spanish."
Customers can request a bill in Spanish. Spanish-speaking customer service representatives are on hand at Cingular call centers and in the store.
"Because this is one of the first chosen, we will always have someone there to speak Spanish," Marshall said, adding the make over makes it much easier for customers to do business.
The program became available in the store the week before the makeover.
The program is also starting up in other stores across the nation.
"We're rolling them out depending on the population," Marshall said. She added the program is initially focusing on the Spanish language because of the large Hispanic population in the country, and other languages could be considered in the future.
Moses Lake store manager Nick Parker said the location has seen an influx of customers who only speak Spanish since the remodel.
Parker thinks they "maybe were a little shy to come into the store before, and are now a little more comfortable coming in because they know there's people here to service them."
The number of employees at the store has not changed, Parker added, noting that more than 50 percent of sales representatives are bilingual.
"Whether it's somebody that has never spoken a lick of Spanish in their lives or whether it's somebody that's never spoken a lick of English in their lives, we are very able to handle any customer that the community has for us," he said.
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