Telemarketing —both inbound and outbound— and the use of toll-free numbers, has become a highly utilized and growing tool in the English-speaking business community, government, and consumer market in the USA. In the past few years, companies have also started to increase the use of telemarketing as a tool to reach and service the Hispanic market. However, companies using telemarketing to reach Hispanics in the States face several problems.

To reach the Hispanic market, many utilize telemarketing services in Mexico, Costa Rica and/or the Philippines. This is problematic because personnel in those countries are often not fully bilingual, and those that are have a heavy accent and are unfamiliar with U.S. Hispanic culture and its nuances.

One out of every four Hispanics (25%) have become fully Americanized through the generations and don’t speak Spanish anymore, even though they have Spanish surnames. Another 21% of Hispanics only speak Spanish. Telesales people must be fully bilingual when they call a "Hispanic" household. They must be able to switch seamlessly between English and Spanish.

Many immigrants in the States are first-generation and are more comfortable with the neutral Spanish we speak in Puerto Rico. Our neutral Spanish is also perfectly understood and accepted by Mexican Americans.

FUTURE GROWTH

In the past year, the USA business community has recognized the fact that Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the USA and continue to represent the fastest-growing minority group in the country.

National Census Bureau data from the 2010 U.S. Census revealed that there were more than 51.5 million Hispanics in the States, not counting the nearly four million in Puerto Rico. Moreover, the now at 53.3 million Hispanic population, keeps growing at a rate of 1.4 million a year. It is estimated that almost 17% of the USA population is now Hispanic and that by the year 2020 this number will grow to 60 million Hispanics — almost one out of every five USA residents. Spanish will still be the first language of most Hispanics and the No. 1 foreign language spoken in the USA. Thus, there is a growing need for fully bilingual Spanish/English telemarketing in the States.

Hispanic buying power is expected to reach $2 trillion annually in the next decade. The Census Bureau projects that in the next 20 years alone the Hispanic population will reach 86 million. There are now sizable Hispanic populations in 40 states.

There are millions of Hispanic households with income of well over $50,000. Almost 40% of Hispanics in the USA are foreign born. Their first language is still Spanish. Twenty-one percent only speak Spanish; 75% speak mostly Spanish or prefer to speak Spanish; 85% prefer being part of the Hispanic culture, according to recent studies; 25% only speak English. When calling a Spanish surname household, it can turn out that the person on the other end of the line prefers to speak English, or possibly doesn’t know Spanish at all. A telemarketer has to be able to switch from English to Spanish immediately. Our telemarketers can do that. In Puerto Rico, the two official languages are English and Spanish.

Direct ResponSource, Inc. (DRS) is in an aggressive mode of growth and wants to take advantage of the very important demographic trend in the mainland USA. It’s a fertile market that offers a lot of opportunities for DRS. We have studied the market, and, with our lower labor costs, in most cases we can offer rates 20% to 40% lower than USA companies and government agencies can receive from the more than 650 telemarketing companies on the mainland. We are able to offer lower prices because wages are the biggest cost in telemarketing, and telemarketers in Puerto Rico work for federal minimum wages. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for a telemarketer in the States is $23,520 annually. In Puerto Rico it’s $15,360.

In addition, the government of Puerto Rico offers excellent tax benefits to telemarketing companies and other industries operating in Puerto Rico, USA that create jobs while servicing clients outside of Puerto Rico. This also helps our ability to offer lower prices.

For these reasons Direct ResponSource, Inc. is in a position to offer government agencies and the private sector in the States a rate that will probably be at least 20% lower than any company or government agency is now paying to a stateside telemarketing company.

Why pay more when a Telemarketing Center with the depth and breadth of 16 years worth of experience in English/Spanish bilingual services exists? Our state-of-art contact center, located just a few hours away, will save you money and achieve the same or greater efficiencies for your company. DRS has been serving one of the largest Spanish/English populations in the country for 16 years.

To a private company or federal, state or city agency spending $2 million a year on telemarketing, that’s at least $400,000 in savings a year. Actually, most of the annual contracts by entities in the States run $5 million or more. That would be a savings of $1 million a year for an entity now spending $5 million. With companies and government looking to cut expenses, a minimum 20% savings on an outside service will be very attractive; in many cases, our rates could save over 20% annually. The Philippines has a telemarketing industry that employs 400,000 people providing services mostly to the U.S. government and private sector. The Philippines’ principal official languages are Filipino and English, but English with a heavy accent. Spanish is a third ‘foreign’ language, as are Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. Altogether the population of the Philippines is so mixed that more than 100 languages are spoken throughout the country. We in Puerto Rico have two official languages, Spanish and English. And our Spanish is a very neutral Spanish accepted by Mexicans and other Latinos.

The Philippines are 10,575 miles from Washington, D.C., New York, and all the states and cities on the eastern seaboard of the U.S.; flying time is 18 hours. India is 8,123 miles from Washington, D.C.; flying time is 17 hours.

American companies dealing with telemarketing companies in the Philippines or India are dealing with foreign currency and foreign laws. In fact, in the Philippines they are dealing with telemarketing companies owned mostly by companies from India.

Conducting business in Puerto Rico offers the advantages of dealing with U.S. dollars (no fluctuating exchange rates), and with U.S. courts and laws. We are only 3½ to 4 hours away from the eastern USA, 4½ hours away from Chicago, and no passports are needed. Of course, we also have warm, tropical Caribbean weather all year long.

In telemarketing projects it is common to visit the telemarketing company for inspection, for negotiations, and for participating in the selection and training of the telesales staff that will be representing the company’s products and services. Puerto Rico is a convenient few hours away. Our clients also like to come when we are conducting training upgrades, to participate and talk about new products or services being offered by the client company. In fact, in some cases we have a small office, located within the staff area serving that company, designated for the use of the client to listen to calls and monitor service. All of this becomes very difficult and expensive when the telemarketing company is 8,000 to 10,000 miles away.

Puerto Rico, then, is the perfect telemarketing center for the States. We have a deep supply of bilingual Spanish/English speaking personnel. We know the American culture. Many of us have lived and worked or studied in the States.

There are more than 700,000 households in Puerto Rico with cable or dishes receiving TV programming from the States, which keeps us on top of stateside events and cultural nuances.

We have hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico, USA who are fluent in English and Spanish and can switch between the two languages with ease.

What midsize or large company, or federal, state or city agency doesn’t have a toll-free number for clients? There are millions of companies and thousands of government agencies throughout the U.S. mainland with toll free numbers for hundreds of uses.

Over the past 30 years, toll-free numbers have proven to be an effective marketing tool in outbound and inbound telemarketing strategies for dealing with the English-speaking market. Telemarketing gives immediate and measurable results.

Now the use of these proven strategies must be expanded to the newly recognized and growing Hispanic market revealed by the U.S. Census of 2010, whose numbers only came out in the second quarter of 2011.

There is a trend among U.S. companies to bring call center projects back to the USA. But there is also a trend to bring jobs back to the USA. US Airways and Delta Airlines are but two companies that have done so already.

Puerto Rico, as part of the USA, is a logical location for stateside entities to bring telemarketing jobs back from India and the Philippines, and to start new projects and grow their USA-based projects at a much lower cost than with any telemarketing contact center in the States.