John Doe wrote:

"Tom G" tomasg2 nospamverizon.net wrote:

"John Doe" jdoe usenetlove.invalid wrote in message
news:Xns97D7CB35217CA0123456789 207.115.17.102...
.

More trivia. Not that it matters, but how come when Lowe's asks
over the PA system for help with customer assistance, they repeat
the request in Spanish?

They do that here, they might not do that where you live.


I never noticed that in the Lowe's in AZ, the 17 years I lived
there or here, now in Illinois. I would imagine, however, it's
for the benefit of their customers, not their employees. You've
undoubtedly noticed more and more Latino customers in all stores,
especially stores catering to lawn care professionals. If I were
shopping in a store and heard an announcement in a language that I
did not understand, I would be concerned that there might be a
serious problem that required evacuation. Just a necessary
courtesy these days. Before I retired from Sears, we had started
announcing the end of day store closing in both English and
Spanish. Otherwise, some of our customers just kept right on
shopping.

Maybe you have heard it, but maybe you never thought about it. Lots
of things are spoken on store PA systems that most people probably
never consciously hear or think about. One of the major grocery
stores around here used subliminal messages. I have heard
subliminals once, in that store. The messages were benign but
clearly intended to be subliminal. One was "please don't sneeze".

I can see you making an argument that emergency messages would be
broadcast in both languages. In this case, Lowe's probably wants to
make their Hispanic customers feel good, to feel as though they are
being waited on, or it might be a signal for summoning a customer
service employee who speaks Spanish.




Tom G.

It's simply a customer service thing. The english / spanish announcments
aren't from live employees generally, they're from the little "press
button for assistance" pre-recorded pager stations. In many parts of the
country a lot of the customers primarily speak spanish and it's nice for
them to hear in spanish that the button they pressed actually called for
help. Presumably they use the same call units in all their stores. Not
sure why they don't include french as well for the stores near the north
border, would be kind of a NAFTA thing like all the product packaging in
english/spanish/french.

Pete C.