Spanish phrases for customer service: calls, chat and email

Should you use tú or usted with customers?

Use usted. The RAE’s Diccionario panhispánico de dudas says usted is the form educated speakers use for formal address in Latin America and Spain, and that it signals some distance, courtesy and formality [1]. That is the register customer service needs. With usted the verb takes the same form as for “he” or “she”: ¿En qué le puedo ayudar? rather than ¿En qué te puedo ayudar?.

Switch to tú only if the customer or your client’s brand clearly uses it. In Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, and in much of Central America, people also use vos in familiar speech [2]. You don’t need vos to sound polite: usted works everywhere for formal contact.

How do you greet a customer in Spanish?

Open with the time of day, the company name and your name, then offer help.

How do you ask a customer to spell or confirm details?

Ask for one detail at a time, then read it back. For email addresses, say arroba for @, punto for a dot, guion for a hyphen and guion bajo for an underscore.

What do you say when you don’t understand?

Say so early and politely. Guessing costs more time than asking.

How do you put someone on hold or transfer a call in Spanish?

Ask before you put anyone on hold, and say where you are transferring them.

How do you apologize and solve a problem in Spanish?

Acknowledge the problem, say what you checked, then say what happens next and when.

Spanish phrases for scheduling and appointments

Scheduling is a core virtual assistant task. Always repeat the day, date and time.

Spanish phrases for invoices and payments

How do you close a customer service call in Spanish?

Spanish phrases for customer service emails

Formal Spanish email puts a colon after the greeting, not a comma, and starts the body on a new line with a capital letter. The RAE calls the comma an English habit to avoid in Spanish [3].

Customer service vocabulary in Spanish

• el cliente: the customer
• la cuenta: the account
• el pedido: the order
• el número de seguimiento: the tracking number
• el reembolso: the refund
• la factura: the invoice
• la cita: the appointment
• la contraseña: the password
• la queja: the complaint
• la garantía: the warranty

Latin American and Spain Spanish: a few differences

The phrases above work in both. Some everyday words differ: computadora and celular are common in Latin America, where Spain usually says ordenador and móvil. Most of Spain also uses vosotros for a group of people you’re familiar with, while Latin America uses ustedes for any group, formal or informal [1]. If your client’s customers are mostly in one country, follow their words.

How to practice these phrases

• Say each phrase out loud five times, then use it in a full mock call.
• Record yourself reading an email address back with arroba and punto.
• Ask a fluent colleague to check your email templates before you send them to customers.

Soltura is a speaking-first Spanish app with a course for virtual assistants called Ruta VA, which covers calls, inboxes and scheduling in spoken scenes. It’s coming soon to iPhone, iPad and Mac. See Spanish for virtual assistants or read what a bilingual virtual assistant does.