Language Line Services' President Awarded Latino Business Leadership Award For Connecting Hispanic Community With Local Businesses

Louis Provenzano Recognized by San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Monterey, Calif. (October 2, 2007) — The San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has awarded Louis Provenzano, president and chief operating officer of Language Line Services, the “Latino Business Leadership Award” in recognition of his long-term support and dedication to improving the quality and availability of language services for the local Hispanic community. The award was given at the 3rd annual Latino Business Leadership Awards Gala, held on September 28 to honor people and businesses that have helped significantly enhance the San Francisco Bay area’s Hispanic community.

“The San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Language Line Services share a common goal – to connect all members of the community with businesses and new entrepreneurial opportunities, regardless of the language they speak,” said Richard Ventura, SFHCC president.  “Under Louis Provenzano’s leadership, Language Line Services has created services that have proven instrumental in meeting the communication needs of San Francisco’s Hispanic community.”

Language Line Services, the world’s leading provider of language-based services, delivers telephone and video interpretation, interactive software-based translation, interpreter training and certification programs to government agencies, healthcare organizations and businesses nationwide, enabling clients to communicate with customers in their preferred languages.

In October 2006, Language Line Services launched Your World. Your Language.SM in San Francisco.  This toll-free phone service provides limited-English speaking callers with an interpreter free of charge to help them carry out calls to vital business services like  banking, insurance, and utilities, through a three-way conversation.

Then, in July 2007, Language Line Services announced an agreement with Verizon Wireless to create the Verizon Prepaid Interpretation Service, a prepaid card that puts users in touch with interpreters for on-demand communication in over 170 languages.

“We have had a busy year in terms of creating new products and services that break language barriers, and it is incredibly gratifying to be recognized for this,” said Provenzano. “People feel more comfortable and secure when they can conduct business in their preferred languages and, as we found in our “Hispanic Customer Rage” study, it is especially important for companies to communicate with Hispanic customers in Spanish.”

Language Line Services completed the first “Hispanic Customer Rage” survey in November 2006, tracking the customer care experiences of U.S. Spanish-speaking households.  The study shows that Hispanics have been left behind in the movement to improve customer satisfaction and that companies that make it easy for customers to do business in Spanish will experience less market damage and complaint handling costs, and find that Spanish-speaking consumers buy “significantly more” of their products and services.  For an executive summary of the “Hispanic Customer Rage” survey, visit this Language Line Services Web page www.languageline.com/page/sprage/ .


About Language Line Services

Language Line Services, the world’s leading provider of language services, is recognized as a trusted partner to thousands of U.S. based organizations focusing their marketing efforts on the limited English speaking community, which is growing rapidly in both size and affluence. Language Line provides access to one of the fastest language interpretation services in the industry. It serves the language needs of all major sectors including government, health care, telecom, financial services and insurance by connecting them to customers, patients and sales prospects in over 170 languages. The growth of the industry has soared with increased immigration and government regulatory compliance policies mandating organizations provide services to limited English speakers in their own languages. For more information about Language Line Services’ suite of video and over-the phone interpretation services, document translation, and bilingual testing and training please call (800) 752-6096 or visit www.LanguageLine.com .


About the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

Founded in 1984, the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is a non-profit organization created to represent the needs of Hispanic businesses and the Hispanic community as a whole. Its mission is to promote the economic development of our members and the Hispanic business community in San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area. The SFHCC is one of the largest Hispanic business organizations in the city. The SFHCC has become a trusted leader among the Hispanic business community creating strong strategic alliances and forging joint projects. For more information, please visit www.sfhcc.com .


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