Pac Bell to Send Bilingual Phone Bills

Responding to requests from Spanish-speaking consumers, Pacific Bell said Monday that it will start sending telephone bills printed in Spanish and English this week to nearly 1 million customers.

Initially, the bilingual bills will be sent to about 940,000 of Pac Bell’s 15.7 million business and residential customers statewide who have indicated a preference for Spanish-language customer service in surveys, company executives said. Other customers will be able to request the bilingual bills by calling their local Pacific Bell service center.

Utility companies in California are required to provide some information and assistance to customers in one of seven foreign languages, said Kyle DeVine, a spokeswoman for the California Public Utilities Commission. But Pac Bell is the first utility company in California to voluntarily print bills in two languages, DeVine said.

Pac Bell executives said the bilingual bills, which the company began planning two years ago, are designed to better serve its increasingly diverse customer base.

“The bilingual bill will dramatically improve our service to Spanish-speaking customers and complement our existing Spanish-language bill inserts, pamphlets, product brochures and newsletters,” said Carmen Nava, vice president of Pac Bell Diverse Markets Group.

Nava said the bills will be particularly useful in multilingual households where some members may prefer to read their bills in Spanish and others in English. The company will revert to English-language bills for customers who request it.

Customers will start receiving the bilingual bills by the end of the week, Nava said.

Pac Bell has no immediate plans to provide billing in any other foreign language but will continue to study the market to determine whether there is a need for it, Nava said. Besides Spanish, Pac Bell assists customers in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog, Nava said.

Consumer groups welcomed the announcement, saying that serving customers in their native language is a way to protect their rights.

“This should be done by all utility companies,” said Nicolette Toussaint, a spokeswoman for the Utility Reform Network, a 23-year-old utility watchdog group.

Executives at GTE, which provides local service to 3.5 million businesses and residences in California, said GTE provides billing inserts and referral numbers in Spanish and English. But spokeswoman Carrie Hyun said the company doesn’t plan to provide fully bilingual bills at this time.