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October 2019
6 Min read
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How the mentality effects service perception. Scheduling experience in cross-continental projects

Derkach Anastasiya

5/5 - (4 votes)

We like to compare marketing and market research very much because these concepts are close in spirit and almost always we talk about the human perception of brands, products, services and qualitative satisfaction of needs.

Today we would like to share the experience of the research project for a retailer with a turnover of 2.5 billion €, which we have been carrying out for over 2 years in 27 countries on 2 continents.

Spoiler! If you are a global company and want to do research, you need to adapt it to the reality of each country.

A little bit about marketing.

The national culture has a considerable impact not only on the process of providing services but also on the consumption process of these services in different countries. When you sell a product to another market, you want it to resonate with the target audience. That’s why one of the world’s leaders in the field asked us to make marketing research of its service in different locations. The company approached us to find out how well they serve their customers in all of the countries where they provide their services.

The main objective of our qualitative marketing research was to review the standards in Europe and non-Europe countries, to create two different standards lists for behaving models of Europe and non-Europe countries.

Representatives of different cultures entering into business communication are in many ways similar in their internal, moral manifestation, but inevitably differ in external manifestations such as customs, traditions, rituals, etc. Ignorance or infidelity interpretation of such external manifestations may affect the quality of business and services provided with the impact on your reputation. That’s why localization is the key to establishing a global identity.

One of the coolest examples of brand localization is the example of Coca-Cola, which made a sensation when it changed the famous logo to your name. The best example of localization is what they did with their campaign in China. In China, it is not respectful to address a person by name. So, instead of names, they used terms such as “friend” and “classmate”.

Another example of a good brand localization is McDonald’s. The company takes into account that most of its customers in India do not eat beef. As a substitute for this and most types of meat, as many Indians are vegetarians, McDonald’s presented options that replaced meat with vegetarian meat substitutes.

The most successful example of brand localization is Netflix. Netflix is able to attract such a large global audience, allowing users around the world to view subtitles in their chosen language or choose a duplicate version of the show or movie. They even localized navigation and application interface for different countries. The company takes a very thorough approach to translation and has its own translation center that provides high-quality translations and dubbing considering the national particularities.

Accounting for national specificities can serve as a kind of guide for the customer’s activity and behavior. It makes it possible for the long run and helps to create favorable conditions for interaction. Thus, it is necessary to organize the activity in the sphere of service taking into account the peculiarities of the national culture, both consumer and service provider.

Our service quality research at a global company shows that non-European customers are more responsive to the performance of service standards. This means that in Europe, a high level of employee competence is expected by customers.

  1. Identification of needs, positive examples of the product, summarizing, and clarifying questions are more sensitive standards for non-European to create an opinion of the service provided in the retail industry.
  2. For customers outside of Europe, it is far more important to be invited once again to come to the store than for the consumer from Europe.
  3. The initiative taken by the salesperson is far more valuable to build customer’s loyalty in non-European countries, rather than in Europe.

Every B2C business is about the loyalty of consumers. The invitation by the salesperson to come to the store again showed a drastic difference between the consumer from Europe and consumers from non-European countries. We suggest that good service standards all throughout businesses in Europe made customers more adaptive to the actions of the salesperson.  So, this is simply not enough for them.

As we can see, with the help of our analytics, we mathematically show to a client the difference in mentality in European and non-European countries.

If you understand that it is time for your company to take a step forward and decide to start the road to new markets that can have a positive impact on sales volumes, and you should think about how you will promote products and services.

Our main conclusion, dear colleagues is – if you are a big global brand and want to conduct successful and high-quality research, follow these 3 steps:

  1. Decentralize the research (distribute power in the field in such a way that the person in charge is in the research location)
  2. Prepare the appropriate tools (questionnaires, guidelines and even customer journey)
  3. Manage expectations in each country (do not overstate expectations of employees and customers)

Before you start to conquer new markets, you need to carefully research the latest trends in how competitive companies behave, what consumers in a particular country want. This is the only way you can make your brand a success and be in demand. Scheduling Worldwide is ready to help you with it!

 

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