Exporting Your Services
Cultural Factors and Service Exporting
Over sixty percent of how we communicate is through nonverbal cues, most of which are culture specific. The following six questions and answers provide tips for understanding and managing cultural differences:
Why do cultural differences matter in exporting my service?
What cultural implications are there for the design of my service delivery?
How can I customize my services for a particular market?
What language will I need to use in delivering my service?
Does gender make a difference in doing business abroad?
What can I do as a businesswoman to overcome prejudices and limitations?
Why do cultural differences matter in exporting my service?
While goods exporters can deal through local agents or distributors who are part of the local culture, service exporters need to establish personal relationships with potential customers to create credibility in the market. Learning about cultural values and practices is a critical part of preparing to enter a target market for service firms because:
- Potential customers will decide whether or not to try your service based on whether they feel you can meet their needs. That decision may depend on how well, and how appropriately, you communicate with them.
- Customers may assess the quality of your service on the interactions they have with you and your staff, which take place in a cultural context. If your behaviour is viewed as culturally inappropriate, customers will be dissatisfied even if the service was technically correct.
- You and your staff may interpret customers’ needs and preferences by your own cultural standards, which may result in some wrong assumptions and inappropriate behaviour.
What cultural implications are there for the design of my service delivery?
Cultural values and themes will affect almost every part of the service delivery process, including the following elements:
- How customers are greeted
- The balance between assistance and self-service
- The way customers expect to be treated
- The extent to which services need to be customized to the customer's needs
- When and where the service will be available
- The type of follow-up expected
How can I customize my services for a particular market?
When you customize your service, you will need to adapt to local ways of doing business, and provide culturally appropriate service delivery. Here are some issues to consider:
Adapting to local ways of doing business may mean changes in:
- Hours of doing business
- Languages in which assistance is available
- Locations for service delivery
- Whether service is provided at a distance or in person
Culturally appropriate service delivery may mean adapting by:
- Becoming more/less formal and deferential.
- Helping customers feel secure (“no surprises”).
- Making sure services are consistent over time.
- Helping customers experiment with new ideas.
- Focusing primarily on rapid service delivery completion, and primarily on strengthening customer relationships.
- Expecting staff to follow a set procedure, and take initiative.
- Taking full responsibility for all staff, as well as reinforcing a sense of individual responsibility and accountability.
- Treating all customers and staff the same, as equals, or respecting differences in status and title.
- Helping staff focus on group goals or individual objectives.
If your firm plans to market or deliver services online, you will need to identify all cultural practices that must be addressed.
What language will I need to use in delivering my service?
You will need to use the language that is expected by your potential customers. Depending on the market, this may mean multilingual service delivery.
Does gender make a difference in doing business abroad?
Traditional biases and practices that discriminate against women still exist in most countries. In some instances, potential local partners or customers are simply not used to dealing with businesswomen in positions of authority. This may be true even if women are well represented in the political hierarchy. In other instances, there are cultural practices that make it difficult for women service exporters to network or acquire informal market information.
On the positive side, since there are fewer international businesswomen, a woman is likely to be remembered. In some instances, women find it easier to develop export business because they appear less threatening than their male colleagues.
What can I do as a businesswoman to overcome prejudices and limitations?
One of the most effective ways to avoid difficulties is to get male “sponsorship” through letters of introduction or meetings arranged by a male colleague. Your government trade officers may be helpful in this role.
It is also important to make sure you are behaving like a business colleague rather than a social colleague so male counterparts will treat you as a business equal. Depending on the circumstances, you may wish to restrict the type of socializing you do after hours to large group functions so there is no confusion about your role and position.
For further information, see DFAIT resources for businesswomen as well as Roger Axtell's “Do's and Taboos around the World for Women in Business” (Wiley, 1997), and Sheila Hodge, Success Strategies for Women in International Business.