International businesses are aware that customers coming from different cultures can have different expectations from the same brand. How do they cope with the growing and varying demands of their clientele? Open Access BPO sheds light on the basic steps that companies take to meet customer expectations regardless of location, language, and culture they are in.

Global brands today face a challenge brought by having a broad market reach: meeting the expectations of international customers. As consumer behaviors, preferences, and purchasing powers vary across continents, from country to country, and even between individuals, businesses outsource customer service solutions as a way of coping with the differences. Multilingual call centers bridge the brands to markets by modifying a company’s definition of service and delivering it according to the customers’ expectations.

Definitions and expectations

One thing that makes it hard for businesses to gain foreign customers’ trust is the difference between the company’s definition of satisfaction and the customers’ expected level of service. For you and your local market, topnotch service may mean being available through all communication means there is.

Your customers on the other side of the world, however, may expect more than this to be able to say that your brand is indeed superior in the art of customer service. The French, for example, build stronger business relationships through face-to-face meetings. And in Japan, salespeople stay in touch with customers even after purchase to make sure that the product satisfies the buyer. The outsourced call center must know what your target demographic needs from your brand to be able to help you define service based on your market’s expectations.

Regional strategies and local actions

One specific region may be composed of diverse markets in an assortment of development stages, sizes, and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, it may not be enough to use a single approach for the whole state, as the strategy may only work on some areas but fail in the rest.
Contact centers think regionally and act locally by knowing the pulse of the whole region and using local resources for delivering service. So if multi-channeled customer service is the emerging trend in a country, service providers must open more communication channels and employ native-speakers to give assistance to fellow locals.

Processes and patterns

As previously pointed out, customers from varying territories have different consumer behaviors. The common process of inquiring, evaluating, purchasing, using, and seeking after-sales support may be altered depending on the buying practices of the place where the buyers belong.

In nations with a high Internet penetration rate, it is common for customers to learn about a product through the Internet before making a purchase, so buyers there may need assistance the most when they’re on the evaluation stage. Other countries, however, are more likely to contact support for help in using the goods. By acquainting the agents with the customers’ processes and patterns for buying and using goods, call centers can meet the expectations of their diverse clientele.