One of the most overlooked aspects of an effective international strategy for many companies when expanding abroad, is how they will manage customer support and more than that, customer success overall. Companies also often fail to understand what the specific expectations are within the various foreign markets they are expanding into.
Customer support is a part of a fully developed customer success strategy and can have a profound impact on your ultimate success. A well-executed customer success plan can be the difference between failure and success.
An effective customer support strategy improves customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer retention, and increases repeat purchases, total spend, and overall profitability for companies.
What is Customer Support?
Customer support encompasses a variety of customer services and is part of a broader customer success strategy. Customer support covers a wide range of activities and can include onboarding, training, planning, installing, troubleshooting, exchanging, shipping, maintenance, upgrading, serving, and even disposing of your product. Customer support also includes providing assistance and advice and reacting to prospects’ and customers’ feedback or requests. This support relationship should last for the entire life cycle of your product or service, beginning with product research, through the sales process, and continuing on, sometimes for many years.
Products and services in industries such as technology, construction, and software, may require extensive and long-term support, while simple products or transactional services may require much less and support needs are short-term in nature.
There are many aspects to customer support, and before you expand your business into a new country, consider your customer support strategy and customer expectations, what your competition does, the regulatory requirements, the staffing needs, and the costs of each level of service. Customer support can be a competitive advantage and distinguish your company from others.
Here are some of the variables to consider when developing your customer support strategy.
Response Time Expectations
Expectations will vary by product, industry, and service. If you are in the hospitality industry, for example, the expectation to respond immediately is consistent with what is considered good customer support. The more expensive and luxurious the product or service, the higher the expectations for fast, efficient, personalized, and lavish customer support. If you are in technology, some cultures will expect 24 hours per day/7 days per week customer support, but others are fine with not responding on evenings, weekends, and holidays.
In a study by ZenDesk.com, a SaaS customer support service, over 70% of French customers surveyed expect an immediate response and resolution to problems while other nationalities have much lower expectations.
Empowered For Resolution
Most customers find it frustrating if customer support personnel are not empowered to resolve a situation immediately and if they are required to go through several managerial layers to get any resolution. Culturally, however, countries with a strong hierarchical system, such as Middle Eastern and some Asian countries, may expect that only senior managers or company executives can negotiate resolutions to problems, especially in high-ticket and more complex product categories. If you are doing business in these countries, you may need to find ways to give your customer service personnel the ability to make decisions by establishing clear guidelines they can follow and letting your customers know that the resolutions are “top management approved”.
Communication Skills
Customers expect that service personnel can communicate professionally in their language. In the US, for example, there is a negative bias towards customer support personnel at call centers who are not native speakers. Many Americans don’t have regular contact with English speakers from other countries with an accent and thus don’t have the trained ear for understanding them, which can make customer support call centers in foreign countries a frustrating experience.
Deep Product Knowledge
Well-trained and knowledgeable support teams are also expected in most countries. Especially for technically complex products and services, support engineers and field experts are required to assist and make customers happy. In many countries, service positions and hospitality jobs are highly skilled and trained professionals, whereas in the US and Australia, that may not always be true. Service positions are often students or unskilled laborers.
Personalized Approaches
Customers don’t appreciate a one-size fits all approach to support and service. Companies that allow customers to select their preferred contact schedule, their preferred communication channels, their preferred frequency of contact, and desired messaging content, such as offering information specific to their interests, are most satisfied.
Channel Preference
Customers have different preferences for how they communicate with your company. Luxury items and costly software may require an in-person meeting, live chat, or company representative cell phone access at all times. Surveys have found that phone support is not very popular and customers will use it as a last resort. Online customer support, especially chat windows, and self-support is growing in usage and popularity if done well. Other channels used for support are email, SMS text messaging, fax, mail, and occasionally in-person meetings.
Channel Integration
Customers expect companies to be able to access a single customer view when looking at their records, and that you connect all of the different channels of communication including phone, text, social media, mail, and email, tracking the history and context of each communication so customers don’t have to explain and educate each new contact.
Personality of Service
There are significant cultural differences in how service is provided and how you address those differences can have an impact on how effective the service is perceived. In Germany and France, service is often efficient, short and not enthusiastic, friendly or emotional. In other countries, this approach could come across at rude.
In Japan, Omotenashi, the absolute and special service and care provided to customers and their needs, can include kneeling beside a table while serving a meal, very high attention to every possible need, and extreme friendliness. This type of service is surprising and often appreciated, but it can also be overwhelming to less expressive cultures.
In South Africa, the Mandela Administration introduced an initiative to deliver better service and goods to the public called Batho Pele. There are 11 principles to follow including courtesy and service standards. When doing business in South Africa, it’s important to consider these standards.
Because keeping harmony is important to Asians, they are culturally less likely to give feedback overall if they are not satisfied or there is a problem with your product or service. When they do provide feedback, it’s usually very courteous, not highly specific, and doesn’t necessarily indicate their level of dissatisfaction. Don’t equate a mild response with it’s not being important. If you get feedback, assume it to be of the most important and serious nature.
In Eastern Europe, customer service is considered more transactional and not a relationship. It’s not uncommon for customers to not be able to speak with a live person or to have to wait for a long time for company support.
Your goal when expanding into other countries is to stand out from the services currently offered in that market while being culturally sensitive to what is expected and comfortable for your prospects and customers. One of the best ways to do that in a positive light is to exceed customer expectations when it comes to customer support and service. Understand the cultural expectations before entering the market, develop an intentional plan for exceptional customer support, and test to make sure what you are delivering is working in your target market. Even if your product is not differentiated much, having superior customer support can be the path to success.
To learn more about international customer support, sign up for your free Globig Resource Hub membership.
Resources:
Customer Service Experience Stats and Research
South Africa Batho Pele Principles: http://www.kzncomsafety.gov.za/Default.aspx?tabid=232
