Customised solutions

Price and quality are no longer enough. Customers in India are demanding great brand experience in return of loyalty

For companies that are looking to expand in emerging markets, the customer experience (CE) edge is just as important as it is for differentiation in developed markets, and in some ways, it is even more difficult to achieve. Potential customers in emerging markets rely more on mobile devices and short message service (SMS) messaging than on e-mail and the Web. At the same time, in terms of personalized, meaningful experiences that fit their local needs and preferences, these customers are developing the same level of expectation as their counterparts in mature markets. So while all four customer experience essentials apply here (reliability, convenience, relevance, and responsiveness), relevance takes on renewed importance.

According to a 2010 Accenture report, consumers in emerging markets are just as attuned to a strong customer experience as those in developed markets, if not more so. For instance, the report revealed that emerging-market customers are more inclined to switch providers as a result of poor service across all industries, but especially within the retail and banking industries. While the reasons for this were not specified, it may be that customers are less entrenched with their providers and thus are more open to experimentation and trying new things. A large percentage of consumers in emerging markets report that their customer service expectations are now higher than they were five years ago and even just one year ago. The consumer reigns, the world over.

There is a widening gap, Accenture concludes, between what consumers expect and what they actually experience—a gap that threatens to hinder companies’ growth in these parts of the world. Many people falsely assume that customers in emerging markets will welcome obsolete or simplified products—that they will be grateful for any technology, even if it isn’t even close to state of the art. The Internet and social media have ended any opportunity for sellers to take advantage of customers’ ignorance.

When selling into an emerging market, the most important thing a company can do is due diligence to ensure that the product and the experience are aligned with people’s needs, lifestyles, and shopping behaviors. This means studying local trends and customs and what the people there value. In other words, will it play in Peoria — or in Hyderabad, Shenzen, or Sao Paulo, for that matter? A real danger is allowing organizational hubris (“we know what’s best, anywhere in the world”) to lead to wasted investment and lost jobs. Gold-standard products and customer experience in your market may not even resemble the most popular products and best customer experience in another market.

If you don’t already have employees in your target market, you will need advice and counsel from people on the ground who are intimately familiar with the local culture. Getting the nuances right requires insider knowledge and vetting every step of the way—we can call this LACE:
* Listen carefully.

* Analyze thoroughly.

* Co-create with your target customers.

* Engage locally in accordance with the customers’ desires.

A car company selling into India, for instance, would have to design a more compact and fuel-efficient model than it would sell in North America. Most Indian consumers today need only basic transportation rather than larger, more luxurious automobile models.

Awareness building, which drives your offering’s emotional value, also needs to emphasize the relevance of your product or service. Samsung has done a good job in this area, first by optimizing its products for its intended market and then by building up its brand image. For example, it built a small washing machine that can be used on a balcony in Africa, India, and other markets where most people do not have a separate laundry room, and then developed a marketing campaign for both online and traditional media, called “The Way You Live,” that underlined that connection.

A common mistake that large companies make is to think that the expensive ad campaigns that work in mature markets are transferable to emerging markets. An example is a company that used a soccer theme in its advertising; this played well in regions that love soccer, but it fell flat in India, which favors cricket. Pepsi’s famous “Come Alive! You’re the Pepsi Generation” campaign of the 1960s was an early example of something possibly having been missed in translation. While the error has now been elevated to the status of impossible-to-verify urban legend, this slogan may or may not have been interpreted by consumers in China (or Mexico, Thailand, or Germany) to mean that the soft drink would bring people back from the dead.

Global trends don’t necessarily apply in the particular market you are targeting. For example, traditional newspapers and other forms of print media have been losing their influence in most of the developed world for at least the past 7 to 10 years. However, in India, newspapers retain their supremacy, so no customer experience would be complete without newspaper advertising, as well as a celebrity spokesperson from the right sport. Similarly, don’t assume that Face-book and Twitter have the same dominance as in established markets. Brazil and China, in particular, have their own established social networks. It would be folly not to include local sites in your emerging-market social media plans.

The bottom line is, go on a discovery mission to bring all of your assumptions about a market to the surface, and then question every thing. Vet everything with local employees, experts, and consumers. No one is exempt from the risk of becoming yet another caution­ary tale. For example, a large computer company that was planning a foray into India wanted to address the threat of counterfeit devices destroying its profit margins.

THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE EDGE
AUTHOR: Reza Soudagar, Vinay Iyer, Dr Volker G Hildebrand
PUBLISHER: Tata McGraw Hill Education Private Limited
PRICE: Rs 575

Reprinted by permission of Tata McGraw Hill Education Private Limited. Excerpted from 9781259025792: Soudagar, Iyer, Hildebrand: The Customer Experience Edge