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Businesses, large and small, both want to deliver super customer experience. Two steps can take customer experience from good to great — be plentiful and ready. And it’s the best PR.

The trigger reaction of many leaders to the idea of being plentiful to the customers — “that costs money!” Well, it doesn’t have to be free to customers or expensive for your business.


Being plentiful and ready gives customers:

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Comfort. When people think of a shortage, the feeling is discomfort. In retail, some leaders believe that shortages can wield greater prices and yield more profits. Customers experience shortages as loss and void. Especially in service businesses, having a plentiful supply gives customers comfort.

For business to business, it is critical. Suppliers are invaluable when they deliver plentiful supplies of what you need when you need it. It builds trust.

Ease. Customers love it when you make it easy. On a recent stay in a Sheraton hotel, I asked to have four towels each day instead of two. Yet I had to call and ask for extra towels every single day. Why not just supply the plentiful towels each day when cleaning my room? Be plentiful and ready to make it easy for the customers. Making an exception is great; sustaining it is super!

Success. When your business can handle last minute overages and is ready for sudden needs, the PR is tremendous. You can just imagine referring a catering company to many others if it helped your special event be successful especially with last minute needs.

Conversely, I recently did a team building program with the theme of plug in and adapt. I found a small electrical adapter plug online and needed to buy hundreds. The supplier’s website would only let me order 50 so I called to check on quantities and availability. The customer service rep told me they had plenty but I could only buy 50 at a time with a maximum of 100.

How odd. They had plenty but weren’t ready or interested in selling me a large quantity. Meanwhile the print shop I used for the session handouts was ready. The staff produced and shipped not only the initial 500 booklets but also 50 extra at the last minute when my customer expanded the project. Success!

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For Super Customer Experience Today

Be Plentiful in:

1. Positive, can do, make it work attitudes.
2. Low cost welcoming gifts.
3. Experience.
4. Information and knowledge.
5. Advertised products.
6. Last minute alternatives and solutions.
7. Communication and behind the scenes teamwork.

Be Ready With:

1. Courtesy and care.
2. Culture that considers customer experience as a business driver.
3. Information rich well designed websites.
4. Inter-cultural knowledge.
5. Easy to use self-serve portals that address complete needs.
6. Mechanisms that enable you to quickly adapt to change.
7. Proactive listening, follow-through, and follow-up.
8. Thank yous and gratitude.

Be (P)lentiful today and (R)eady for tomorrow — the best PR for your business!

In what other ways should we be plentiful and ready? What would you add to this list from your experience?


From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™

©2011 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. If you want to re-post or republish this post, please first email info@katenasser.com for terms of use. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Related Post: Super Customer Experience: Customers & Us in Harmony

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on customer service experience, teamwork, and leading change. She turns interaction obstacles into business success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Do you know what the colors of your clothes are saying about you?

Is your website and brand logo appealing and attractive to your potential buyers or users?

Do you have a favorite color?

Color is a form of non-verbal communication and if you do intercultural business, you need to understand the effect it has on the interpretation of the messages you send to people from different cultures.

The Meaning of Color 

There are two ways in which colors acquire meanings:The natural universal association like green for vegetation and psychological and emotional association or color symbolism based on individual experiences, cultural norms and values.  For example black is for funerals in most western countries while Chinese use white as the color of mourning (see table).
Reference: The Psychology and Meaning of Color in Email and Websites, Aug 2011

	Red	Yellow	Green	Black	White
China	Good luck, celebration,    happiness	Nourishing	Exorcism, Adultery	Youth,the color for young boys	Funerals
United States	Love, passion, danger,     stop, rage	Hope, hazards,        coward-ness	Spring, go,St. Patrick’s Day,    Christmas	Funerals, death, antagonists, Halloween	Weddings,        purity

More about color meaning and cultures: Empower Yourself Going Global With Color Psychology.

Color Psychology

Color has a powerful subliminal and subconscious effect on our physical and emotional well-being. For example if you enter in a mall decorated only in black, gray and white, would you be inspired to buy nice clothes, make-up or even drink coffee? Maybe not.

Color stimulates all our senses and as a result it has an effect on all our purchasing decisions. People make decisions based on their emotions and then justify them with logic. So it is essential that you are aware of both the positive and negative impact and response of each color on the emotions. There is no such thing as a bad color, just colors that are more suitable for your particular business purpose in order to get the response you want.

What does your personality color say about you? (reference: personality colors )

This again depends greatly on culture. Here an example that matches most Americans:

• If your favorite color is red, you are action oriented with a deep need for physical fulfillment and to experience life through the five senses.

• If orange is your favorite color, you have a great need to be with people, to socialize with them, and be accepted and respected as part of a group. You also have a need for challenges in your life, whether it is physical or social challenges.

• Lovers of blue have a deep need to find inner peace and truth, to live their life according to their ideals and beliefs without having to change their inflexible viewpoint of life to satisfy others.

• Lovers of black have a need for power and control in order to protect their own emotional insecurities.

Colors In International Marketing

When you want to do business globally check the meaning of colors for each country. Color symbolism impacts businesses and personal brands through website or blog graphic design, consumer product development, packaging and corporate identity. The significance of some colors is universal. Other colors, however, have meanings that shift in various cultures.

Online advertisers should be very careful about cultural differences in color symbolism since color is the first thing that is noticed on a web site or banner, even before the person understands the language or what the message says. A miss-match between colors and meanings in a  web site content can potentially ruin the marketer’s objectives.

The customization of color pattern for each country is becoming more and more critical as the population profile of Internet users is shifting rapidly. Latest statistics for 2011 regarding internet users show that Asia has the most internet users accounting for 44% of all users world wide, Europe 22.7 % and North America 13.0%  (Click for Reference).  The top 3 languages spoken on the internet is English with 26.8 % of users Then Chinese with 24.2% and Spanish 7.8% Reference: (Click for Reference )

In an increasingly competitive, global, interconnected and saturated market, communication needs to be carefully targeted. Few companies have a brand that is powerful enough to generate same response world-wide. For most companies it is important to understand what the impact of communication and color use will be on the targeted group. Therefore it is not only important to understand its meanings but also to find easily applicable rules for translating them.

A very good example of color customization is McDonald’s. The company has different website designs and colors for each country. For example the site for Japan is yellow and for Egypt is red.

Whether you are going global or local, use the magic power of color for your success.

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Guest Blogger Bio
About Anne Egros, Global Executive Coach, at Zest and Zen International LLC
Anne  Provides Global Business, Career, and Expat Life Coaching Services For International Executives and Managers. Pharmaceutical Doctor (PharmD) with 20 years of international experience as business manager in Fortune 500 Companies. Anne worked as an expat for 20 years: US, Japan, Europe, APAC region. Fluent English, native French speaker. Please contact if you have questions Email: aegros@zestnzen.com.

View all posts by Anne Egros, Global Executive Coach »

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Teamwork in western cultures, especially in the USA, recognizes individual contributions to the team. Contrary to the old myth, there is an I in team.  In fact there are a few I’s – individual initiative and identity fueling team results.  Recognizing the “I’s” inspires greater effort, contributions and the willingness to share and learn.  For non-American leaders of American workplace teams, this information is critical for results.

Great Leaders Inspire Teamwork Through Recognition

1. Learn and understand what essential pieces each team member delivers to the team.
2. Make it clear that the focus is the team results through initiative and contribution.
3. Establish this two step dialogue as the team culture: What do you bring TO the team? What are you learning FROM the team? Introduce this concept at an all hands meeting. Once all understand the purpose of it, do it formally at the end of each week; collate and post the results. It offers individual recognition that simultaneously reinforces contributions to the team. You can recognize and boost morale while avoiding the negative contest aspects of many recognition awards.

It takes individual efforts to produce a team result. Those individual efforts need fuel and recognition is one very strong fuel. Having team members highlight what they learn from each other, keeps that fuel flowing in the direction of team results!

Whether you are new to leadership or a non-American leading USA teams, using these steps from the beginning puts the team on a path to long term success.

What else would you add to this list to fuel zealous effort and contribution to team results?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, delivers workshops to develop service and teamwork that bridges the gaps of diversity. Her new DVD on regional differences in USA is a “must see” for any teams selling or delivering service to American customers.

As companies try to standardize customer service, customers continue to want just the opposite.   Customers are most comfortable when the sales team, contact center, customer service center, customer care team, or technical support department truly understands them (i.e. “gets them”)!

Think about it.  When you meet someone with whom you share similar mores, accents, cultural beliefs, and outlook, how do you feel? Happier? More trusting? Drawn to them? Witness BP’s action this week to install an American CEO to deal with the crisis in the Gulf. Already we hear comments from the Gulf: “An American in the Gulf intimately understands the real needs of Gulf residents.” Frequently, I am asked to teach customer service/sales to Canadian companies with a large number of American customers. Who better to teach them how to succeed with Americans than an American?

Comfort and Trust in Similarity

Pundits and critics will debate whether this desire for similarity is good or bad.  Admittedly, when taken to extremes it can lead to groupthink, discrimination, and plagues like racism.  In moderation, it is a positive human desire for bonding and connection. For sales and customer service, showing your customers that you truly understand them produces positive results. Why? It reduces fear, builds trust, and makes interaction much easier. This is a key component. From the customer’s perspective, less to explain means less chance for misunderstanding.


“Get Me” Don’t “Imitate Me”

I am not speaking about the weird attempts of some off-shored call centers to bond with American customers by giving the reps Americanized names.  It was laughable because the strong difference in accents made the names sound very fake.  Rather contact call centers, customer care teams, customer service centers, technical support departments and sales teams with a true understanding of intercultural differences win big.

For example, here in the USA there are vast regional differences across the nation that impact customers’ buying decisions and their expectations in customer service.  Even American based sales and service teams need to learn the regional differences to win over American customers that are from other regions of the USA.


Resources for Intercultural Learning

If you truly want customer loyalty for sales and service, show your customers you “get them”.

1. You can build intercultural awareness by exposing your reps and sales force to social media streams.
2. With rare exceptions, the Internet puts worldwide news events at your disposal for learning cultural perspectives and preferences.
   
3. Provide intercultural training on that specific country or region. Communicaid Group Ltd and other firms deliver country specific cultural learning for your sales and service success.
4. If you are doing business with Americans, learn the regional differences in the USA with the DVD “Customer Service USA – What They Expect Coast to Coast & Everywhere in Between”. (Click for preview.)
   

How else have you learned about cultural differences to show your customers that you “get them”?

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, teaches, consults, speaks, and coaches, on bridging the gap of diversity for success in customer service, teamwork, sales, and leadership. See additional footage about personality differences on this site Http://Katenasser.com

Are your customer service representatives, CSRs and technical support teams, working with customers in other countries? How strong are their intercultural people-skills? Immigrants, ex-pats, and companies doing business in other countries can be far more successful with just a little more attention to intercultural people skills (also known as soft skills). If you want a job, a sale, or a great customer service review, step outside of your own perspective and use an intercultural approach. Customers and employers make decisions from their cultural zone not yours.

Two Examples

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Canada and the USA share a common language not culture.

Nick Noorani writes on the blog The Expatriate Mind Nine Soft Skills No Immigrant Should Be Without: “Skilled immigrants often focus on improving technical skills. After coming to Canada, they are shocked when they are told they have no Canadian experience.” Then he cites an example where a courier needing his signature asked him for his John Hancock — an American expression to be sure. Yet the courier was working in Canada!

CSRs outside the USA.

Many USA customer service call centers are now located outside America (some in Canada and some off-shore). How well do the CSRs in Canada and off-shore understand the regional differences across the USA? Adapting to these differences as you speak to American customers distinguishes your customer service from those that don’t adapt. Intercultural adaptation builds customer loyalty.

I have outlined these American regional differences and how to adapt in a new customer service training DVD: Customer Service USA – What They Expect Coast to Coast and Everywhere in Between.

You already provide phone and web technology to connect your CSRs and technical support teams with your customers. Turn that connection into a profitable loyal bond with intercultural training. For companies with USA customers, this means adapting to regional differences – North, South, East, West, and everywhere in between. In Canada there are both cultural and regional differences that global companies can learn and embrace to build Canadian customer loyalty.

For companies doing business interculturally, the key to customer loyalty is:
Learn the differences
Respect the differences
Love the differences &
Find the fit!

I welcome your comments, contributions, and feedback below. For information on purchasing the training DVD, please click on the link above.

Please visit this blog again for many other people-skills posts on customer service, teamwork, and intercultural connections.

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Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach, is a highly respected soft skills, customer service, and team building trainer. In her new training DVD, she shares 20 years of first hand experience working with customers in every region of the USA. Tap this experience for your company!