Customer satisfaction: perspective of the Indian business customer

We all know that successful customer experiences are rarely established without knowing what effects customers, their perceptions and emotions. In this blog post, I will discuss perception of quality and emotional reactions in the context of the organization that I work for. To open things up a bit, I have just recently (three weeks ago, to be precise) started working as a trainee for a Finnish business consultancy organization at their New Delhi unit. The company has multiple offices around the world and their main mission, in a nutshell, is to support and facilitate the exports activities of Finnish companies by connecting the Finnish and local organizations and discovering business opportunities for them. Being an international trade company, the customers consist of businesses and not individual consumers; hence it is B2B perspective, which needs to be applied in this case. I believe that measuring customer satisfaction is somewhat more complex in this scenario because within a company the customer experience involves perceptions of multiple different individuals.

So quite evidently, the customer base, which I am dealing with, is multicultural and diverse. Customer relations simply must be paid particular attention, as the customers represent different cultural backgrounds. And when the relevant parties represent cultural origins as different as Finland and India, differing approaches to quality and emotional display are likely to take place. Indeed, operating successfully in India requires great awareness of customer expectations and how culture impacts perception and satisfaction. As I have spent only a short time with this company so far, I have not been able to actually face that many customers yet, especially when the customers are not physically “there” all the time (but rather in the e-mails and phone calls). However, I have still been able to attend a few business meetings and made some general observations about the Indian business customers and their expectations regarding service quality and overall communication.

Among many things, I have seen that Indian customers pay great attention on the relationship aspect of doing business. At negotiations, they usually expect business not to be discussed immediately but rather that some time is taken for small talk and establishment of pleasant and friendly relations. This is the very key expectation, which has to be met in India (and which sometimes takes an extra effort from Finns who are not exactly known for their talkativeness). It is important to be curious about the customer and try to make them feel welcome and special. When it comes to managing emotions, it should be kept in mind that Indian customers may not always be as direct as Finnish customers. India is a high context culture, meaning that not everything that is being said or expressed is what is actually felt. Consequently, one must occasionally be able to read “in between the lines”, i.e. the actual message is context-dependent. I have also been able to witness the high context communication in my work. It seems that us Finns are sometimes quite straightforward in our communication, which might sometimes overwhelm the Indian customers a bit. I have not actually seen an Indian customer express negative feelings, such as suspicion or frustration. Politeness and good relations come before business. Negative or rejecting emotional reactions should be avoided, regardless of how you feel, with Indian customers. Things like integrity, friendliness, mutual trust and personal relationships are strongly associated to a positive customer experience and satisfaction in India.