Culture plays a role in everything that humans do, including how they run their businesses. Cultural habits, values, and traditions can influence so many different aspects of a business, including how each specific business decides to engage in customer service. The piece below will lay out for you five key ways that cultural roots help shape how a business serves its customers, as well as how businesses can both maximize and channel their own cultural heritage into more effective customer service.
Table of Contents
Power Distance
Power distance is one of the most prominent ways that cultural differences can affect a company’s customer service policy. Some cultures have a high power distance, meaning that they tend to build their society based on clear hierarchies while prioritizing tiered relationships. Cultures with a low power distance, meanwhile, are much more egalitarian and tend to organize in a way that has all participants interacting on a more level playing field.
Because there is such a range of power distance relations amongst different cultures, it is incredibly important for businesses to maintain a somewhat balanced power distance when approaching their own customer service model. Customers often appreciate being able to approach and trust higher-ranked members of a company for pressing issues, while other customers often want to engage directly with employees on a more equal footing (e.g. virtual live chat and helpdesks).
Companies with roots in high power distance cultures should practice clear hierarchy delineation so that both employees and customers are well aware of responsibilities and the chain of command. Companies with roots in cultures with a lower power distance, meanwhile, should emphasize employee flexibility and shared authority in addressing customer concerns.
Individualism and Collectivism
Businesses who want to optimize their customer service philosophy should also keep in mind the major differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Individualistic cultures tend to feature consumers who prioritize personal needs and self-service options, while collectivist cultures tend to feature customers who prize personal relationships and communal trust between a company and its customers.
Businesses with individualistic roots can better engage in customer service by continuously prioritizing customer feedback, while collectivist businesses can prioritize engagement via soliciting customer support via communal events. Some businesses may also benefit from a more dualistic approach so that customers from both individualistic and collectivist cultures feel well-attended. Dual-approach customer service models should try their best to offer options that appeal to both so that a broader appeal can be reached.
Uncertainty Avoidance
Every culture also has its own relationship to uncertainty avoidance, which is the idea that some people prioritize avoiding any chance of uncertain circumstances while others are more open to improvisation. Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance tend to create customers who prefer rules, regulations, and policies , disliking unexpected issues or anxieties that they cannot control. Cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, meanwhile, tend to create customers who are accepting of flexibility and improvisation, meaning that they may tolerate more ambiguity and take more initiative in business negotiations or transactions.
Uncertainty avoidance can be seen in the way customers ask for information and respond to flexibility. For example, in the context of large tent rentals, customers and companies with high uncertainty avoidance might prioritize clear information regarding tent size, customizability, lease length, and other factors, while customers and companies with low uncertainty avoidance would be more tolerant of flexible lease agreements, changing plans, and unexpected occurrences.
Long-Term and Short-Term Orientation
Companies should also keep in mind that customer bases with different cultural roots will have different relationships to what their customers expect from a product. Cultures that have more of a long-term orientation tend to produce customers who prioritize products that last a long time and who take the future into much greater consideration when purchasing. Customers from such cultures also emphasize loyalty and have long-lasting relationships with brands.
By contrast, cultures that have a more short-term orientation tend to produce customers who focus on immediate results, businesses’ alignment with their cultural traditions, and how well a business meets their present needs, meaning that a more transactional approach is taken during customer service interactions.
Consider an example in the context of heated tent rentals: in such a case, a renter with long-term orientation will often prefer customer service highlighting a tent that can last a long time and have a renewable lease for future events, while one with short-term orientation will prefer immediate information regarding current needs.
Cultural Communication Styles
Every culture also has its own unique communication style, which will naturally affect how a customer service model should be built. For example, some cultures prefer much more direct communication and customers with such roots will prefer straightforward and explicit delivery of information. Cultures that prefer more indirect communication will produce customers requesting more nonverbal and even subtextual delivery of information.
Tone and expression also vary widely from culture to culture, so some customer service models will benefit from more cold or even detached communication, while others embrace warm and personalized discussion between customers and employees. Cultural perceptions of time will feed into this dynamic, with some customers wanting very timely employees and rigid scheduling, while others show preference for relaxed and flexible scheduling. When companies are designing new customer service models or simply trying to better the one they currently have in place, they should try novel and culturally appropriate styles of communication in customer service, such as using storytelling in their marketing, engagement, and narrative branding.
Conclusion
Customer service is an incredibly broad field that often incorporates aspects of the cultures they are rooted in, especially those that compete in international markets. It is best practice for businesses to embrace their cultural roots in their approach to customer service while remembering that business is about working across cultures. The ideal approach to customer service is thus to focus on elements common across cultures so that customers from all walks of life can feel comfortable and secure in dealing with your business.
Author Bio
I’m Jack Metallinos, founder of All Occasions Tents. At 59 years old, I bring a lifetime of entrepreneurial experience and a deep passion for serving my community. My business journey started at just 19, selling fruit on the roadsides of Marin County, California. That early start taught me the value of hard work, customer service, and building lasting relationships. Over the years, I’ve grown from those humble beginnings into running a successful tent rental business that makes our jobs stand out from the competition. Whether it’s a warehouse tent, restaurant patio cover or just a community gathering, I take pride in providing reliable service, quality tent rentals, and a personal touch for every customer.