CUST104: Business Communications

• Dyadic interaction between a customer and a service provider (Surprenant and Solomon,1987, p.87)
  
• A period of time during which a consumer directly interacts with a service (Shostack, 1985, p.243). 
  

What is an intercultural service encounter? 

• Service encounter is called intercultural if the service provider and the customer involved belong to different cultures (Stauss and Mang, 1999, p.331). 
  
• A typical intercultural service encounter is given if a foreign customer (of culture B) consumes a service of domestic provider (of culture A) (Stauss and Mang, 1999, p.331) 
  

Why does culture matter in the service encounter? 

• Customers with different cultural backgrounds may have different expectations toward service encounters (Stauss and Mang, 1999).
• Japanese tourists often complain about European restaurant service as they perceive the service delivery as “slow (Usinier 1996).
• Rules and expectations related to service encounters are likely to vary considerably across cultures as culture provides the framework for social interaction in a society (Winsted, 1997).
• East Asian consumers expect higher interactional fairness than their American counterparts (Cultural norms of Asian societies strive to maintain smooth and harmonious relationships and saving face.) (Matilla and Patterson, 2004).
• Inter-cultural service encounters often lead customers to perceive more problems with services than intra-cultural encounters.
  
• If service providers direct their services solely to their domestic market, it follows that in inter-cultural encounter situations the perceived differences may lead to problematic “culture shocks”. (Stauss and Mang, 1999).
  

Intercultural service failure 

• Service fails when foreign customers experience service problems in a host cultural setting. 
• The service provider must attempt to understand foreign expectations if the customer is to be satisfied, which depend on cultural background.
• Service fails when local customers experience service problems with a foreign service provider. 
• The service provider must attempt to understand cultural expectations of the host culture. 

Why may Intercultural service encounters fail? (Stauss and Mang, 1999) 

Inter-cultural provider performance gap: the expectations of foreign customers are not met (service provider’s accountability) 

1. Physical environment gap: e.g. inappropriate design, colors, symbols (Bitner, 1992; Usunier, 1993).
   
2. Personnel gap: wrong addressing or an inadequate form of eye contact (Usunier, 1993; Singelis, 1994).
   
3. System gap: perceived faults in the service provider’s system.
   
4. Co-customer gap: foreign customers in the service contact situation are confronted with other customers who behave in a way that is contradictory to the rules and norms of their home country.
   

Inter-cultural customer performance gap: customers do not perform their roles “correctly” and thus do not meet the culturally determined expectations of services managers (customer’s accountability). 

1. The service customer’s physical environment gap: foreign customers are hindered by an unusual layout of the facilities or they make a misinterpretation of signs and symbols.
   
2. A service customer’s personnel gap: foreign customers violate expectations regarding consumer behavior in personal interactions (Furnham and Bochner, 1994).
   
3. A service customer’s system gap: foreign customers are not familiar with the service systems of the service provider and, therefore , are not able to perform correctly from the service provider's point of view.
   
4. The co-customer gap of the foreign service: customer manifests himself with a behavior that is perceived as disturbing and embarrassing by domestic customers,