Effects of Culture on Service Encounters & Customers' Satisfaction

This paper refers to an important discussion of effects of culture on customer satisfaction keeping in view the service encounters. For many researchers and marketers, customer satisfaction has become a critical success factor and carries an important aspect of business process. Culture is believed to be an important social influence which has significant impact on consumers and the way they behave. Authors assert that culture is a prominent part of social interactions while customers' involvement with others in business. Customers shape up their perception on service quality primarily during the service encounters because of embedded features of services as intangible and inseparable. Using the content analysis technique and view of literature, Geert Hofstede's Model for cultural differences offers a practical roadmap. However, for a firm operation in cross cultural environment, a deep down further analysis of other local cultural dimensions are helpful for better customer interaction. Today's service firms should be aware of the importance of adapting services to the new culture, while maintaining the core service quality standard. Especially for high intangible and high contact services, good employee-customer interactions are key, and a better understanding of how to adapt service delivery behavior to the values of major cultural groups are highly beneficial to service firms.