5 steps to richer customer experience

More and more companies are finding value in making customer service experiences multilingual and multicultural: delivered in the business and regulatory context of local markets and tailored to the language and culture of the customer, writes Anand Subramaniam in Harvard Business.

His five-step approach to making customer service experiences multilingual and multicultural focuses on the following: assess the importance of customer service; assess target markets; assess the scope of customer queries; train agents; and adopt culturally-nuanced policies and practices.

Don’t downsize CSR budgets during turmoil, says Harvard Business School professor

The Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School, V Kasturi "Kash" Rangan says that CSR or Corpororate Social Responsibility budgets should not be downsized during turbulent times.

CSR means activities undertaken by businesses that enhance their value in the community and society and thus benefit their reputation and brand, according to the eminent scholar.

“CSR should be treated as a business discipline and practiced with the same professionalism and rigour as other aspects of a firm's strategy,” he says. “Good examples are the early childhood literacy initiative of PNC, a financial services organization based in Pittsburgh, and the 10,000 Women initiative of Goldman Sachs, which facilitates a business education for underserved women.”

Chinese are superior marketing professionals

Marketing professionals in China would put their counterparts in the US and the UK to shame, according to Mark Ritson, consultant to some of the world's biggest brands, in marketingmagazine.co.uk.

In Shanghai, the evolution of marketing skills in executives trained by Ritson has been very impressive. “Before my eyes they have transformed from anxious graduate students with no practical experience into the best marketers I have ever seen,” says Ritson. “I have been a marketing professor for 12 years and taught all over the world, but it is only in China where I have seen my instruction executed to perfection in the field.”

Narrating an anecdote related to WuMart, the Chinese Wal-Mart, Ritson says that the Chinese should not be understimated. “The 21st century belongs to China, and there is not a lot anyone in the UK or the US can do about it,” says Ritson. “It's time for new leaders. They are on the way.”