Every service interaction, regardless of the market, presents a unique opportunity to build a lasting relationship.

Working in diverse, global markets has been a lifelong learning experience for me. One of the more interesting and unexpected insights I’ve gained is that the similarities between people outweigh the differences.  We’re more the same than they we are different. I found this particularly striking while on a recent trip with stops in Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Once the patina of culture is peeled away, people everywhere crave the same things — respect, appreciation and attachment. I call these “primal drivers” because they’re powerful, deep-seated, and universal. Once we satisfy them, we engender trust with customers and can then uncover their unmet needs.  I think that’s where the real opportunity lies.

Understanding customers is an organizing principal in my work.  It’s a fertile area for many of my clients including airlines, mobile operators, and retailers — whether they’re operating in Atlanta, Amsterdam or Amman.

While each client faces a unique set of challenges, most benefit from finding what their customers need, want and expect.  This requires a customer-centric approach. It calls for dropping outmoded assumptions. And it calls for engaging in conversations with customers at various touch points.

Companies that master this approach outperform their rivals in almost every market and sector. That’s why I often recommend that my clients re-think their approach to customers and take steps to deepen their understanding of them.

The longer I travel and further I go, the more I come to appreciate how similar all of us are, at the deepest level, despite our cultural differences.  When we make the effort to set aside our own cultural lens, we find that most people share the same fundamental values. That’s an amazing insight, if you think about it.

What do you think?  As always, I’d love to hear your views on this subject.

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Want more info on this topic?

Visit my the website of my company, Osprey and read about our Deep Blue practice in Emerging Markets.

For anyone doing business  in global markets, I recommend Parag Khanna’s superb book (’09), The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century.

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