What We Can Learn From the World’s Most Customer Centric Companies
The most successful global brands work to cultivate all points of communication with customers. Whether it’s through support interactions, tone, or tailoring product offerings to meet the needs of global customers. Check out how these global retailers are going above and beyond.
They Cater to Global Customers
Swedish retailer H&M is one of the most successful and widely available clothing brand. Although they’ve reached significant success on a global level, the retail chain received backlash from critics accusing the label of “fast fashion”, a practice of creating mass quantities of clothing at a low cost. This type of production is typically associated with endangering the environment and exploiting cheap labor in developing countries.
To combat negative feedback, the brand introduced its Conscious Collection in 2012. The new line featured clothing created from hemp, organic cotton and recyclable polyester. While the chain’s commitment to addressing customer concerns is impressive, the brand’s commitment to customers doesn’t stop there. H&M also works to ensure communication with foreign language speaking customers is a seamless retail experience. The brand, which has more than 3,500 stores in 57 global markets, offers their website in eight languages. With online shopping available in 21 different regions, H&M’s digital presence caters to meet global customers at their native language (welocalize).
They Connect With Tone
In today’s global economy, customer and brand communication occurs almost exclusively over digital channels. Whether it’s via email or social media, the tone a brand convey’s can be influential in a customer’s experience and formed perception of a brand.
For brands serving large volumes of support inquiries, tone becomes a crucial consideration. Researcher Albert Mehrabian published findings in 1967 asserting that communication is made up of three components. Body language, which accounts for 55%, tone which accounts for 38% and the actual words used which account for a mere 7% of how communication is received. With body language completely out of the picture when interacting over digital channels, tone becomes even more essential.
Savvy brands, like clothing retailer AYR, have worked to cultivate a unique tone that resonates with customers. Using social media to connect with customers, AYR’s tone reflects the brand’s clothing style. The AYR team achieves this through informal and relaxed website and social copy (Ometria).
They Personalize Customer Experiences
The most successful global retailers are masters at adapting their product to an increasingly competitive market, by catering to customer needs and requests. For most brands, this is achieved through offering a personalized customer experience.
Leading the charge in this practice is beauty retailer Sephora. Armed with the knowledge that 73% of customers prefer to buy from brands that leverage personal information to make customer shopping experiences more personalized, Sephora ensures their customers have a shopping experience tailored to their needs. Sephora analyzes their customer’s past purchase history to make customized product recommendations (HBR).
Beauty subscription service Birchbox, takes a similar route. Integrating personalization with its marketing materials, each month Birchbox provides customers with a video previewing what’s in their box (HBR).
Putting a Plan in Action
Regardless of what industry or consumer base your product serves, catering to global customers provides your brand with a direct competitive advantage. For human translation solutions guaranteed to uphold brand tone or website localization options, drop us a line here.
