Influence of face-to-face communication on customer satisfaction - Dissertation Example

The main challenge of this study is the target audience (from the Middle East). There is a constant cultural conflict between Western and Eastern worlds and the sphere of business is not an exception. A high-cultural context of the Middle East countries should be the foremost triggers for the development of service marketing campaigns by the Western partners. There is a strong influence of historical and cultural traditions on business in the Middle East (Smith, Peterson & Thomas, 2008). Patience, loyalty and the conservative nature of the businessmen or customers from the Middle East implies that the Western businessmen should be of high cultural proficiency.

For example, face-to-face communication supposes the communication of two individuals from different cultural contexts (a western manager and an eastern service customer). Such issues, as the principle of seniority, respect to the elder people, and low risk-taking behavior of the Easterners should be taken into account while providing them with certain services. This challenge is not facilitated in case telephone or electronic communication means is used. Electronic communication would take less time to deal with the customers, but it does not discard the importance of cultural markers in the process of getting services.

Moreover, there is a need to make some changes in the style of communication, when face-to-face communication is an opportunity for single activities (e.g. talking), telephone communication doubles up activities (talking and searching in the Internet). Electronic communication as well as telephone communication consumes less time and is more focused on factual tasks completion (Elving, 2005). The gap in the literature In spite of the fact that cross-cultural communication and means of communication between the companies and customers have been widely discussed, there is a lack of studies focused on an integrative discussion of these issues.

Solomon et al. (1985, p.99) propose, that “the dyadic interaction between a firm and a customer is an important determinant of the customer’s satisfaction”. Further on, the researchers were focused on the growing role of the modern technologies and the Internet (Aron, 2006; Kasper, Helsdingen & Vries, 1999; Little & Little, 2009). The communication between customers and service providers is more effective when they use modern technologies, but at the same time it is also very important to develop face-to-face communication.

The advantages of Internet communications is outlined in the following manner: “Consumers have bargaining power, and they are beginning to exercise it. They begin to exercise the right to know what the price should be” (Steinbock, 2000). On the other hand, Internet communications was considered as inefficient two decades ago. Currently, an important role of virtual communities cannot be denied. Therefore, modern companies should integrate dyadic approach to communication with the customers and business partners, such as personal and virtual communication.

Communication in the service marketing Moreover, the specific nature of services marketing implies more tricky strategies than in strategies used in product marketing. Thus, for successful operation of the Western service marketing