Soft and hard skills with foreign customers

Shop managers, sellers, workers in tourism, reception staff, etc, who welcome foreign customers and who give them information or sell them products or services.

The aim of this seminar is to significantly improve the participants’ effectiveness in their business relationships, enabling them to be operational with foreign customers, right from the start.

At the end of this training, participants will have acquired insights and techniques to:

• Be aware of the culture impact in business relationships
• Understand the context and the culture of one's contacts
• Know how to behave coping with a different cultural environment
• Decipher the cultural codes and analyse misunderstandings
• Anticipate customers' reactions and not do any mistake
• Become more efficient with a foreign culstomers
• Maximize business skills avoiding tricks linked to culture

• Create your Cultural Profile
• Access to 70 Country Packs
• Pragmatic, fun e-learning
• Interactive method
• Acquire operational tools

Module 1: Understand cultural codes of customers

1. Detect cultural differences

• Reveal misunderstandings caused by cultural differences
• Gather people over differences

2. The cross-cultural science, key to succeed with global customers

• Foundation of the culture and system of values
• Consciousness of its own cultural background
• Detect and overcome stereotypes
• Differences of perception and communication issues

3. Assess culture impact on customer relationship

• Traditional values, habits and taboos
• Relationship to time, space and consuming
• Reasoning style
• Relationship to others, to hierarchy and to authority
• Behaviours in front of foreigners
• Expression of emotions

4. Know the consumer lifestyle

• Customers diversity, consumers typology
• Motivation of decision-making: impulse purchase, attraction for foreign products, branding
• Different consumer habits

Module 2: Maximize relationships with foreign customers

1. Assess the notion of service

• The notion of service in France or in other countries
• Customer's expectations according to culture
• Particular according to business field
• Consumer behavior evolution
• From the welcome to the sales

2. Know how to behave with foreign customers

• Active listening and unobstrusive observation
• Personal space notion
• Positive or negative behaviour according to cultures
• Politeness rules and know-how to respect
• Adopt or avoid some gestures

3. Communicate efficiently with foreign customers

• Communication styles, communication types
• Language barriers
• Words and messages signification, interpretation divergences
• Non-verbal communication, eyes role
• Meanings and unconscious messages of non-verbal communication

4. Last practical advices

• Protocole, etiquette and social codes
• Items to avoid
• Welcoming expressions
• Keywords for an efficient welcoming