Creating a proposition for international markets

Service exporters very often find that the type of service that they provide in Ireland does not translate exactly to international markets.  The marketing of professional services relies heavily on developing relationships with potential customers.  If your firm is not known in international markets it is not likely to be accepted as a credible provider of quality services. This is the biggest single challenge facing professionals working in international markets.  That means that you may have to create an alternative service proposition for international markets.  Create involves looking at the following three areas:

• Value Proposition
• Innovation
• Customer journey

Value Proposition

Your Value Proposition is particularly important when you are marketing your services overseas.   The Value Proposition is simply the value that you provide to your clients for the money that they are prepared to give you in return.  A value proposition can be described as the ‘irresistible offer’ that you provide to customers.

If you want to come up with an irresistible offer for international customers, you have to consider what value is for them.  That means that you may have to adapt the service that you offer in Ireland for the overseas market.

You may have to spend time in the country or countries that you are targeting, or at least spend time gaining an understanding of what customers really want from you.  Be clear about what is your best calling card, your irresistible offer, your value proposition.  Know what differentiates you from others in the market.

Most importantly, because your services are intangible, customers do not get to sample them before they buy.  It is difficult for an international customer to appreciate what you offer over and above a supplier in their domestic market.  You need customer testimonials, local advocates and if possible referral partners in the country to help support the credibility of your value proposition.

When you are developing your value proposition for the international market, consider the following four elements:

• List the typical behaviours of your ideal customer. Work out why your an international customer might come to you for solutions or for a particular service, and the types of behaviours that they show.  What are they seeking solutions to, and how can you influence their behaviour.
• What are their attitudes? Confidence, distrust, empowerment, prejudice, concern, desire to learn – these are just some of the attitudes that a customer might have when they consider your service abroad.  You may have to provide reassurance by proving your credentials or demonstrate your expertise by speaking at conferences or writing articles in their local community.
• Look at customers’ demands.  What additional demands over and above the services you offer are customers abroad looking for?  How will you meet those demands?  What would particularly impress an international customer?  Is it timeliness, expertise, technology or efficiency of process, for example?
• What solutions do your best customers require? Identify the needs and problems to which your ideal customer requires solutions.  With those problems and solutions in mind, describe what you do can do for an overseas customer.

This type of exercise helps you to profile the type of clients that you should target overseas and it identifies the type of client that you are most likely to target successfully both at home and abroad.

Understanding the emotions, demands and purchasing process of an ideal client will help you to decide what your irresistible offer will be.  It will help you to strip out the basic level of service that customers expect from you, and to identify what it is that makes your service offering special, and worth sourcing from you – the foreign supplier.

In the domestic market, you probably find that your reputation helps to attract and retain customers.   However, this may change when it comes to supplying your services overseas.  It may be the case that you become more highly dependent on other people to represent you and your business.

Importantly, you must influence all those who represent your organisation to maximise your reputation.   When you choose a value proposition everything you and your representative team does must support and contribute to the value proposition, otherwise your reputation may be damaged. That means your web proposition, your referral partners, your local staff and your service offering have to present superior value for customers.

Innovation

Creativity is harnessing your imagination to produce new ideas.  Innovation is putting those new ideas to work for you.  Superior value for customers may involve taking an innovative approach to how you service those customers.

Marketing is all about satisfying your customer’s needs at a profit.  A client is not a client unless they are prepared to pay for what you offer them.  So when you begin to consider the value that you offer to clients, think about it from their perspective, not from your own.  The first question is: what are your clients prepared to pay for?

Clients will not even consider your service unless you have something to give them that they believe is of value to them.  Value is defined by clients, not by you, and the most important drivers of value change dramatically over time and are different for different clients.  That’s where innovation comes in.

Whether you are introducing:

• New technology,
• A more up to date type of service,
• A newly invented way of presenting your service to the market

It is important to bring something innovative to the market.  An innovation can be as small as a new way of communicating with customers (online medical consultations) or as big as a completely new technology for a particular service (laser dentistry).

Customer Journey

This section is about the physical experience of being a client.  Metaphorically speaking, your client goes on a journey with you from the moment they become aware of what you do, to the time when you agree to a deal together in an office, to the final sign-off and payment stage, and even beyond that.  This journey is all the more important when you are dealing with customers overseas.

Along that journey, you can create great experiences that make such distinctly positive impressions that they keep the customer loyal to your organisation.  One process you can use to help you drive service quality improvements is customer journey mapping?  This helps to make sure that international customers are served well through all aspects of your business – by your referral partners, your website, your marketing communications and by your support team.

It challenges you to think carefully about each and every interaction your business has with international customers. Those interactions are often referred to as ‘touch points’; customer journey mapping helps you identify the customer experience in interacting with your business at all times

The interactions you can control include:

• Your personal approach – your handshake, the impression you leave clients with, whether you deliver on your promises or not, your empathy
• Your office – location, environment, atmosphere
• Your communications – phone calls, a newsletter, brochures, invoices, directory inserts
• Your online presence – your website, and any material you make available on the web

Then there is the communication that you may not be able to control directly but that you must influence as best you can, such as:

• Media commentary We have all observed, particularly in recent times, how the media can pick up a story and run with it, and how important it is to manage reputation
• Client comments Dissatisfied clients are often more inclined to complain about you to others rather than to you directly.  So keeping close to clients and asking them if they have questions or comments is vital
• Community reputation You have a profile in your community by virtue of being there.  Understand exactly what that perception is particularly as a foreign supplier.

You can use the customer map strategically to make every interaction with the customer noticeably different.  Remember, you are looking not just for big wins, but for small alterations in your process to make the client’s interaction with you just at least a bit better – and hopefully significantly better.

At its best, journey mapping can be truly transformational.  Your job is to make every single step of that process a positive one – so that clients come back, recommend you and become advocates for you.

Source: How to Market your Services Overseas, Irish export association, Rachel Killeen, John Whelan