When a person is traveling to travel to client location, he/she should be aware of cultural differences between his/her original location and the client location. This helps in quickly establishing oneself at client location… though the real awareness can be built only after the real interaction with the customers.
Communication Norms
Are they direct or indirect in their communication?
Indirect communication, even though is worse way to communicate, is often employed in avoiding a direct but disturbing communication. e.g. Say client wants to really say that, ‘Infy is giving me really high price and timeline. i cannot accept this one.’ or he just wants to pressurize Infosys person to give him the best deal, so he would say, ‘i did a project x times bigger that the one we are talking about and .. i did it in so and so time, how come u need so much time / money’
Indirect communication is also employed in various subtle ways in meetings to de-risk oneself by saying, ‘as per xyz person….. ‘ or ‘you can better talk to xyz if you want more details / concrete answers’
But apart from this, if we keep ourselves on toes, we can get most of the communication in direct form. We should ask first person questions, objective questions, multiple but defined choice questions in order to extract the information from the client in form of direct communication.
At the same time, one must understand that as a human nature, indirect communication is a inherent part of human communication and you playing little parts once in a while in such kind of communication can actually gain trust of and comfort with client person quickly. [e.g. gossip, crib, etc 🙂 ]
Do they prefer written or oral communication most of the times? In what kind of situations do they prefer written communication?
For majority of the communication, business client prefer the Oral communication but expect a formal written summary communication [e.g. Meeting Minutes] of the same.
They also prefer to change the information provided earlier [documented in formal communication] via oral communication, that too in a very off-hand manner. But they remember such instances very particularly and can beat you up for not accommodating such changes in the actual implementations.
What are the usual expected response times for emails?
From client anywhere between 15 minutes to upto a week. It depends on how much client is involving him/herself in the project. If he feels the ownership of the project, he / she would be very prompt in replies [often this is NOT the case]. If client involvement is minimal, then tactics like multiple follow ups / reverse signoffs would need to be employed in order to formalize the communication.
What are some of your own findings?
1. You need to be positive in your communication but you should be very firm in not bowing to the pressure often. Client would always, i repeat, always try to get the best deal, even an unfair deal out of you. Its upto you how much you would agree to let him/her get away with it.
2. Some of the grammar phrases and usage of language would be different between Indian English and client language. Try to keep an open mind to receive a critical and irritating feedback on it. And try to correct such usage to fit the client’s view. e.g. usage of word ‘Fetch’ turned out to be very offensive to my customer since, fetch is something they use only ask their dogs to get something! Continuous smiling and nodding even when we have not understood what they are talking also proves to be unapproved by client.
3. Small talk is a very big talk! We Indians fail to make any small talk. While the US customers are big small talkers. That makes them comfortable in the group and very very uncomfortable for you in the same group since your participation in the small talk limits often to just smiling.
Meeting norms
What is the typical duration of their meetings?
1 hour
What is considered to be “appropriate” participation?
Participation in intial phases, is expected to be formal one.
In consecutive meeting, being little informal, making small talk is expected. gossip in small doses is welcome. humor is welcome too.
How do people respond to distractions like phones ringing, during the meeting?
People will typically be very family oriented so any phone from family would be given a due attention though would be curtailed soon. For the caller outside the family, the call would be received and would be courteously if its ok to talk later on.
Language used
What is the key business language?
Depends on locality is guess. For US Customers, its English.
Do you hear client folks use any other language?
Never. And they always hear us (Indians) talking in native languages in front of them and is highly unapproved by them.
Dressing and grooming
What is the expected dress code?
Varies client to client. Most financial clients would expect formal dress code.
What is considered to be completely inappropriate?
Varies by client and occasion. Most of the times floral and bright colors is a no-no.
Work values/ethics
What are some implicit norms in the organization that would not be documented anywhere for e.g. picking up stationery items, usage of common areas like cafetarias etc
Well, almost everywhere, few things are expected.
1. keeping volume level in check
2. not eating Indian food at desk [it would spread its strong aroma in entire office floor]
3. being courteous and positive in communication, etc.
Feedback from the client
Our strengths
Probably the biggest strength of us is the price and quality combination. Our lower price than direct contractors in US at the same time none or almost negligible deterioration in quality tempts many clients to go to offshoring / Infosys.
Active communication is also one of the key strengths.
Quick turnaround time due to 24 hrs open shop [onsite+offshore combined]
Our areas of improvement
Being open for bullying around. Most of the people at customer side would give their own life a first priority e.g. vacations and spending time with their family etc. Due to this they would be very open and rude about when they can finish their part of the work. Infosys team more often than not, fells pray to bullying from customer and onsite Infosys team about maintaining schedules even when the delay was all due to customer.
Too much smiling is a complete turn down.
We say ‘Yes’ when we do not understand what client is talking about and often find ourselves to have said Yes to something we didn’t wanted on our head. So start saying NO when not sure. you can get thing clarified and say yes when it is appropriate later on.
Cheers,
VJ
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