The effect of personality and culture in client/provider interactions and its effect on customer relationships

Abstract

Living as we do in a multicultural society, the potential for misinterpretation is significant. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to examine whether culture and personality affect customer relations in a multi-cultural context. This study seeks to understand the way in which people respond to each other in business encounters in order to determine potential best practices relating to this interaction. This research specifically looks at the contact between the student and support staff within a business school context. It is not designed to provide definitive answers to the questions, but should provide some guidelines which could be followed in the interaction between students and support staff to make relationships better and the experience of both parties satisfactory. The research used mixed methods, comprising a survey delivered to all academic students at Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, and interviews with support staff. The survey contained both questions and free-text sections and was designed to disclose the personality and culture of the students, the free text sections looked at what the students expected from support services at the university and what they actually received. The interviews engaged the local faculty office, the library and the programme managers in order to discover what they felt the students wanted and the way in which student problems were addressed. Results indicated that the majority of students were assertive and demanding, sometimes to the frustration of the support staff who fall back on the university policies and procedures when the students become too aggressive in their demands. There is a communication problem at the Business School, as the students feel their legitimate demands and not being met, and the support staff feel handicapped as policies do not allow them to meet these demands.

Suggestions are made to improve communication and also to encourage cultural sensitivity among the support staff as differing cultural problems may need to be addressed in the future.