Kundrelationer : En jämförande intervjustudie av Sverige & Spanien

Sammanfattning: The way you address people is depending on the existing culture, to be on familiar terms with people you don’t know or elderly people is totally unacceptable in some cultures. Some behaviour might be acceptable in one culture, and unacceptable in another. Culture exists on different levels in the society, and what combines people within a culture are that they share the same norms and values. This study identifies and deals with the resemblances and the differences in the customer relationship within one specific organization with activity in several different countries. Two of these countries, which can be seen as each others cultural contrasts, were chosen for the study, Sweden and Spain. Both countries are characterized by a strong national culture, and the main purpose of the study is to establish differences and resemblances within the customer relations, in the way of working towards the customers, and also to try to find their origin. The study, that bases the results on interviews, has been carried out on the international company SonyEricsson, where in total seven interviews have been conducted with sales people in the company’s offices in Sweden and in Spain. The result of the study shows that the main differences between the relationships to the clients in the two countries can be originated to the national culture of each country; differences such as the extent of claiming ones good qualities, the type of events to create a good relationship and ways of communicating with the clients, both verbally and physically. Many of the differences that have emerged can be connected to, and authenticated by the theories that have been used in the study, and the differences that are claimed to exist between the people in Sweden and Spain. Some of the resemblances between the customer relations that emerged are that the relationships themselves are quite similar, in both countries the sales people claim to have a good relationship with their clients. In both countries the sales people also seem to be available for their clients round the clock. Another resemblance is that the relationship with the management is equivalent in the two countries. Key words: culture, organizational culture, national culture, customer relationship and communication.