Building Your Multicultural Relational Equity

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By the Gonzales Group

RISMEDIA, Sept. 4, 2008-Studies have shown that it costs up to five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer.

While language is usually the biggest obstacle to reaching the multicultural consumer, it is not the only solution to the bigger service delivery problem. In accessing company work flow process in customer services, we discovered that customer service representatives often do not speak adequate Spanish and therefore do not understand the inappropriate customer communication that is occurring. The negative impact on organizational and brand reputation from poor customer service can take many years to recover from.

Given that ethnic diversity in the US is far more reflective of a global landscape, it is even more imperative for marketers to fully understand cultural differences, community influence, language treatments and purchase-drivers and to integrate those variations into their everyday marketing strategies and tactics.

Reaching the multicultural consumer requires providing reliable products, prompt and responsive service, front-line staff that are empowered to resolve problems, knowledgeable staff, empathy with the customer, and an organization with a sense of community trusteeship. While these are mainstream “must-do’s,” it is much more profound with the multicultural home buyer.

Multicultural marketing is no different segment in the Specialty Markets in that marketers must research, plan, develop, and execute their campaigns based on feedback from their various audiences. What may be appealing to one culture might have the opposite effect on another. To be effective, multicultural marketing strategy requires understanding the psychographics of these sub-cultures to comprehend in culture nuances and subtleties.

Multicultural marketing is not just about service and products; it is also about community trusteeship. Being perceived as a friend to the multicultural community is just as important as the service you provide. Building relational equity only enhances your bottom line.

At the Gonzales Group we provide the multi-dimensional business development discipline to help you develop and execute an effective multicultural strategy that will build profitable connections with the multicultural consumer.

For more information, visit www.thegonzalesgroup.com.

The Gonzales Group and RISMedia are excited to introduce a ground-breaking White Paper that takes a realistic and practical in-depth look at the changing face of modern-day real estate. In “The New Economic Power Source: Increasing Profitability with Multicultural Home buyers,” the authors will help you unlock the potential of the multicultural market by answering the questions and clarifying the assumptions often associated with this consumer group. To order the White Paper, click here.

RISMedia welcomes your questions and comments. Send your e-mail to: realestatemagazinefeedback@rismedia.com.

Read more about reaching multicultural clients, see:

• Who Is Today’s Multicultural Home Buyer?  
  A Specialty Market in the Real Estate Community Multicultural  
  What’s in a Name?