Measuring customer orientation in emerging markets: development of an instrument based on content analysis

Abstract

The study is devoted to the concept of customer orientation (the key subdivision of market orientation) and the issue of its measurement in emerging markets, where traditional instruments may provide ambiguous results. Today, researchers face the task of adaptation of existing theory and methodology to the environment of emerging markets in order to gain objective understanding of how companies there communicate with their customers and manifest their customer orientation.

The goal of this study is to develop the valid instrument for measurement of customer orientation of companies in the emerging markets based on secondary data analysis. In order to achieve it, a set of objectives is fulfilled: execution of content analysis of websites and identification of mechanisms of company communication with customers; design of an instrument for measuring customer orientation based on the resulting content analysis framework; assessment of instrument validity via triangulation of information from companies’ websites and managers’ evidence. The procedures are performed on the research sample allowing access to 54 in-depth interviews with managers on the topic of customer orientation, which were conducted in 2014 in Russia by a separate group of researchers.

As a result, an index for valid assessment of customer orientation of companies in emerging markets as seen through their websites (in terms of customer satisfaction monitoring and emphasis on after-sale services) is developed. The undertaken procedures also demonstrate lower level of post-purchase customer service tools utilized online in comparison with developed markets and support the doubts of researchers about the validity of customer-related assertions of company managers in emerging markets.