Concept of internationalization

This segment of American customers, then, could be considered significantly more satisfied and more likely to recommend, but also seemed to have a harder time associating positive memories with the overall experience of having used Uber across these different markets. This could be attributed to the fact that these riders have experienced the limitations of both a highly localized and a barely localized service offering, and have been unable to see a consistent customer experience created across markets. They are comparing every experience to every aspect of every other experience with Uber at home and abroad, and are finding it difficult to conciliate the two.

Overall, though, the effects of those discrepancies on the Total Customer Experience Score were minimal:

(Scorecsatboth 81 + Scorecxboth 65 + Scorenpsboth 57 + Scoresentimentboth 50)/4 = 63.25

The tables below offer a visual breakdown of the responses collected around Americans' experience of Uber in developed markets:

Table # 15, Customer Satisfaction with Uber in Developing & Developed Countries

Table # 16, Customer Experience Perceptions of Uber in Developing & Developed Countries

Table # 17, Customer Sentiment of Uber in Developing & Developed Countries

Table # 18, Net Promoter Score, Uber in Developing & Developed Countries

D. Results: A Full Spectrum Comparison

Each of the customer journeys, as described above, tells its own story of the customer experience offered by Uber, and the perceptions of that experience by Americans at home and abroad.

It is only when we take a high level view of these journeys in comparison to one another that we are able to develop a complete picture of how glocalization affects this experience across markets and around the world.

Table 19, below, provides a cumulative summary of all of the data presented above:

Table # 19, A Comparison of Uber Customer Journeys

Initial findings, as defined by our survey results, suggest that customer satisfaction and customer experience perceptions are rated highest by those riders who have used Uber in developing countries. These are the same riders who express a higher amount of positive emotion around the memories left by these experiences and perceptions. Notably, however, these customers are less likely to recommend the use of Uber abroad to friends, family, and acquaintances - a finding we attribute to the more localized glocalization strategies of these developing markets.

In direct contrast to this, riders who have used Uber in both developed and developing countries express a lower amount of positive emotion in relation to their experiences - perhaps because the familiarity with and general standardization of the platform removes the sense of adventure for riders experiencing new locales. They are, however, most likely to recommend Uber's services abroad to others, and to act as a source of organic marketing for the company.

Notably, the majority of riders who have used Uber abroad would use it again, regardless of where the experience (or experiences) occurred. This, however, must be reviewed in the context of a self-selecting respondent pool. 90% of respondents used Uber both at home and abroad, meaning the choice to leverage Uber's services was impacted less by specific travel needs and more by overall preference.

Critical to our research and the testing of our initial hypothesis were the metrics around Net Promoter Score and rider's willingness to use Uber back in the United States after travelling abroad. The overall Net Promoter Score for Uber abroad was higher than for Uber in the United States (+35 versus +24). And of the 22 respondents who said that their use of Uber abroad affected their willingness to use Uber back home, 91% said they are now more likely to use Uber than before.

Although these findings should be considered preliminary, and further research developed to enhance the data collected here, our initial research would suggest that Uber's glocalization strategy has had a positive effect on the American traveler's perceptions of the customer experience abroad.

Additionally, based on our findings, we may posit that American travelers - as noted in the literature presented - are adventurous to a point. They will travel to all corners of the world, but will never stray far from the beaten path. The sense of familiarity with Uber in the developing countries allowed them to feel safe and secure in their travels, while still experiencing aspects of a localized culture.

My experience with Uber has been really positive almost everywhere I've been. I went to Thailand before Uber, and found it super tough to get around. It made a really big difference in my ability to experience the city and communicate with the drivers. And then coming back with Uber launched, it's localized, sure, but you still recognize the product, and I've really found it to be a good experience everywhere I've been.

Across the board, American travelers seem to be cognizant of - and consistently report back on - the glocalized differences of the platform across locales. The product abroad is both familiar and foreign. And while, for the American abroad, Uber's glocalization is the perfect combination of safety and adventure - a combination that plays easily into cultural expectations of the rapidly maturing experience economy - it is the boundaries of that familiarity that we believe may influence the likelihood of American travelers to recommend the same experience to a friend.

Uber's glocalization strategy has not been without its drawbacks for both company and consumer, but as the modern world grows into a more mature expression of the experience economy, riders and Uber employees alike seem to believe (and our preliminary research shows) that the advantages to glocalization can far outweigh the drawbacks. Uber's glocalization has allowed the company to penetrate new markets, drive adoption, and appear culturally empathetic, while - at the same time - providing its home market consumers with an underlying familiarity, convenience, and globally replicated value proposition.

Summary & Conclusion

When Roland Robertson first coined the term “glocalization” in the 1980s, it was to reflect a process and phenomenon that was already occurring in the world around him. Contemporary theory, he believed, was restricting the world to two extremes: the global (or fully homogenized) and the local (or intrinsically unique). What Robertson saw was a global written in the context of the local, and a local that echoed the refrains of the global across national boundaries.

Products, services, and experiences did not need to be confined to one or the other, but could inhabit aspects of both along a global-local spectrum. This, he believed, was “glocalization.”

The rise of glocalization, interestingly but not surprisingly, went hand-in-hand with the rise of Pine & Gilmore's burgeoning “experience economy.” Like glocalization, the experience economy was a relatively new concept - one that focused on the creation and sale of the experience, not just the good or service. Everywhere, businesses were looking to customer experience as a way to capture and retain consumer loyalty in a rapidly commoditizing world. The focus was not just on what the company was providing, but how. And it was an idea that was starting to resonate on a global level as western businesses entered new markets and quickly set the standards for experience delivery.

Glocalization allowed for customer experience delivery while remaining cognizant of the bottom-line. Revenue streams and profit margins did not have to be forfeit in exchange for a positive customer experience when a company could glocalize its offering and adapt only the most crucial parts of the business to different markets.

Theory and experience showed this strategy to be particularly significant for international service companies that were hoping to attract customers in various markets to win business and loyalty. Built on a model where payment is exchanged only after the initial interaction between consumer and provider, service companies needed to prove that they could be cognizant of and sensitive to local needs while remaining globally viable. Glocalize the right aspects, they were told, and you can set the standard for experience and success for every market that you enter.

At the time of our research, however, little data had been published around the effects of those glocalization strategies on home-market consumers travelling abroad. Did the localized aspects of the business impact the customer experience? And if so, was that impact positive or negative? And could a company win back customers at home by providing a positive and glocalized customer experience abroad?

As we looked to address these questions, we hypothesized that glocalization would, in fact, have a positive effect on home-market consumers in foreign locales - a theory that seems to be supported by our initial research into one of the largest international service companies of the 21^st century - Uber.

It must be noted, however, that our findings here should be taken with the understanding that a significant number of Americans do not travel abroad, and for those that do, the percentage that are still using Uber at home is a fraction of what it was at Uber's peak point of popularity. The survey pool was then significantly biased given that it was a part of the extended network of the researcher, and consisted of a self-prophesying segment of Americans who were adventurous enough to both travel abroad and were still choosing to leverage Uber as a service platform.

However, being cognizant of that fact, and based upon our initial findings, we were able to identify the beginnings of a trend that signifies glocalization may positively affect the perception of international service companies' customer experience, particularly for home-market consumers abroad.

Further still, the higher requirements for localization in developing countries seem to have a positively correlated effect with Total Customer Experience scores, while the lower requirements for localization in developed countries seem to have a negatively correlated effect.

To validate and expand upon these findings, however, will require further and continued research. While we were able to establish a large enough sample size to show a statistically significant difference between the customer perceptions of Uber abroad and Uber in the United States, our sample size was not quite large enough to positively correlate the differences between developing and developed countries. Our pool of respondents was also inherently biased, as they were self-selected and a part of the author's larger network of friends and acquaintances. Additionally, in order to qualify for the survey, the respondent must have used Uber abroad in the last 12 months, meaning they chose to retain the service despite controversy and scandal around Uber's reputation at home.

Further research should also be conducted on the various markets in which Uber has a current presence, with additional time spent understanding Uber's glocalization plans for each market. A thorough comparative analysis between Uber launch team intentions in each market versus the customer experience would provide additional insight into how glocalization impacted, or was meant to impact, the customer experience.

It would also provide further significance to our data to then compare these findings to a similar study of another internationally glocalized company such as Starbucks, Sephora, or Airbnb.

Additionally, a separate study around how glocalization affects the customer experience of local consumers would allow for further understanding of the effects of glocalization strategies, and which factors should be most taken into account as companies enter new markets.

With such understanding, a researcher might then be able to offer a universal glocalization plan for service companies expanding into various markets internationally.

For the time being, however, we would like to posit that a correlation can be found between glocalization and positive American perceptions of customer experience abroad, and that glocalization and customer experience are intrinsically, irreversibly intertwined.

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Surveys

1. Alexander, Anya S. Uber Customer Experience Survey. Raw data. Boston.

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15. Lester, Margot Carmichael. "Tips for Global Marketers: The 80-20 Rule of Glocalization." Lionbridge. December 2, 2015. Accessed March 10, 2018. http://content.lionbridge.com/tips-for-global-marketers-the-80-20-rule-of-glocalization/.

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Appendix

Exhibit 1

Exhibit 2

Istanbul: In Istanbul, the default option is set to UberXL (for parties of up to 6 riders). The other two economy options (both taxi) are metered based on distance, and have been localized to differentiate between cash and credit payment.

Mumbai: In Mumbai, economy riders choose between various car sizes. Go is the compact “affordable” offering that is offered in contrast to Premier's “comfortable sedans with top quality drivers.”

New Delhi: In New Delhi, the default option is to Auto, the Uber Rickshaw offering that explicitly states “No bargaining.” In contrast to Mumbai, sedans are offered as a part of the “Premium” selection instead of under “Economy.”

Moscow: In Moscow, there are no segmentations around offering (i.e. “Economy,” “Premium,” etc.), as all services are grouped under “Popular.” UberMoscow also services its customer base locally by offering a special “UberKids” that provides car seats for parents traveling with small children.

Exhibit 3

Uber Employee Interview Guide

Exhibit 4

Uber Rider Survey

Exhibit 5

Table of Factors

Exhibit 6

Table of Emotional Sentiment Descriptors

Exhibit 7

Table of Developing vs. Developed Countries

Glossary of Terms

1. Customer Journey - involves every interaction of a customer with your company, product, or service; can be mapped

2. Customer Segment - a division of the customer base into smaller groups based on similarities relevant to marketing or service

3. Experience Economy - a concept coined by Pine & Gilmore in 1998 in reference to an economic system based on trade in experiences/memories

4. Globalization - the tendency toward an international integration of goods, technology, information, labor, capital, or the processes of making this integration (Dumitrescu, 2017)

5. Global Corporation - operates as if the entire world (or major regions of it) were a single entity; it sells the same thing in the same way everywhere (Levitt, 1983)

6. Glocalization - providing a global offer while taking local related issues into account (Dumitrescu, 2017)

7. Home Market - a group of consumers in the same country as the business was established at which a product or service is aimed

8. Localization - the process of adapting a product or service to a particular culture, language, developing a local appeal and satisfying local needs (Dumitrescu, 2017)

9. Multinational Corporation - operates in a number of countries, and adjusts its products and practices in each (Levitt, 1983)

10. Net Promoter Score (NPS) - an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company's products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer's overall satisfaction with a company's product or service and the customer's loyalty to the brand

11. Service Economy - an economic system based on trade in services

12. Sharing Economy - an economic system in which assets or services are shared between individuals; generally over the internet

13. Target market - a particular group of consumers at which a product or service is aimed

14. User Interface (UI) - the means by which a user and a computer system or software interact

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