Cultural differences in applying Kansei Engineering to services

It is imperative for companies to provide competitive products and services at a competitive price. Products and services need to offer features and properties which can make them distinguishable and attractive to customers. Emotions and feelings are prominent during product interaction and service encounter. Kansei Engineering (KE) enables interpretation and translation of customer emotions into design parameters. The application of KE covers both products and services design. Besides dealing with attractive exterior appearances, KE has an ability to optimize properties that are not directly detectable or visible, such as the comfort of hospital and concert hall. There are few empirical studies. Kansei management should recognize cultural differences in Kansei. However, for analysis of cultural values we need to understand the different needs of different customers. A study of luxury hotel services for Indonesian, Japanese and Singaporean tourists, was conducted using interviews and a tri-lingual face-to-face questionnaire. 425 responses were collected. Japanese tourists were found to be the most Kansei-oriented. They tended to value luxury hotels as “clean” and “quiet” places to stay. Indonesian and Singaporean tourists shared a common response to the Kansei word “elegant” which correlates with their common cultural dimension of “power distance”. Incorporation of cultural issues into Kansei studies can provide marketing strategies for customers of different cultural backgrounds.