Free Ebook – Download now – Limited Period Offer

The Bread is Moving - why Customer Experience becomes critical

The is book on the subject of customer experience and service design is free for a limited period.

Praise for the book:

“Customer Experience to Counter VUCA and Disruptive Times:

Retail is changing at a Fast Pace. Consumers are changing faster, thanks to Disruptive Technology and Multiple Screens. And yes, the On Line disruption is Impacting Operating Models of all businesses. How should businesses counter the VUCA situation all around ??

There is No Magic Formulae, Nor any Rocket Science to combat these challenges.

The Author Passionately brings to us , his proposition about Customer Experience (CX).

If Retail is Theatre that consumers need to enjoy- Designing and Delivering CX is the Key.

He explains in detail, with lots of Live Examples, what CX means and how Organisation, whether Retail or Non Retail should go about Defining to Designing and Delivering CX on the ground..

His analysis of various companies reveals that, Customer Centricity is at the heart of Successful Companies. I am sure that, each one of you would have encountered many WOW moments and many more Horrible let downs by Airlines, Telecom and other Companies.

Customer Centric Companies are obsessed with Customers Delight right from their Vision, Mission to their Product ,  Service & CX. The author proposes that every organisation should have a Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCXO ) to delight the customer.

The book is written in a simple to read and ready to execute format. I am sure, you will enjoy reading this book. And without wasting any time, you will start designing your organisations CX....”

• Govind Shrikhande | Customer Care Associate & Managing Director | Shoppers Stop Ltd.

"This book is very apt and timely for Indian market. Especially for hospitals, customer experience is critical and the book tells almost A to Z of it.”

• Joy Chakraborty, COO, Hinduja Hospital

I have read a lot of management books, however this book stands apart especially for Indian businessmen. I am impressed with how simply Sunil Gandhi has explained one of the most important aspects of Customer Experience (CX). Citing Indian examples he drives home the point very clearly and I am sure readers will be able to embark on a CX improvement journey right way.

• Maman Choksi, Director, RE/MAX Gujarat.

Readers Reviews:

By Manoj Papisetty on 28 September 2015

In this book, he collates some of the most useful ways to look at new age businesses and lists down neat, powerful processes with workable frameworks for any business. I am particularly excited about this book in India because of the new startup era we are seeing in the country. It will certainly help the new age startups grow quick, efficient and sustainable.

By Anish Desai on 5 December 2015

Customer Experience Champion Sunil Gandhi, yet again takes the readers of his books through some amazing insights in delivering the value of your product/service. It's a must read for all who believe customer is at the core of the business and the key to turning around business is by focusing on the value chain and the customer. A thorough joy ride!!!!

By Surendra Arora on 2 October 2015

You must have read many such books written on US companies or situations, I admire Sunil for giving a Indian perspective to it. Interesting read for all corporate executives and business person.

By Amazon Customer on 28 September 2015

An excellent and very pertinent viewpoint that has been explained very logically and persistently.

By Gopinath Narayanan - Published on Amazon.com on 8th June 2016

A must read for anyone in the customer experience role. This is a well researched book, with several examples and case studies. Very contemporary, and includes the impact of social media.

Download now on your Kindle. Click here.  

In fact it is not free, it comes with two conditions

• Share this post
• & share your review on Amazon, that’s it.

Welcome to download , its free till 23rd July 2016.

Service Design – Why you can’t ignore it?

We all know the premium designers products command in the market. As far as services are concerned most service providers are not designing the service.

Services are about customer services. For new age businesses customer service is the core service. It does not come into play once the goods are sold and when the problem crops up. Be it banking, insurance, healthcare or hotels or any other services, their core business is customer service.  Continue Reading. 

Free Ebooks – Welcome to download

Welcome to commence the new financial year with the brand new thinking. Let customer experience index and employee happiness index become the part of the Annual Report and see the transformation of business performance.

I am happy to invite readers to download two of my ebooks from Amazon. It can be downloaded on Kindle App or Kindle device. Free download ends on 4th April 2016. Continue reading....

Product & Service is dead

If an enterprise wants to fulfil the customers need with ease and delight, enterprises should know what the need is, what will add to ease while fulfilling the need and what will be icing on the cake i.e. delight.

Customers take a journey to fulfil his need. For example, if we look at the journey of a home buyer;

1) First, he will look for the project, either in the newspaper or on the website.

2) Then he will call the company or call center,

Read More...

The new currency & the new gold reserve in the Sharing Economy

A new survey reveals:

Customer experience will overtake the product and pricing as a key brand differentiator. ( I am not saying so to promote my book on Customer Experience in times of social media “The Bread is moving”. Check the source of the survey here.)

Many enterprises are either not yet aware about the customer experience or they have other priorities than working on to create a customer experience focused organisation.

But a few statistics will awake the decision makers and people responsible for P & L A/C. Read more...

One suicide, one tweet and ease of doing business

Real estate developers in Mumbai are facing the real crisis. Most of the developers are under heavy debt. Project approval delays are well-known. With some 28 plus approvals from various Govt. authorities, one can imagine the time it takes and money involved.

On top of this sluggish market since last few years and heavy overheads. It is survival at stakes situation for many of the small and mid-size developers. When the market can’t absorb the cost and cost is high, the company fails. Here it is a question of an entire industry. We have seen suicide by a well-known developer in Thane yesterday – courtesy; extraordinary delay in Govt. approvals and heavy debt. Read  more...

WHY better customer experience alone is not enough?

You are a potential customer and looking for a holiday resort company, a hospital, an insurance company and a bank to avail their services. You visited the online review of the companies. This is what you get for all the three companies.

Few of the top ten reviews: Read More...

Business Critical ebook free till 2nd Oct 2015

Happy to inform my new book The Bread is Moving released on Kindle on 27 Sep 2015 will be available for free till 30th Sep 2015.

Praise for the book: 

"The book is written in a simple to read and ready to execute format. I am sure, you will enjoy reading this book. And without wasting any time, you will start designing your organisations CX." 

Govind Shrikhande, Customer Care Associate & Managing Director, Shoppers Stop Limited 

"This book is very apt and timely for Indian market. Especially for hospitals, customer experience is critical and the book tells almost A to Z of it.” 

Joy Chakraborty, COO, Hinduja Hospital 

"I am impressed with how simply Sunil Gandhi has explained one of the most important aspects of Customer Experience (CX). Citing Indian examples he drives home the point very clearly and I am sure readers will be able to embark on a CX improvement journey right way." 

Manan Choksi, Director, RE/MAX Gujarat, Director

Here is the link... Click here

Two business critical data mostly unknown

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

― Peter F. Drucker

Therefore, acquiring customers & keeping them are the key functions of the business. What Peter Drucker had said is profound and if we break the sentence into two, we get to know the real areas of focus on:

• Do something for which we get a customer
• Do something for which we can keep the acquired customer Read More..

Panacea for Recession, Turnaround & Brand Building

Initiatives for a business turnaround should not begin when the company is already in the hospital bed. We are sick not only when we visit doctors, but sickness becomes unbearable and then we visit doctors. Not on medication doesn’t mean we are healthy.

We go to a gymnasium to prevent health problem and maintain the health. It is not a compulsion, but a good practice. Good hygiene is a good practice be it individual or an enterprise. Likewise, a business turnaround can very well start when the business is still making money.

Continue Reading...

Are you a victim of BAD design?

Most of us are not happy with our public utility services provided by Governments, but we are also not happy with the banking or insurance or hotel or airline or railway or telecom services. Many a times poor services are the reason for our frustration, but also of our changing of service providers.

Imagine an iPhone with poor functionality and some functionality even are even are not working. IPhone is a product, its manufacturers are known for superior customer experience and therefore what they design is for better customer experience, be it product design or service design at Apple stores. Continue Reading

Future of Banking & Role of Customer Experience

Prime Minister Narendra Mode announced the opening of 170 mn account opening during last less than 12 months under Jan Dhan Yojana. Additionally, he also asked bankers to finance start-ups. Indian banks, especially public sector banks are struggling with customer service. Imagine the additional customer load and service expectations.

About a year back I had blogged Everyone Else but Customers, wherein I had stated banks are for customers, but bank boards have nominees from all other stakeholders like RBI, Govt, Employees, Officers  & Shareholders but no customer nominees. In the absence of customer nominees who will advocate customers cause?

Continue Reading  & download free ebook Wow ! & Weird....

Imagine you are a patient

Pathetic State of customer Experience in the healthcare industry is a cause of major concern not only for patients but also for healthcare entrepreneurs.

Among the all service providers, customers of the healthcare industry are the most vulnerable and deserve the finest of customer experience. They are weak and suffering. They need the human empathy the most as a customer.

But our medical professionals are not trained to deal with the customers. They hardly talk with customers. Even if they talk they lack empathy. In his book Service Fanatics, author James Merlino, MD of Cleveland Clinics writes:

A personal investment in empathy and compassion by all caregivers is the foundation of the future for healthcare. 

The problem is service providers are not educated on the definition of customer experience. Doctors think treating the disease is their job. Entire heatlcare set up is focused on the treatment of the diseases. However, patient experience the health care service providers differently. Jamer Merlino writes;

Everything patients and their families see, do and touch is considered by us as the patient experience.

Read more..

Mastery worth Pursuing....

When Joseph Pine & James Gilmore wrote 'Work is a theater & business a stage , what they meant was like theater artists completely immersed in their performance on stage , entire enterprise (irrespective of their business)  has to immersed in creating better customer experience on these three criteria : need , ease and delight.  

Magic lies in immersion. Magic always holds people's attention and magical performance becomes talk of the town. What magical performance does in times of social media is common sense by now. 

Someone may wish to see what immersion and magic means , for them this Ted Performance will be useful. If this 'yo yo' to can be a subject of mastery I think anything in the world is worth mastering and has potential to hold people's attention.  

As far as business is concerned goal of mastering magical customer experience creation is worth pursuing.  

Inviting memorable customer experience stories

My first draft manuscript of book on Customer Experience is at editing stage, I need examples of great customer experience stories to be incorporated in the book. Inviting stories.....Well free ebook for all whose stories will be selected for the book...Look forward to amazing stories.

Ease or Lose !!

When I logout from the facebook.com landing page has an ad of Jabong.com displaying few products incl T Shirt.  Several times I liked the T Shirt design I had clicked on that but no purchase yet by me from Jabong.com

Reason :

When I click after liking the product my landing page on Jabong does not display that product. I scroll down for a minute and then leave. 

That page shows many other shirts and T Shirts but not the one which I liked and clicked on. 

I don't know technical or business issues involved but I am not willing to put extra efforts and time and therefore sale is not happening.  

Customer Effort is playing significant role in customer experience (CX).

Fulfilling customer need with ease and delight is the role of enterprise & ease comes before delight.  

Many transaction opportunities fail only because of ease factor is ignored or not paid attention too. Imagine revenue loss !! 

Jabong must have paid facebook huge money for this ad and yet failed transaction in spite customer likes the product and wants to buy !!!

Have your business processes and corporate communication vetted by CX expert for better Customer Experence - NOW

At last ...

At last there is a realisation in industry that BRAND is about ROMANCING the Customer and not just LOGO and Advertising. The origin of this blog was for this purpose. 

For many years BRAND builders have always ignored Customer Experience while for CUSTOMERs it was always like that. & this was a mismatch. 

Common sense says : how customers are concerned with the brand if they are not experienced? 

But still all creativity is expended in advertising and so called superficial brand building exercise.

Theme of upcoming brand summit by Paul Writer is Lovable Brands; Romancing the Customer. 

Unless brands are touching and making customer experience memorable , its not branding exercise at all. Earlier companies realise this better resources can be allocated. 

It would be apt to mention what Seth Godin has blogged earlier this week: 

" Most important marketing decision the CMO makes...

Is the goal to get people to notice what we make?

or

Are we setting out to make something people choose to talk about?

If you don't know your boss's answer to this, find out. If you do, act accordingly.

Hint: getting people to talk (or care) about your average stuff for average people is a lot more difficult than it ever was before "

My entire blogbook WOW ! & Weird is devoted on this very theme. 

Happy to see our BRAND Builder community is going to discuss on this in this summit. Happy days for CUSTOMERs , AT LAST.

Social Media & Big Data will make us CX crazy !!

Social Media is two way communication. Every experience will be shared - good or bad. therefore Customer Experience (CX) is critical.

Big Data is too many data trying to make sense out of too much information. Its about more customized solution.

Data is available in plenty all around us but making sense out of the data is the real challenge.

I don't know in times to come how much intrusion these companies are going to make in our lives but its certain we are living in interesting time.

More dependent we are becoming on Gadgets more data we are generating , more pattern we are creating about our behaviour and more precise trends enterprise will be able to forecast.

The above data from Gartner is clear that top priority of Big Data is to better CX. This short film A Day in Big Data tells us where are we moving as a business enterprise and as recipient experienced (pampered) customer.

However it would be apt to conclude quote from CK Prahalad " Future will not be an extrapolation of the past. "

Everyone else but Customer

Objective of Banks is to serve customers & for that matter objective of any enterprise. 

Look at the composition of PSU banks boards ;

• 1 Govt Nominee
• 2/3 Share holder Nominee
• 1 RBI Nominee
• 1 Workmen Nominee
• 1 Officer Employee Nominee

Where are the advocate of CUSTOMERS in the board? 

Mostly Bank's customer services are pathetic perhaps this is the reason. Competition is forcing banks to become customer centric  but unless customer service/experience is given core focus and customer champions are given board and CXO level position it wont be sustainable.   

We seriously need customer champions not only in the boards of banks but every company.

When customer experience creation capability is the sustainable competitive advantage business cant become customer centric unless voice of customer reaches the highest decision making forums. 

EASE - Competitive Advantage

They want us to punch various numbers before their very busy cell center executive talk to us. I fail to understand without knowing what customer wants they want their ATM PIN after account number. & then last 4 digit of card number. 

Ask customer layers of authentication only if customer wants to do some secured transactions. Just to speak for common issues , reporting fraudulent transaction on credit card , retorting phishing or bug on their site.  Irrespective of what customer wants to talk to its a long and difficult proposition. 

They have 4 pages of credit card bill but no place for customer care number or emergency action points in case of loss or fraudulent transactions.  Three pages are filled with advertisements which they want to act upon for more usage of card.

Companies these days become too technology and sales driven that they have forgotten very purpose of everything the do - serving customers with ease.

This is the case with most consumer companies. Customers are finding it difficult to deal with them. 

Reaching them after sales , resolving problem with ease and with peace of mind has become extremely difficult. Companies that can achieve this  is going to be a winner.   

India is 134 in ease of doing business in world ranking. We need to rank companies in ease of doing business with. Ease is very critical in offering delightful customer experience. 

Name the company ____________ who qualifies for this status :

We are very easy to deal with.