SIGH of an Entrepreneur

You started your enterprise to serve your customers with your skill and passion. However in the process you need to manage people, policies, processes , acquisition, various regulatory compliance and many other things apart from serving customers.  Managing the management of business is Herculean task. It is this task which is the major culprit in diluting and shifting focus from customer experience.

Yesterday I was with one senior doctor managing her own clinic. With deep sigh she uttered " I am tired. Managing patients is fine but its the other things about practice that is too tiring. " I think most entrepreneurs in their entrepreneurial journey must be going through this SIGH.

It is important for entrepreneur to remain deeply focused on customers and delegate all peripheral activities of " Management " to others. It is the customers and only serving customers is the objective of the business and who are going to pay for the business to survive  All other money are debt and at cost. Customers money is adding to the networth. 

Before you lose sight of customers while managing MANAGEMENT part, its time to wake up and get a grip of what you always wanted to do - SERVING the CUSTOMERS and in the process making them RAVING FANS of your business.

What MOVIES teach about Customer Experience ?

How many times all of us have seen the movie we liked ? 

We spend hours at the cost of repetition of watching seen movies (remember time is our most precious resource) . 

We know the story and sequence exactly. Repeat purchase (viewing) is for the fact that we have had a good experience at the first instance & we wish to repeat our experience that we had liked , cherished. 

However when directors' creativity takeover viewers' expectations we have seen movie from great directors' failing on the box office. 

Likewise if your company is keeping internal system , processes and efficiency at the core, it will end up like a flop movie. 

Some recent experiences when customers are not at the core of business decisions: 

- Hospital wants medicine replenishment from internal medical store by patient's relative every time.  Isn't it the internal process of the Hospital ?  

- Leading credit card company uses 4 pages for bill printing (incl Ads) but not a line on customer care contact details for any billing related issue. Is customer experience/need at the core when designing this bill ? 

- On a website of leading private bank no way to reach them but for only FAQ driven email options & call center numbers which require many punches before we can talk to anyone. No email ID to reach customer care. Shouldn't  they be customer driven rather than process driven only ?  

- One of the large holiday resort companies keep responding mails with standard replies without reading the customer concerns not as automated replies but with personal name as signatory.   

Ask yourself every-time , what will happen to customer experience when any business decisions are taken ? 

Create a lovely shopping experience during shopping process and product usage and you have acquired one of the finest assets any business can have  - loyal and repeat customer.  

How much time , effort and most important thinking is invested in offering scintillating customer experience which they wish to repeat again and again and still again ?  

Seven BIG reasons to bring Customers Experience at the core of your business

Yes these are BIG reasons as ignoring these can have BIG impact on your business. 

- Your present or future competitors are working on it.

- Your customers are bored with your brand and are looking for something fresh and different. 

- Routine is boring that's why we explore more and more restaurants/food , cloths , travel destination , people & everything else.  

- That will give your business edge , sustenance power and competitive advantage. 

- Customer will spread words about your good deeds and experience you crate for them - Social media and physical network. 

- Smallest of non pleasant experience can move customer away from your business. Don' t ignore any aspects of customer experience.   

- Even if you have huge & long customer loyalty , your new competitor will have power to break that  - Flipkart did for crosswords , Samsung did for Nokia , Smart Phone did for Blackberry , Times Now did for CNN IBN/NDTV

Creating better customer experience is a daily job of every enterprises.  

Who Moved Your Cheese (Customers) ?

You need your customer more than they need you . Do you know this fact?  Many would reply – YES we know.

But real problem starts when we see our action  as far as customer experience is concerned. Our actions are not commensurate with the statement above.

How many companies have mission /vision statement?  Most company will answer in affirmative.

But again real problem starts once the statement is freezed and put up on website and reception area. Other than customers no one in the organisations reads and practice that.

How many of the entrepreneurs are aware that in an era of commoditisation of products and services , ease & delight in fulfilling customer needs is the real sustainable competitive advantage? Fair number of entrepreneurs have now started realising this.

But how many entrepreneurs have done anything to achieve this competitive advantage ?

Become your own customer – visit stores, call call centers , use after sales, talk to front line people , talk to back-end people (their action or inaction impact performance of front-line employees and customer experiences)  and realise – map competitive advantage your company enjoys.

Entrepreneurs and CEOs are talking & complaining about low sales, competitive pricing pressure, top-line growth issues, challenge of how to differentiate – but rare  number of entrepreneurs and CEOs are taking action in the space of bettering customer experience (CE) and most are just clueless , complaining and talking about ROI on customer experience initiatives.  

What is the ROI of life insurance policy? What is the ROI of medical treatment cost of a dying patient?  What is the ROI of cost of going to the Gym? No we do not see ROI on insurance policy or medical treatment as it is a MUST to protect our family from risk , survival or preventive health measures. CE initiatives are beyond ROI as these are MUST , not just to survive  but it is the cause of every business.It has to be a part of business strategy. (though ROI of better CE is obvious i.e. survival) 

Cheese has again moved and those focusing on bettering customer experience know who moved and how to remain with cheese , all remaining are questioning & complaining –  WHO MOVED MY CHEESE  (Customers) ?

Why I lost my Customers ?

Recently a friend of mine told me that he has lost one of his customer for 9 years , for meager small price difference. 

All of us whether in business or profession face customer attrition. Yes they leave us. Those who are involved in customer acquisition know how difficult it is to get one. So many meetings , follow up , promises and discounts offers it takes to get a customer.

Therefore when we lose our customer its painful as well as loss making proposition. Retained customer is an income , acquired customer is an expense as it takes 5 to 7 times the money to acquire new customer than to retain a one. 

As the customer gets older cost of acquiring him gets written off over the period of time. It is always better and smarter to not only retain a customer but also get referral from him to get a new customer. 

A value of customer is = profit out of his repeat purchase + referral leads he offers (which saves 5 to 7 times of cost of acquiring a new customer) 

But if customer is so important to any businesses important question to think is why do businesses lose customers to competition ? 

1. - Better Price 
2. - Better Speed to Delivery
3. - Better Understanding of the customer
4. - Better Proximity
5. - Better Quality 

Most important are Better Relationship (Human aspect of dealing & not CRM) and Better Customer Experience (Emotional Connect). 

Sometime you may wonder why ever after focusing on the above 5 tangible aspects , your business is still losing customers ? 

It may ( MUST ) be because you are ignoring completely the two intangible but critical aspects of business - customer relationship and customer experience. 

Before Content Marketing Begins ............

There is lot of talk these days about power of content and digital marketing. Every business has sleeved up to delve into this new medium to lure customers.  Content and digital marketers busy in strategy making. Lots of buzz and all new excitement and hope. 

However in a hurry to get customers most businesses have forgotten to take first step in content/digital marketing.

Yes fundamental rule of content and digital marketing is one need to have product and service which is offering delightful customer experiences. Without first focusing on making experience delightful and impeccable , focusing merely on content/digital market can and will misfire. 

Going viral applies equally to great things as well as to not so great & rotten things. In a hurry to sale quickly and to take first mover advantage,  companies will damage its reputation miserably by jumping into content/digital marketing unplanned and without taking first step. 

Like any other marketing initiatives this new medium also requires great product and services capability to talk about. However not able to do so severely damages the brand and reputation unlike any other traditional medium. 

Even in his best selling book Platform author Michael Hyatt talks about creating compelling product/service in the first 7 chapters before he talks about Platform for the products in rest of the 53 chapters. 

Beware and become aware about this most important FIRST STEP.  

Don't care for customers ? Focus on Customer Experience !!

Even if you don't care for customers, offering delightful customer experience in times of 

social media and word of mouth marketing is even good business 

strategy.  It improves both - top and bottom lines.  

How to Create Word of Mouth Magic, in his blog author Dave Kerpen explains  with his real life experiences. 

Is Customer Experience on your business agenda at top management meetings? If not than your business is still struggling to know the purpose of its existence. Keep trying.  

The First Question

The First Question

Customer Experience Management is the mother of all enterprise level initiatives like lean, six sigma, tqm, process engineering, business strategy, human resource etc all are in a way is impacting customer experience. Now if we consider Customer Experience as sustainable competitive advantage then all our initiatives should commence by keeping CE perspective at the center.

After the company decides about the products and services it is planning to offer to the market and geography it decides to operate in THE FIRST QUESTION to be asked is what kind of customer experience company wants to create for its customers.

There are nine leakage points which dilutes scintillating customer experience. Therefore unless customer experience statement is defined lens of the management will miss these leaky points.   In the process to answer the first question company will define customer experience statement.

Having defined the statement every action and initiatives will be aimed to achieve & maintain this statement. Budget for any initiatives will be viewed in terms of its impact on customer experience.

Every initiatives mentioned above will be to fix leakage in customer experience happening through leakage points;

• a) Leadership & Culture ( Culture & Governance Policies )
• b) Customer Strategy ( CE Statement & whether every other function align to this strategy? )  
• c) Customer Expectations ( tqm, lean, costing, innovation  )
• d) People ( HR )
• e) Process ( BPR, Lean, Six Sigma )
• f)  Marketing & Branding ( Marketing , Social Media, Advertising , PR )
• g) System ( IT, Technology, Mfg or Service Set up )
• h) Measurement ( right measurement matrix )
• i)  Distribution Channel ( distribution policy, training and hand holding )

When the above nine points are focused upon on a regular basis by keeping lens of customer experience on , company will then hardly needs any other area to focus upon ( ofcourse except taxation ).

Time has come for every organisation to ask the first question and realign to answer the first question. 

Brand is WHAT it does not how it looks and from where it comes

Ajit Pawar and Nitin Gadkari - the way they have responded in public during last few months shows how a brand can be ruined by its behavior.

Yes everyone of us are BRAND. We build our personal brands by our conduct. Not only the way we speak but what we speak, what we do , people we influence makes us brand.

In business sense its Customer Experience company creates that makes them BRAND and not advertisement , stationery, and logos.

Nana Patekar was on one of the TV show last week and he aptly said " importance of good looking Heros is just for 5 minutes, then public evaluates his Heroism by what he does on screen."

Same rule applies in the real world. One may be from big and rich family, holding big post and look handsome but WHAT he does with that will make him HERO i.e. Brand. 

Industry Associations - Change Objectives to Change Mindset

What are the role of Industry Associations? Are our associations living in previous century? Are our associations making their members ready for the future? Most Important what Industry Association thinks about customer they serve as Industry? 

I surveyed OBJECTIVES of some of the associations mainly servicing retail clients. These are Retailers Associations of India (RAI), Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI), Insurance Brokers Association of India (IBAI), Indian Bankers Association (IBA) & Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI). 

Its is interesting to mention that:

1) IBAI has put up their memorandum of association to know the objectives.  We all know how the objectives of business is defined in the Memorandum of Association. Somewhere in About Us I found a para on objectives which talks about protecting the interest of members , interaction among members and educating the members etc. Nothing on code of conduct ,  ethics and values. 

2) IBA - None of the 19 objectives talks about customer service, satisfaction or customer experiences. One of the objectives though talks about - To project a good image of banking  as a service industry.  So no customer in sight and even focus is on projection of image not creation of Image. 

3) MCHI - None of the seven objectives talks about customer at all. Its all about their members. No responsibilities towards customers. Nothing on code of conduct ,  ethics and values. 

4) COAI - One of the objectives talks about - To undertake continues efforts for customer satisfaction. Nothing on code of conduct ,  ethics and values. 

5) AHPI - None of the 5 main objectives talks about customer service, satisfaction or experience. However there is a reference to the words like reach, affordability and safety of patients.  They did talk about ethical standards for members. 

One association which I found more proactive about the customers and ethics is RAI. Customers are the heart of any industry and business. Unless at association level customer culture is not talked about or kept at the center, members are likely to turn apathetic towards customer service and experience. Yes members for their owns sake are doing something for customer care and satisfaction but is it not the responsibly of every business association to percolate customer culture & ethical Behaviour in its stake holder members?

6) RAI - One of the 5 objectives states - To work for customer delight by helping retailers create the right retail environment.It also talks about transparency, code of conduct and right values. 

How far have they succeeded is a matter of debate. 

All associations are interested in expanding the reach, knowledge share, govt liaisening  in policy making. However unless associations focus on CUSTOMER their members are out to serve, associations will be failing in their role. 

I would like to end with the quote from the research report on Association Forecast 2012 by Shelly Alcorn who interviewed executives of 200 associations in the US. 

" During the course of conducting this project, we became convinced that associations are losing their ability to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, not because of a lack of innovation and creative capacity, but through a wholesale adoption of language and management techniques more suited to the purely corporate goal of product production, not experience creation. " 

Experience creation is the goal of every business and associations catering to any industry must keep this objectives at the center. They must enable their members in achieving better customer experience. Then and then they will align all other objectives to achieve this central objective. Market share growth , Govt policies,  best practice and networking  opportunities everything is secondary to better customer experience creating mindset and capability.  

Like a country where CITIZEN must be at the core of all activities , for any company and industry - CUSTOMERs have to be at the center stage. For Tarde & Industry Associations its members' end customers are the Customers.

  

Indian Retailers’ Priority Mismatch

I was going through  RAI – TCS Study 2013.

What I found interesting is this:

At retail store level priority wise  focus area for 2014 are 

1) Overall Profitability

2) Improving Customer Service

At organisation level priorities are ; 

1) Improving Bottomline

5) Improving Customer Services

6) Improving Loyalty  and Retention

9) People Training

10) CRM and

11) Process Improvements

Companies want to improve customer experience (CE) at store level however things which improves customer experience finds priority 5 onward at company level.

This is the problem not only of retail industry but most of the industries.

Every companies in every industries have become aware that Customer Experience is the way to be and that is the only thing that will give them sustainable competitive advantage. This is even clear from the above study as companies wants Customer Service as priority Number 2. I still doubt that what companies means customer services is not what customer experience is all about. However lets for a moment assume that what they mean customer service is infact customer experience.  Even though priority to better that is not visible at enterprise level.

Companies want to better Customer Service/Experience but do not put the same at higher priority @ enterprise level.  Therefore at enterprise level action will not be commensurate with the priorities stated at store levels.

For real experience creators like Starbucks, Virgin , Apple or Zappos , customer experience is the  top most priority. It is the better CE that drives bottom-line. These companies have focus on better and better CE which in turn drives top as well as bottom-line. CE has assumed the role of key differentiation for these companies.

Forrester Research says better CE drives bottom-line, top line and builds brands on social channels. In surveying nearly 5,000 consumers, Forrester found that across many industries they prefer better experiences than lower prices.  There are case studies which suggests better CE can support triple bottom-line i.e. profit, people and planet.

Point is , better CE drives top-line & bottom-line , Indian retailers wants the same at retail store level however at enterprise level they act differently.  Unless enterprise as a whole focus on better CE and aim to become champion of CE in their own segment , they will continue to have this kind of mismatch and they will continue to find bottom-line growth where it is hardly available.

This report is telling all the players in retail industry why they are struggling to achieve their priority number 1 i.e. bottom-line growth.

Put better Customer Experience at the center of your store level and enterprise level priority number – 1  ( Irrespective of Industry ). That is the starting point of every other initiatives and focus area.

CSR Drama Vs Unhappy Employees

Yesterday got news of one more premature death (heart attack) at the age of sub 30.  That reminded me of my 2011 blog We all are dying in EMI - Courtesy Job Related Stress . The deceased was working in forex dealing room. Probably one of the most stressful jobs. 

Forget the nature of job, all jobs have become stressful , huge demand on human being at work place. Why? Cuz Finance professionals have taken over the performance matrix. Only and only finance matrix is considered to evaluate the success of the entity.   At the cost of mass stress and unhappiness , handful of the shareholders are enjoying fruits of success. Our models and matrix have become unsustainable. Forget environment and community, people working for the organisation are facing biggest threat. 

This CSR drama must end and actual CSR must start from within. Within the organisation. Making their people & customer happy is the real CSR for every business. What is the fun of CSR when there is tax evasion , poor quality , mis-sell & pathetic people policies? 

Zapposs of the world and happiness officer like  Alexander Kjerulf of the world MUST spread like avalanche in the business world. We must have happiness matrix given equal if not more importance to finance matrix to measure success of the enterprise. 

We are talking about sustainable business practice, starting point is - happy employees & happy customers and not just shareholders.

Icing on the Cake is fine but not at the cost of Cake

Customer Experience is not just about DELIGHT.

Reduction in complaints is also better customer experience.

Delighting while failing in the basics will not work. Customer wants solution to the problem quickly and in simplest possible way. Making it extremely simple and quicker is also great customer experience.

Need, ease and delight is the order companies must follow to travel experience journey.

Icing on the Cake is fine but not at the cost of Cake.

Homework for TODAY and Everyday

Need : Recheck whether your offerings are fulfilling the NEED of the customer TODAY. (yesterday was different)

Ease: Remove all obstacles from the way which creates difficulty, takes longer time, requires greater effort for customers to reach you for whatever the reason. EASE of doing business with suppliers is critical for all customers. (for all B to X  businesses)

Delight: & yes, DELIGHT on top will make the day not only for customers but also for suppliers. (Who doesn’t like repeat business, word of mouth referral opportunity, free of cost brand building?)

Home work for the day – Check the above reality TODAY and everyday as TODAY’s need, ease and delight for your customers may not be the same tomorrow.

Who is building your BRAND?

Customer Experience is EXTREMELY important in the times of Social Media.

Last week we celebrated our marriage anniversary. My wife had read an article in the newspaper about one restaurant known for mouth watering food , visits of celebrities there and all new varieties of food.

Plan was finalized.

Just on the day I was looking to get clue of the location on the internet and that provoked me to just check the review of the restaurant.

& to my shock and surprise, most reviews were against the restaurant. Not only food quality reviewed by the customers was pathetic even hygiene was not up to the mark , few customers stated.

Rather than me telling my wife, I ask her to read reviews. Her mind changed immediately and our plan also changed for the day. May be we were saved from pathetic experience on the important day.

Point is:

- Companies MUST focus on creating better experience and then leave it to the customers to spread the word. Yes companies can play a role in facilitation in that.

- Paid media , paid/unpaid reviews or high claim advertisement will not work.

- Create awareness about the brand and let customers speak .

Generation NOW is highly connected with the help of Mobile Internet. Words spread fast, faster than one can imagine. Traditional advertising and marketing models and mindset will quickly give way to CUSTOMER Speak.

Role of Brand building has moved from creative AD agencies to CEO , Customer Experience Designers & Social Media Champions.

Customer experience is the end result of everything organisation does. No one can hide in the name of BACK OFFICE. Every action in the organisation impacts customer experience.

We all r on alert mode in experience economy. SO CALLED adverting agencies and brand champions  will find it difficult to get the desired results. ROI of such initiatives will diminish , diminish quickly.

Who is building your brand? Your Customers or Ad Agencies/Paid Media ?

We the (reactive) People:

We the (reactive) People: 

1) Cigarette Smoking  is Injurious to health & can cause Cancer.

2) Going to Gym and doing Exercise is good and must for Fitness, else disease and medicine dependent life 

3) Right eating is important for healthy life , else obesity , dependency, diseases 

4) Customer Experience is the sustainable competitive advantage else low margin, redundant business , possibility to go out of business  

Two things r common in all the above 4 statements.

First – Everyone know this.   Second - Hardly many takes action to get the benefits of the knowledge

Why:  Why we don’t ACT even if we know what is right and dangers of doing wrong ? 

Love for Status-Quo & Procrastination. Unless we forced to ACT even when the action is for the survival, we don’t ACT. All of us like to Re-Act to the situation. Most do not like to Pro-Act.

When we are diagnosed with cancer , we leave cigarette immediately.

When we are diagnosed with some diseases or become obsess we go to gym and eat right food.

When we are about to go out of business , all options are over , margins are shrinking , competitor/innovation has taken over our market share – we react and focus of better customer experience creation.

Stephen Covey of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People will tell you that the very first habit is to be proactive. Covey explained that to be proactive “means more than merely taking initiative.  It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives.  Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.”

Be it business or personal level, we refuse to be PROACTIVE. Circumstances will force us to ACT.

Customer Experience is the most important thing every business CEOs and Entrepreneurs agrees/understands but where is the FORCE? Where is the compulsion ? Waiting for PRO to turn RE, is too costly , yes very costly and sometime FATAL.

Diagnosis Test for Status of Customer Experience : 

- Our company has customer experience statement

- Our business Process Team work Closely with Customer Experience Team

- Our advertising/marketing messages matches with experience our product/service offers to our customers. We make it sure.

-  Our people know the impact they create on the customer experience

- Our top management participates in customer issues/complaints/initiatives

- Our distribution channels are trained on company’s customer policy

- We measure customer experience our company creates.

If  answer to the most of the above statements are NO,  your company is already suffering Customer Experience leakages &  call for action is loud and clear.

Do you think your company is proactive in the matter of customer experience initiatives?

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Brand Communication Vs Brand Execution

Mr. Narendra Modi is a very good Marketer. He is marketing his state so vigorously, that perhaps no other CM can match his passion and vigor. No two views here.  Opposition also agrees and says so.

Issue is what about SUBSTANCE ? Whether successful marketing is possible without matching investment in product and service ?

Marketing that follows good product and service development will only succeed. Howsoever aggressive marketing may be , it will fail miserably if the product and service being marketed is lousy. Therefore good marketing can not make lousy product successful. At the same time bad marketing can fail good products.

Bottom line is both product and marketing has to be excellent. Product can fail without the smart marketing but smart marketing have to  fail  without smart products/services.

“I rather die of bad marketing than a bad product!”

Most companies are smart marketer but not enough is done to make product or service smart that can give wow !!! customer experience.  Examples of product and service failure due to weak marketing is rare whereas example of failure of smart marketing campaigns due to weak product and service is more often.

Modi is smart marketer but that is because he was substance to offer to the voters. He cant be a successful marketer unless he has invested in his offings to the voters. Most political parties are just good campaigners but nothing to be shown on ground  That is a problem and that is the difference.

Bollywood is the best example where companies have become smart marketeer without investing  adequate in product.

So next time when you are deciding on marketing campaign just re check whether your product and services deserve this kind of marketing &  if the answer is NO , invest and work more on product and services than marketing communication. Make brand promise you wish to communicate through marketing campaign actually executable while using your offerings.

Does your product LIVE your brand promise  marketed by your marketer ??

SPEED UP – The only REFORM we want from Government

When we design customer experience , business processes r the most important thing after culture at the top and people.  Even that is true for Governments. Business and Governance processes are the most critical deterrents for offering delightful experience to customers/citizen. But when the matter is only of delight, we can ignore the same in favour of necessity, but when it has become necessity for development ,  economic growth and even for timely justice , we can neither ignore it nor remain inactive to live with that.  We can and must attack these procedures and processes which is delaying our - development, justice and everything in life.

Be it birth certificate,  death certificate, be it permission to start business or wind up the same,  be it permission to start construction or get conveyance of property, be it taking action by police for reported crimes, or admission in hospitals - everywhere delay  and follow up. Its consuming time of the nation enormously.

Recent global business survey held by World Bank puts India at 132 out of 185 nations for Ease of Doing business.  

Why doing business should be so uneasy? Why dealing with government departments is so uneasy and horrible experience of every citizen? Dealing with corruption is one part, getting things done in time is the most critical challenge. These kind of unease breeds corruption.

Mr. Kejriwal is right when he says there has to be  a Citizen Charter which states within HOW many days the application for anything in any govt (state/central or local) department in any state will be disposed off. & it must be done that way. Period.

Delay is even costing our social behaviors. People know justice will be invariably delayed hence there is no fear of law.

Govt is hell bent on Retail FDI and delaying Parliament Sessions ,  HOW many bills r pending other than Retail FDI? I fail to understand why Govt thinks Retail FDI is the Mother of all reforms? So much so that Parliament sessions are being sacrificed.

We are living with Govt with misplaced priorities as far as economic reforms are concerned. Why improvement of Ease of Doing Business ranking from 132 to under 50 is not a MISSION of the Govt?

Multiple problems can be solved – speed of doing business will attract more investments, faster implementation of projects, faster economic and infrastructure development, lower corruption, lower crime (speedier trials r deterrent) , speedier alleviation of poverty, reduction of stress (today people are stressed as things are not moving and they want it to move faster)  - and finally even victory in election.

I am not sure what benefit people and  Govt will derive from Retail FDI but Governance process rejuvenation will certainly help citizen, govt and nation as a whole. It will be hugely better citizen experience. Just don’t do any reform till 2014 and focus only on this. People will thank the Govt ……..  and VOTE may be one of the way to thank!! Who is listening and thinking in Govt?

Share your experience about - delay in governance/business  process. How things can be improved?

Kingfisher Air - Attacking the Root Cause or Root of the Brand ???

Our Dear Dr Mallya is now asking their people not to treat their CUSTOMER as Guest as they have a severe cash problem and it is not a good policy now.

He mean to say that its their treating Customer as Guest policy is one of the causes of their problem. How unfortunate ??

He is attacking the fundamental of the business basics. He must know that if any one will bail out or invest in his cash strapped company , the only reason would be their policy of treating customer as their guests.  Brand he has built which people loves today is only because of their CUSTOMER policy. 

Even CUSTOMERS have paid too steep price to Kingfisher Air just because they threat them as their Guests. 

Its not their CUSTOMER policy but everything else is lousy. Only good they have done is to raise the bar of customer experience.

I am sure he will not attack the root of his BRAND and  attack the right causes of the problems.

7 Reasons why Abhishek Bachchan Tweeted on 16th Nov

Abhishek Bachchan become publisher of his own news. Though media was restrained, however he released news of arrival of his baby girl, first to his fans and followers at one go through Twitter. Earlier trend was press conference. Media as an intermediary between news makers and news recipient is fast becoming history. Internet has played catalyst role in most of the industries to remove and realign role of intermediaries.

Advantage :

1) Abhishek is sharing the news with his followers, therefore all were excited.

2) Its instant. They need not depend on so called breaking news from media houses.

3) It was easy for all followers to share among their own followers and friends on social as well as off line circles.

4) Its direct, so easily trusted and cannot be twisted.

5) All his followers can directly communicate with him to congratulate or abuse when he acts in movies like Raavan (Mani Ratnam's not Ra One of SRK) .

6) Followers can also communicate with him abt what more they want from him and so he can also convey his thoughts. 

7) Imagine Anna Hajare has 1 mn followers on twitter. What he can do with his one tweet!!!! For that matter any movement can ignite in no seconds.

Just yesterday MP Shashi Tharoor at one of the conferences warned media companies that Internet is changing their business in unimaginable way. Yes suddenly landscape is changing.  

Purpose of this post is not to show how Social media is changing Media Industry but to awaken all readers about what this can mean to their business. 

Do you need someone like Shashi Tharoor to warn and awaken ??  

Its two way dialogue, instant , direct, easily sharable & above all exciting and interesting too. Companies like Mahindra Home Stays, Ford , Red Bull, CISCO, Volkswagen India, Disney, Jetblue, Kaya Clinic & many more are aggressively using SM Channels. 

Most important is Engagement & Two Way Communication. Unless customer engagement is there, people are not interested.  

Just a few numbers : 

1) Face book enjoys 3rd largest population after China & India. Indian FB users 34 mn. Growing at 60%. 

2) India: Internet penetration is 8% Mobile Penetration is 67%. Imagine what will happen when Internet usage through mobile becomes affordable and accessible!!!

Its not just marketing. It’s about marketing plus, brand building, lead generation, customer service & feedback, wow ! Customer experience, knowledge sharing, collaboration, hiring, product design and launch, remain in touch & much more what more one can imagine. 

Yesterday a few college students in Goa visited one of the hotels. They liked the food so they tweeted about the hotel. Hotel has social media policy and brand watch, they tracked this tweet about them and immediately thanked all of them through reverse tweet. It will reach many many more on tweeter. 

It’s not about technology or a fad, its about mind for customer experience and mission to provide scintillating customer experience. First in hotel and 2nd through responsive social media awakening. 


Here going extra mile can take the brand miles ahead. 


New Social Media Theme :  Like it? Share It , tweet it.

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