Envy people about your CUSTOMERS.

Have you made your potential customers envy of your existing customers? 

Yes it is the role of every customer experience professionals. Every company MUST make endeavour to achieve this status.  Once upon a time Onida TV used to have slogan Owners Pride Neighbours Envy. Converting this slogan into reality is exactly what is needed in today's time of commoditisation. 

You customers MUST love, talk about and advocate your offerings. 

When i read the book Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh & I become member of very happy person group on their site I received gift hamper with one copy the book, t shirt and a pack of wafer from the US.  When I first used Flipkart to buy a book it was very simple and quick - a superior experience. Thereafter I have recommended both the companies to many through this blog as well as in person. One CM is making entire country envy of his state and people want him as PM. This is the power of making others ENVY about what you have to offer to your customers (citizen in this case). 

It is not only about physical appearance & rationality, it is about touching the senses , it is about human emotions. 

Make it a habit to please few of your customers every week - DELIBERATELY (Even if you are a b2b company). Do unexpected, go out of the way, and make them feel special. Words will spread and more & more people would like to be your customer.  Your DELIBERATE habit will make your company talk of the town. 

In this attention deficit world something unique will get the attention. It is far more easier and cheaper than huge Ad spend and marketing gimmicks (which no one believes) .  

How do you think you can make people envy of your customers ? Share your ideas. 

Financial Ratios - Outdated to measure SUCCESS

ROI, ROCE, EPS, PE, EBIDTA  all these words have assumed so much importance in business world that what it takes to achieve is completely ignored. Cost of achieving better and better these figures is so huge that it consumes humanity , environment , ethics and every other things. 

Capitalist society we are in has attached extreme importance to the figures/ratios stated above. All our business actions are only measured on these parameters.  There is no measurement of corrupt practices indulged , environment polluted , stress generated among people working for the organisation , customers fooled , under-served and even cheated to achieve these ratios. 

Single minded focus on financial ratios is killing the ethical and human factors in business. Growth at all cost is doing harm to the society and benefits handful of shareholders. We are talking about sustainable business practices  keeping environment in focus however what about sustainability of ethical norms human sustainability ?  

We have seen in the movie Guru , one company takes on the Govt rules by breaking and indulging in unethical practices. Who has authorised them?  What if every company start doing that? Just for personal gain ethical standards have been broken and justified for business & share holders wealth creation. We live by quoting that as an illustrious example. It is nothing but collapse of value system and unethical conduct for personal gain of a few. 

Just focus on financial success is the cause of all these nonsense prevailing in business world these days. There are a few companies like Zappos.com which make DELIVERING HAPPINESS as their business mission and not only financial ratios. We need more and more of such companies and rest assured in times to come these are the kind of companies which will be valued more than just financial ratio focused companies. Non manipulative and socially sustainable measures will be in demand, 

Any one of the Indian companies dare to do things differently ? 

Its all about Emotions – Highest level of Customer (Human) Experience

Emotional Intelligence – one of the best selling books by Danial Goleman, Emotional Campaigns like McDonald’s campaign says I am loving it (not about rational need of taste, delivery, ambiance or people) . Zappos .com slogan is Delivering Happiness (what shoe retailer has to do with customer happiness? Ask Tony CEO of Zapoos.com or read his book Delivering Happiness. Happiness is the highest form of emotions, check pyramid below.) , KBC previous and present versions are based on emotional stories of the participants. Its now less on prize money and more focus on human emotional stories.  Author of the book The New Leaders Says  

” Acknowledge Emotions, Hire for Emotions, Evaluate for Emotions, Promote for Emotions, Lead by Emotions, Follow by Emotions, Sell Emotions ” .

Emotions are most important factor in every human being. French thinker had said ” Our rational decisions are driven by our emotions. ”  

Elite companies have started using emotions in their campaigns. But is it enough? Unless customers see similar signs in the offerings they will neither become loyal nor advocates of the brand. Where do we put our loyalty in our personal life?  Of-course with family and friends with whom we have emotional associations and not just rational. 

Therefore when we talk about customer experience, unless we focus and map emotions of customers at every touch points , we are failing in true measurement of customer experience. This is the reason perhaps we have experience of commoditsation of most of the products and services. Every companies are focused on efficiency of processes, cost cutting, call centers outsourcing , appointment of Customer Service people and many such things. Every companies are doing the same level of improvement and end result is commodity product for customers. But now what next?

How about changing company culture ?  How about  measuring customer emotions and mapping it for desired outcome?  

When we are dealing with any aspects of human being we have to consider human being as a whole i.e rational, emotional and subconscious. Present system of customer service or very little experience measures rational aspects of customer service or experience. However customer always experience company offerings and moments of contacts with emotional and subconscious mind also. 

How to go about this ?

(Pyramid developed by Beyond Philosophy-  Which emotions creates value and which ones destroy )

Put your organisation on NPS driven performance measurement. Business growth is limited part of the story  , NPS lead growth is what companies must aim for sustenance.  NPS will only grow reasonably if customer experience is bettered on every given day with holistic approach of mapping emotional behavior of the customers. It enables the organisation to become sensitive and designing emotion altering customer experience for desired end results. Measuring & Mapping emotions is the new regular.  

Its a win win win for all the stake holders i.e.  company , customer and society at large. Emotions are contagious. Happy and pleased customers will spread the feelings and emotions along with company brand.   How are you feeling today? 

Share your stories and emotions with brands you have encountered. Brands could be company or individual. 

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14 ways to become Interesting Company.

We all are BORING unless we do INTERESTING things. 

On Sunday last I completed one of the finest books on marketing The Referral Engine by John Jantsch. In between I finished other three books in between i.e. Delivering Happiness by Tony , Founder CEO of Zappos.com , Linchpin by Seth Godin & Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Kabini. All the four were excellent READ. I am enriched !!!

Author of book The Referral Engine writes that BORING companies are never talked about or referred by any one.  

This is interesting. Not only people but companies are also BORING. This made me think about "Which is a Boring Company??"

- Customers -  talks about the way you do business or your product /services?

-  Do they feel WOW!!! while dealing with the company?

- Media - take notice and cover write up or interviews?

- People - eager to join your company (getting good number of resume) and employee turnover ratio is lowest in the industry? Employees are given opportunities to grow personally? Happiness surveys are part of appraisal process ? 

- Suppliers - can’t afford to lose your contract? Ready to offer more credit, get paid on due dates? 

- Processes - customer friendly, quicker and easier to deal with?

- Project - undertake interesting, large, relevant projects and execute with passion and purpose?

- Experiment - invests in our internal people for their start up ideas? Ideas fly from bottom to the top? 

- Innovation - way of life , failure is respected internally, customer focus is the ONLY focus?

- Unexpected - surprise element is a part of your offerings? 

- Social Media - customer often write great reviews about your offerings? 

- Celebrate - all festivals , birthdays of employees (even customers) and  small successes?

- Social - activities are encouraged internally?  

- Case Studies - business school studies your company for their class room case studies?

- Referral Business - most new business are coming this route? 

- Board of Director - have some interesting/weird member not connected with the business and governance? 

(I invite more real life case studies which makes company interesting) 

If no such things (ideally everything must be happening) are happening , of-course then company can be classified as BORING. 

Boring Vs Interesting !!!Agenda is to make company interesting and exciting. Rest will be taken care automatically.