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...

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. "

9 ways to check whether you are in Obsolete Business

To continue from my previous blog Are you in the business of selling obsolete products & services?  , Usually obsolete products and services are not in demand or enjoy lesser demand. 

Look at erstwhile cinema houses and multi-screen multiplexes , look at Udipi South Indian hotels & fast food/pizza/burger chains, look at housing societies built 10/15 years back and present day housing societies,  look everywhere hospitals, retailing , banking - everything has changed and is changing. Everything is moving from being product & services to experience. 

It is the need of today. This shift happens with every new generation of consumers. With new generation of consumers comes new generation of entrepreneurs. They break the old way of thinking and create blue ocean for themselves. 

Therefore issue is to check whether you are in the business of selling obsolete products & services. Here obsolete doesn't means typewriter vs computer. Here it means old way of thinking about business. 

Yes , 

1) If CUSTOMER is not at the center of all your thinking and action , you are in obsolete business.

2) If EMPLOYEES are not considered most important asset of the business , you are in obsolete business.

3) If CRM is the only thing that is happening as far as customer services is concerned ,  you are in obsolete business.

4) If OFFLINE is the only mode of your doing business ,  you are in obsolete business.

5) If SOCIAL MEDIA and CONTENT MARKETING is not a part of your marketing plan, you are in obsolete business.

6) If your enterprise is not measuring customer experience and employee happiness along with ROI and ROCE, you are in obsolete business.

7) If your enterprise is only thinking about single bottom-line and not about social and environmental impact of your business, you are in obsolete business.

8) If your branding and advertising is not matching with actual customer experience,  

you are in obsolete business.

9) If your board is not comprising of professionals from diverse fields & Corporate Governance is only limited to compliance , you are in obsolete business.

If you escape all the above IFs , YES, you can congratulate your self , your business & its products & services are NOT obsolete. 

Even if your are selling TEA and not using any advance technology to produce  , all the above pointers will keep you out of OBSOLATION. 

IN DEMAND - Script & Crisp Writers

5 days test match to 1 day match to 20:20 this is how game of cricket has evolved during last 30 years.  People cant wait for 5 days to know the result. Rules of the game have remained more or less same but wait for the outcome has reduced from 5 days to 3 hours. 

Attention deficit , impatient & speedy society needs new forms of everything.  

From magazine articles to blog to micro blog (twitter). Whatever is to be conveyed is to be conveyed in short & with speed.

Print to TV to Social Media , modes of communication has changed. People are changing their platforms to know what they want to know. 

From Commodity to goods to services to experiences.  Yes now customer needs and pays premium for experiences.  Needs and way of receiving the same has changed. Commodity providers are many , experience creators are in scanty.   

All communicators i.e. enterprises are the largest class of communicators to their customers and potential customers , must learn to know how the new society behaves , communicates and consume things.  

Movies are creating experiences and spend millions of dollars in communicating the same. 

Script writers ( writing business plans that delight and wow customers )  , directors of experience creation ( executing  wow !! script ) & Crisp communicators ( smart ,quick & innovative ) and are in demand in the new economy. 

Are you LIKABLE?

Are you as a person likable to fellow workers , fellow family members ? 

Are you as a company likable to employees , customers, suppliers, shareholders & community around ? 

People like to deal with what is likable. Therefore one of the parameters to evaluate the performance and target to be aim for is more likability. 

Impact being likable can have on individual and business is enormous. Sometimes its better   to evaluate this on unlikable parameters. 

Dave Kerpen author of the book Likable Business describes seven of the ten things in his presentation.  

• Listen - employees, customers and everyone 
• Surprise & Delight
• Story Telling 
• Transparency 
• Authenticity - Just be you 
• Team Play
• Gratefulness

Those who are further interested and have 55 minutes of time to invest may see this presentation by Dave Kerpen Video on How to be Likable Company

Social Media is either making companies aware why it is important to be likable or forcing them to react and change to become likable.  

Exposure is Given, Manage your Behaviour not Exposing Medium

Lousy product reviews on FB or Twitter and whole efforts on product and marketing fails.  On the contrary superlative reviews can boost the sales and brand image beyond imagination.

Therefore companies have stared focusing on their social bushiness strategies.

Bigger question or issue is: With Social Media (SM) is taking center stage companies need not only design their social media strategy but has to change business strategy altogether.

Yes, emergence of SM, organisation is exposed to the world i.e. potential customers, existing customers, suppliers , potential employees and investors, everyone. Therefore advertising and marketing campaigns will have to be realistic and under claiming.

Ad Guru David Ogilvy has said “Great Marking only makes weak /lousy product faster .”  This was in times of no SM. Imagine what can happen in times of SM?  Movie JOKER is the latest example. Earlier this week Volkswagen (VW) ad in TOI was talk of the town, now suppose VW’s  product is not up to the mark or people reads not so good review about their other products, what will happen to so brilliant advertisement? Though its is unlikely for VW but not for majority of the companies.

When the company is exposed to masses about their behaviors, it has to change the behavior and not only strategy to deal with exposing medium. With people to people contact , what company says is hardly of any significance. Its time to get real. Its time to revisit objectives and mission statement  again. Its time to revisit business processes, people soft skills, HR policy, product innovation and afters sales service. Its time to check the air in all the four Tyre (people, process, product and communication). Puncture in any one will curtail the speed and end products/outcome. All companies NOW has to work towards creating brand advocates. Yes that is the ultimate thing that all companies must aim for and best things that can happen in favour of the company through SM.

Now its a time to work towards not triple bottom-line but SINGLE bottom-line through happy customers, motivated employees, supporting vendors, community building, active CSR , concern for environment. Every activities will be watched and  discussed on SM. Now is the time BRANDS will be built by company business strategies and not by advertising and marketing team.  Measurement parameters MUST include other  parameters than only financial share holder driven parameters. Net Promoter Scorecard, Customer SATisfaction, Employees-SAT, Community-SAT etc etc.

When EXPOSURE is given , you don’t try to strategies to defend mis-behavior but certainly-try to behave and put up EXPO-SABLE show.  Brand building is NOW everyone’s role in the organisation. Happier times are here not again for the first time.

HOW Social Media for Professional Firms !!!! ???

Professional Organisations like Advocates, CAs , CSs , Doctors , Architects , HR and the likes are great knowledge repositories in their  area of  expertise. People go to them for WHAT they know and HOW what they know can solve clients personal or business problems. 

In Pre Internet era life was miserable or not so happy. Few , large and influential people from these professions were in advantageous position. But situation changed slightly with the arrival of Internet. With their website all the firms and professionals were on the same platform and visible to everyone ,  potential clients. Similarly through the sites of many businesses approaching them has also become easier then for professionals.

However life is changing NOW and changing considerably. Yes arrival of social media is blessings  for knowledge professionals. It offers enormous opportunities to  showcase expertise. Many companies are now using LinkedIn profile for recruitment. Similarly self employed professionals can participate in debates in some interest specific groups, answer questions on LinkedIn, commence their own blogs, can have facebook fan page, tweet regularly to update as well as attract clients. Yes all these can be done and can be views by any prospective clients across size, industry, and geographies. 

This is the power and power of social media for professionals , especially small and medium firms.  Get your social media content and customer strategy in place and be ready for pleasant surprises. Its about Personal Brand Building. Do it regularly , do it carefully, do it with passion and do it with a difference.

Inverted 30 : 70 Ratio - Customer Experience

Writing is like a pregnant lady. Till the time u deliver (write) u r restless. 

Today I met a ED of one of the industry chambers in Mumbai. 

Agenda: Customer Experience for their Members

One more management jargon was his initial reaction. 

Well a big NO. 

All earlier version of business performance improvements were internal & limited focus like - TQM, Six Sigma, BPR, Lean, TOC - all are fine but these projects are never worked keeping CUSTOMER @ d center.  

One can argue that six sigma and lean or for that matter TQM are obviously for the customers. However its not. Everything is to work on improving internal efficiency and productivity. Its necessary but not sufficient. 

Unless the organisation as a whole looks in one direction i.e. Customers, unless everyone is aware about impact of their action or inaction on the customer experience, unless internal massive projects are touching customer experience  at all the touch points, unless customer experience is designed keeping in mind end to end touch points in mind, unless one single person responsible for end to end customer experience, they are not customer focused projects. 

Why its not only important but critical because : 

Delightful and Memorable Customer Experience  =  Repeat and referred customers, sharing the experience on social media channels (bad experience travels faster on this channels), lowering sales and marketing cost , increase in margins and sales, brand loyalty and rise of brand advocates. 

Its the ONLY way , to create blue ocean in otherwise red ocean business land(water)scape. 

A Customer Experience lesson from Jeff Bezos of 

"If the optimal business decision in the old world was too  spend 30 percent of your time, energy, focus, and dollars on building great customer experience, and 70 percent of your time, energy, focus, and dollars on shouting about it, today that's inverted. Today, the optimal thing to do is to spend 70 percent of your time, energy, focus, and dollars on building great customer experience and 30 percent shouting about it."

Next question is - HOW? {  when and why are now obvious  } 
Watch out this place!!!

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.

If you are in Mumbai and want to know more about high profile event is taking place in Jan 2012.  Click here to know more and participate http://www.clickasiasummit.com

5 Reasons Why Traditional Marketing is (almost) DEAD in Digital World !!!!

Scene 1 - Today on linked I read that  someone disliked Blue Dart services for what ever reason. He tweeted abt it and his message went to all his social media foot print like FB and linked in etc to his friends and fans.Out of these many would re-tweet this message and Blue Dart might have lost some or many future customers.

Scene 2 -  Few months ago I liked the way flip-kart.com delivered my parcel. I blogged abt it. Many might have read it and shared it too.

Scene 3 - When I wanted to buy my cell phone I visited many product review sites. I decided to go for particular brand and model based of-course on technical specifications but finally ,  users reviews were ultimate determinants,  not that brand's marketing message.

How many of us are interested in TV or website commercials ??? We know most marketeers are liers, commit more & deliver less, talks sweet just to sale. Till recent years we had no options but to get fooled often by every brands. But now no longer. 

Suddenly all of them are now exposed.Exposed miserably as stated abt Blue dart above. Social Media medium & its access through mobile is final death knell for traditional marketers. 

Just shut up , create memorable customer experience and allow/ enable customers to become brand ambassadors. Social Media Examiners' Michael says " Content is king. Get content to get customers."  Marketeers role is to educate customers, rest will be taken care by customers themselves.  Users will share their experiences and buyers will go by users experience. 


5 why(s) of this new reality :

- When u spend , people don't believe u.

- When u interrupt their entertainment and work , they hate u and ignore u (TV, Website, SMS and calls).

- When u don't talk and just do it, words spread.

- When u enable customers to share their experience, they become brand ambassadors.

- When customers are sharing their experiences, u will be at your best.

Even if your customers are not using social media, these applies to all (We all are now more connected).

Need to overhaul, redefine, transform the way companies' market and reach out to their customers. Events like Click Asia 2012 http://www.clickasiasummit.com is not the indication of shape of the things to come but about the situation we are already in. Wake up { u may engage teenager(s) to guide yr marketing team HOW abt social and digital media strategy ).

9 (old) + Three (new) Early Warning Sings of a Troubled Company

Gems stated in 1 to 9 below I read about a decade ago.

1. The One Man Show - Does the company allow key person to grow in their jobs and make key decisions?
2. No Succession - Is someone being groomed to replace the president?
3. High Profile / Low Tech - How does company's hardware compare with that of its chief competition?
4. The Giant Customer Trap - Would the company survive if it lost biggest customer?
5. Operating on Old News - Does the company have an accurate financial snapshot of its operations on a monthly or fortnightly basis?
6. Touring Without Road Map - Does the company have a written business plan & its still valid?
7. Banking Blues - Does the company communicate with lenders regularly?
8. Hazardous Growth -Expanding too quickly on a non sustainable basis ?
9. The Change Factor - Whether company and how much company has changed during last 12 months?

This was the fact about a decade back. However MOST of these may still hold true, rapid change in economies , technology and entrepreneurial landscape,  we can safely add a few more.   

x) No focus on CUSTOMER. - Business Plan/Strategy defines everything else but  Customer Experience company propose to offer.

y) Not engaging customers on social media (SM) platforms by providing great insights on the products and services being offered.  Using SM to address customer concerns and complaints {quickly}.

z) Inability to attract Great Talent. Yes war is of TALENT. People run the business. Rest all can be improved upon if people are right. This also applies to having diversified & some what weird board members.

As we advance in the TIME we need lesser reasons to fail { even survive and succeed }. Test Check TODAY. Its all early warning signs. Be alarmed NOW or be surprised and shocked, later. 

3 Umpires { Self Appointed } in our lives - Driving us Crazy

Yes we have been hugely driven by 3 umpires of our life            ( Personally and Businesses too ) .

These are ;

1) Society - What other ( peer pressure included ) will say is many a times influencing your decisions ??

2) Media - How media will react is making us hide the facts or do u have need to manage them to hide the facts ??

3) Stock Analysts - They are the major cause { though not direct } of Satyam and many such frauds ( detected /undetected ).  They can hammer and bring down price of yr listed entity but cant impact intrinsic value and future potential of the enterprise.

If one can ignore these 3 umpires  { Self Appointed } and focus on the facts and own independent free thinking , without being influenced by these 3 umpires, we can have hugely happy & stress free life.

" If you can sing your song , not worrying who Listens and what they think, you are going to be extremely successful" – Deepak Chopra

Ignore these 3 Umpires. Don't allow them to take charge of yr life. 

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.