Customer Experience Lessons from Narendra Modi

Surprising but that is the fact, all organisations can learn quite a few lessons in customer experience from him. 

He visited a college in Delhi & addressed students in a jam packed hall, massive rally in Punjab in June, he addressed massive rally in Hyderabad earlier this month,  he tops popularity chart for the post of PM of a country of our size.  He was not a national leader & still he has built his solid brand across India. Charisma is the word but this charisma is built by experience people are experiencing about him. 

First and foremost he has huge fan base in Gujarat because of work he has done for the people of Gujarat and decisive leadership he has demonstrated.  Many innovative schemes are implemented which have impacted the lives of the citizen in quite a positive way.  

After doing what matters to the citizen of his state he has shown mastery in communication skills. Not only his oratory skill but he has used all traditional as well as modern social media to showcase what he could achieve for the people of his state. We have the concept of bestselling books and not best written books. To convert best written book into bestselling book, book must communicate, readers of the book also must communicate about it. In his case perhaps he is best performing as well as best selling CM & this is only because of communication skills and effective use of mediums. You cannot afford to lack either. 

Now he is making people across the country believe that same kind of growth , faster decision making  , efficient & non corrupt bureaucracy which is on the edge to help, support & execute  & most important decisive leadership is possible. These are the pain points for the people in other states.  

Lessons are as under: 

1) Focus single Mindedly in creating wow !! Customer experience which in his case he has demonstrated by series of innovative measures keeping citizen interest & pain points at heart. All machinery at his disposal have been geared up to help people of the state. This has created millions of fan follower. 

Whether your organisation is single mindedly geared up to offer delightful customer experience ? How many fan following your product/service commands ? 

2) Distinctly communicate to potential customers what have you done for your existing customers and how have you impacted their life for the better.  Use all possible medium to communicate. Allow your FANs to use platform you create to communicate with your future customers. 

What & How are you communicating with your present & potential customers ?  For zappos.com , CEO Tony , message is clear Delivering Happiness, for Narendra Modi message is clear Development. What is your clear message to all your present and potential customers? (This will be more effective if this is otherwise a pain point for them).  

3) Demonstrate that you can address all pain points your potential customers are facing by their loyalty to competing brand. Your existing customer experience creating capabilities coupled with how that experience is addressing known pain points of customers is very important. 

Do you know what are the pain points of your potential customers which you can address ? 

1. Create an experience (change culture, design and execute) 
2. Communicate an experience (your fans will do it)
3. Communicate it is possible for all i.e. for your non customers (use all possible media)
4. Create Confidence that you can do it (all the above three at play at its best can do it) 

Lessons in CE are coming from everywhere, are you willing to look around & listen ? 

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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Is the BRAND you represent LOVABLE??

Which are the brands do u as a customer LOVE??? If you take too much time to think you don’t LOVE any.  If the name is on your sleeve that’s LOVE.  

Passion for Customer will make your Brand Lovable.  We all know LOVE is a two way game. Customer will LOVE your brand only if you love your customers. What we do for our loved one requires no mention.  Passion of not sales person and marketing team, but its passion at the TOP that matters the MOST.  Yes (mostly ignored) culture of the organization percolates down from the TOP.  “Shining in the sun like a pearl upon the ocean “ is the Hindi movie song  but it has a message for every enterprise.  Yes end to end experience to the customer from the brand must be like that. It should be shining and visible from among its 100s of competitors.
 

You should be clear leader and on top of the mind of your customer in your category. Whenever there is a talk about delightful customer experience expamples are given about brands like Starbucks and now Zappos.com or Kingfisher Airlines in India. Hardly MOST companies embrace WOW !! / Delight and Memorable Customer Experience as their business strategy.  Its never their in any Business Plan.
 

Zappos.com sends pleasant surprises to their customers along with orders . They invite customer,suppliers or anyone to visit their office in Las Vegas. I wonder why many companies even can not copy the best???
 

Entrepreneurs who celebrate their day to day business will delight their customers (even employees and suppliers too) . No one else.  What Laloo Culture could do to Bihar and what Nitish/Narendra Modi Culture is doing is for everyone to see. We are also witnessing what no culture at all can do at central leadership level. Its a clear case of CULTURE issue. Culture at the TOP matters the most. Bucks stops and start from there. Enterprise indulges in many many training programme for its people every year. True training deficit is mostly at the TOP { Who can tell their bosses/owners ???} .

Make it a point in next Management Meet  that objective worth pursing for next 12 months is Talk of the Town  { Customer Experience and Culture of Employee Happiness. } . No other strategies. Whatever it takes to achieve these two goals are the guiding actions. Period. Make your area of Influence a merrier place. Celebrate your entrepreneurial endavour. Its about brand in action & its also about CSR in action.

Note: We all know how miserable Loveless life could be. Same applies to your BRAND. 

Number ONE Business Strategy - Missing Completely from Agenda

Customer Experience is core of every business activities. Every enterprise either creates plain, awesome or miserable customer experience by its initiatives, day in and day out, everyday with every customer. WITHOUT FAIL. Irony is; still most, yes most enterprises do not have someone completely in charge of customer xperience alone. People are functional in-charge and CEOs are too thinly divided in various acts.

End Results: Endless run around to achieve targets, daily fire fighting, stressed employees, unhappy customers, unhappy employees, unhappy suppliers and of-course unhappy share holders.   Today’s enterprises are creators and perpetrators of Mass Unhappiness.

Delivering Happiness is the slogan of US online corporation zappos.com. Of-course they enjoy clear cut mileage over competitors in attracting customers, suppliers, talent and investors. They FOCUS on HAPPINESS of all the stake holders and naturally all the other relevant elements are taken care off by keeping HAPPINESS at the core. Just shift in perspective and they are in different ORBIT ( they do huge business and financially very sound also  ).

We have plenty of Business Strategists around but still - How many businesses have applied Happiness and Delightful Customer Experience as their Business Strategy??? { Company focus, actions & results will change , dramatically }.  There is something GROSSLY wrong the way today's enterprises are being managed. 

Further Required Reading : Seven Days Weekend (Written by Business Owner) , Happy Hours r 9 to 5 (Written by Happiness Consultant) , Delivering happiness (Written by Business Owner) .

2 MUST priorities for every Business Owners !!!! Yes MUST.

Most of us either want to buy our own home or have taken debt to buy our own home. Most of us do not want to do job but with no other option and hence compelled to do job to survive. Its not our natural choice. Yes, this is not any survey result but learning from KBC participants. I think its a representative class of the masses across the globe. 

Manoj Kumar produced Roti Kapda aur Makaan in early 70s. However Maakan has still remained a major problem for most of the population on the earth. How Pity!!!! People spend their lifetime earning to buy one home or indulge in debt which they keep paying during their lifetime. 

I think this is directly related to another inner feeling of masses of not like to do job /dislike their jobs. Shareholder-ism over people-ism is the major cause of this grave situation. People spend their lifetime in doing what they don't like!!!! What a waste , not of time but lives. 

It is the responsibility of every entrepreneurs/corporation to make sure that they do two things:

1)  Make their people love their jobs (Doing whatever it takes).

2) Working for Financial Freedom of employees before they think about shareholder expectations (We have hefty reserves and surplus in company balance sheets but employees working for these are in debt and not happy).

All of us must work to increase gross happiness of people working for us. All other CSR initiatives are meaningless without achieving this first milestone.

We have corporations like Tony of zappos.com (Entrepreneur and author of book Delivering Happiness) or Ricardo Semler (Entrepreneur and author of book - Seven Days Weekend) who thinks on this line.

Ricardo Semler "Concentrate on building an organization that accomplishes the most difficult of all challenges:  to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning"

Yes making work/jobs interesting is MOST important and difficult responsibility of the business. 

Two takeaway - Making jobs interesting & employees reap benefits of success and shareholder should not earn at the cost of employees.

Only Sales , no after Sales , forget RETURN or Refund

Zappos.com return policy is exciting - 365 days return & free both ways shipping. Neither shipping charges within the US nor shipping charges on goods u return. 

Customer HAPPINESS is the FINAL agenda not getting money from customer any how & then let the customer go to hell, we will not listen.

Justdial.com , brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. Their sales people sales the plan for 1 year and indicate that in case intermittent termination just write to us and we will do the needful. (Mis-sell to fulfill their targets)

However actual picture is quite different. They will hardly respond to your complaints, neither they cancel or stop EMIs if the customer is not happy. They want to complete the contract period any how irrespective of customer happiness or satisfaction. 

Wording they use: "However, as per the contract signed by you, we will not be able to hamper the tenure of the contract before the stated contract period; however we will always provide services to you for enhancing your business profoundly. Hence we will be unable to discontinue the ECS."

 

{ I visited the net to find customer stories with Just Dial and found the link http://www.consumercomplaints.in/bycompany/just-dial-a30775.html }

They are ready to whatever but not refund of money of discontinue of ECS. Pity. Hope Mr. Amitabh Bachchan or rather some customer champions could have been used to change the company culture instead of promoting uncultured (i.e. no customer centric) brand.

I fail to understand why companies want to earn at the cost of customer unhappiness?? When a person  becomes a customer , there are certain expectations. No one will waste his or companies' time to buy and then return or discontinue without a reason. Unfortunately most companies became less interested in customer once the goods and services are sold and even least interested when customer have a complaint or want refund on return of goods.

Companies invest huge amount on brand ambassadors but hardly any time or investments on actual brand experience creation or culture change.   

However SOCIAL MEDIA will change this mindset of the companies. Companies MUST learn this  proactively or else brand value is at stake (Huge and Quick).