Overservice

Few days back, a friend of mine availed courier service to transport her vehicle from one city to another. Now this post isn’t about how bad their customer service is but it’s about over-service.

Some of the reasons for me to reach the tipping points are:

• They kept on SMSing every half an hour about the whereabouts of the shipment to enforce that they are working well until I started cursing them.
• This process of enlightenment went on whole night to piss me off.
• I’m not too sure that they have something called “BUZZ OFF” option in SMS tracking.

This is not all. The height of serviceability is that the consignment didn’t reach me on time and it got delayed for a day.

So what you make out of it? When you are promising world-class service to your customer, remember to carry it all along the way. Otherwise, the chain breaks and the customers don’t like it. And I don’t think I’ve to mention what happens next- THEY IGNORE!

So remember, the maxim was right all way through- Under-Promise & Over Deliver. But if you have already put yourself in high regards in front of your customers, leverage on it. Don’t pull it down by your stupid execution.

Accountability, Metrics & Marketing

Thought about this ever: CEO's of most companies nowadays have come from Sales/Marketing background; though there are exceptions like Indra Nooyi etc. Why is it so? Has marketing become so hot nowadays that they are occupying a relevant/strategic position in every company.

How I see it is a bit differently. It's not marketing which has become like a hot-pancake but the functions that modern marketing under takes. For example Accountability viz. ROI, Return on Sales and so on & so forth. This single parameter is responsible to take Marketing to its zenith. Not forgetting marketing is sole responsible to understand, interpret and satisfy customers (though it shouldn't be - I can post about it sometime later). So most customer interfacing companies have Marketing folks as their heads. (READ THIS on the "Sorry State of Marketing")

Moving forward, today I read an article on TNS Unveiling "In-Store Metrics" For Grocers. This clearly shows the trend we are following i.e. more & more stress on metrics and accountability in Marketing. Though I personally believe it is important but when your differentiation factor diminishes because of you keeping track on metrics and stuff like that, then who's the loser on a longer perspective? YOU!

So more & more companies should try understanding one fact: THEY KNOW YOU ARE MARKETING! So stop marketing and start getting into conversations. And when you get into it, you exactly know whom you are conversing with and metrics & stuff like that can be taken care off easily (remembering that it's always important to check & measure) as your conversational audience will care about you. So stop acting like day-to-day operational firm and get into more conversations with your audience.

Interesting versus Boring Customers

Ask this question before thinking why you hit southwards in your balance sheet. It is not that your product is worth nothing or your market strategy is bullshit. How about this proposition: Are you targetting the right customers? In this media-frenzy society where everyone is connected somehow, either via SNS like Facebooks, MySpaces etc or through Twitter, Friendfeed blah blah, so how can you think that your customers are not influencing each other. They are!

So that makes segmenting and targetting the right customers all the more important.

Look at the proposition above. When smart & interesting people talk about you or your product/brand par se, it generates something invaluable which your stupid ads doesn't since they are more often than not slapped on the customers face when they never wanted it in the first place. But targetting those invaluable customers who wants to listen about you makes sense since he will do the last bit of word of mouth for you.

Now the million dollar question is how you can you find those interesting people who can turn out to be your customers? Remember loyalists, early adopters, early innovators- It's just a clue.

Please comment/criticize/appreciate and discuss from your own experiences.

Indian Internet Audience Growth is highest in Asia-Pacific

Comscore recently published the growth in Internet audience for Asia Pacific region, with India registering highest growth for the first time. According to the figures, India stands 3rd after China and Japan in the total number of Internet Audience.

Until now it was all hunky-dory. But before going crazy about the position of No.1 the moot question to be asked is How many v/s Who? And also the comparison would be meaningless without thinking about how much is our population vis-a-vis China (data above shows that how much is China ahead of us). So the growth percentage looks good on paper but otherwise quite debatable in this context.

237 Interesting Conversations

Though I’m late at sharing something but as they say it’s never too late. So I’m posting it now. We are inching close to the August release of The Age of Conversation 2008. What’s interesting are two things which caught my attention: One is that 237 authors will be sharing their stories and insights which itself is an eye-opener (Oh it’s for a noble cause too) and secondly 3 Indian authors figure in the list. Check it out for yourself and correct me if I’m wrong @ sampad.s[at]gmail.com

So here is the long and quite impressive list of linklove & 237 conversations as Greg Verdino would say in alphabetical order:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

So enjoy reading!

Empowered Customers

If you can read what is written in the inset picture, then the idea of empowered customers would be easier to understand.

The old proverb says "Pen is mightier than sword" and I believe the maxim is most true in case of irritated, disgusted and frustrated customers who wants to pay back hard to those nosy service companies.

Read this post & also this one too, then you will get a bigger picture where we as customer stand and how can we turn our dissatisfaction into something which these companies will take seriously for their lousy and lame services.

This is what Joseph Jaffe did i.e. made a group of dissatisfied customers and tried to unified their voices into one and give it back to the service companies.

I guess, in the web 2.0 era, we as customers can be more proactive in protesting bad customer service.

So in today's world, if your business model's vision & mission considers customers as core to their processes then be sure to consider them as core and not someone from whom you generate just revenues. Or else once in a while customers will rise from their slumber and knock you down. Ask Dell and many more.

India's Most Trusted Brands of 2008 (A Goofy Analysis)

The report is out. Economic Times' Brand Equity has published the list of India's Most Trusted Brands Survey.

The top ten brands are :-

1. Nokia
2. Colgate
3. Tata Salt
4. Pepsodent
5. Ponds
6. Lux
7. Britannia
8. Dettol
9. Lifebuoy
10. Vicks

The top ten service brands are

1. LIC
2. Airtel
3. State Bank of India
4. Reliance Mobile
5. BSNL
6. Tata Indicom
7. Indian Oil
8. Hutch/Vodafone
9. ICICI Bank
10. Bank of India

Ok. We have reached to this point. Now what? As in what can we infer from this survey results. I somehow see some pattern/trend in the results. First, most of the top ten trusted brands are those which belong to FMCG category. Second, most of them slap those irritating "please buy me ads" on our face every where we go, so recall would be high for them. Third, remember recent IPL (Indian Premier League) where Nokia co-authored the Kolkata Knight Riders story along with endorser Shah Rukh Khan. So visibility is high.

So is there any correlation between ads slapped onto our face and brand recall. Now one suggestion would be please go back to their balance sheets and see how many of these brands are making profits to that extent since quantitatively speaking they should make huge profits since they are most trusted ones amongst consumers.

So last question is do they truly reflect our true trust on these brands remembering the fact that No.1 trusted brand Nokia was in middle of a much heated debate about "Overheating of Battery". So the old marketing adage "Under-promise & Over-Deliver" doesn't work in this context. What a co-incidence?

Anyway congrats from my part to figure in such a list (pun intended!).

Slidepost: Endless Innovation's Trends

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The slides gives a brief overview of 4 major trends that are creating new opportunities in business. Some of these trends are a synthesis of existing developments and ideas, while others are so brand new, they haven't even been named yet.

The slide broadly speaks out about 4 trends:

(1) Social Data

(2) Micro-Payments for Online Social Experiences

(3) Content Mashups

(4) "Live" experiences (that really aren't "live")

Related Posts:

• Slidepost: Branding 2.0 & Social Media
• Slidepost: Innovate to Differentiate
• Slidepost: Global State of Social Media

Social Media Simplified: CommonCraft does it again

Sachi and Lee LeFever of CommonCraft does it again with "Social Media in Plain English".

Oh, by the way, if your are still thinking what the hell is Social Media and why is media and people like us from the blogging fraternity are going bonkers (if I may say so), then definitely this 3:44 minute brilliant piece from CommonCraft will help you.



So go ahead, give yourself and your customers a chance to do something different because "EXPERIENCE IS THE NEW REALITY" and sure social media and its various tools (or I should say cheap yet effective) will come handy.

Till then enjoy this one and full marks to CommonCraft.

Related Posts:

• Video: Twitter Simplified
• RSS Simplified- How *RSS* can make your life easier

Interesting Consumer Behavior Insights (A Study)

It seems like my work schedule has a deep repercussion on my blog posts. Still trying to manage it :-)

Now getting back to this post, found an interesting study from the field of academics. Erik Ottoson from Uppsala University has some interesting insights on consumer behavior. The topic being "Seeking One's Own: On Encounters Between Individuals and Objects" (Download the pdf here).

The ongoing study broadly talks about :

....individuals search for objects. It follows people through flea markets, refuse skips, shopping streets and malls. The aim of the thesis is to study the search for things and how it influences individuals and their relations to objects and the places in which they search.

The thesis focuses on what is termed "SERENDIPITOUS SEARCHING"– i.e. an activity of open browsing for anything that awakens the person’s interest. That means that the people in the study are not just looking for certain things – they are also seeking to come to terms with what they are actually looking for. Ideals of what is beautiful, useful and reasonable materialise in conjunction with the experience of what is available and what is absent or out of reach. It is suggested that this mode of looking for goods is not only about purchase deliberations, but more importantly is a specific way of interacting with the world and making places meaningful. It can be viewed as a way of creating and moderating anticipation, and thereby cultivating affect. Searching for things thus becomes an experiential horizon.

Part I: “Searching and Space” deals with how searching for something becomes a specific way of engaging with the physical surroundings. The landscape becomes a taskscape, i.e. an array of physical structures linked together by a set of related activities.

Part II, “Discoveries and Rubbish” explores how the activities of searching charges objects with qualities. Through two different environments, searching is analysed as a way of elevating things from the status of rubbish to one of discovery.

Part III: “From the Horizon of Finding” focuses on how the searchers’ aims are transformed when they encounter the objects that really exist.