Excellence in Customer service - A Network Experience - Part II

“That’s a problem! Can you push it to 14 days? I have some urgent work”. I promised to try and followed it with the head office. It was an uneven fortnight and the SP promptly called on the 13^th day which was a Wednesday. Luckily the machine had arrived. I told him that we would deliver and install the machine on Friday. “As you know sir tomorrow is Deepavali and it is a off for us”. “That is right” he said.

“But it would be nice if you can install it tomorrow itself as I have to make a presentation to the District Collector. Try your best. I know it is not possible, but that’s my need” Saying this he dropped the phone. By his voice I could make that he was annoyed and upset. But he was too much of a gentleman to shout at me.

I went to my RM (regional manager) and explained the situation. My RM could understand my predicament. We loved the customer at Network and we wanted to serve him at all times. My RM was helpless. Deepavali was the biggest festival of India and there was no person who was willing to work on a festival day. The problem was that the district was 250 kilometers away and that meant that the entire day would be spent in delivering and coming back to Hyderabad.

I volunteered to take care of the training. Electronic typewriters were considered to be technically advanced and all customers were trained in the usage of the typewriters.  I went to the service deportment and explained the situation. A service engineer Durga Prasad accepted the challenge and volunteered to take care of the installation.

On Deepavali we started out at 6 in the morning, took a train and travelled till 11. Finally we reached the destination. A royal reception was waiting for us. There was a police jeep waiting for us.

Our day was very eventful. The SP of Police was delighted by our gesture to install the typewriter on Deepavali. We were given royal treatment. It was customarily to eat only vegetarian food on Deepavali. Otherwise I was very sure that we would have been treated with the tastiest non vegetarian dishes!

We installed the machine, trained the typist, and showed him how to make good presentations. The SP was overjoyed. We were dropped off at the railway station. It was almost 10 in the night when we reached Hyderabad. The bursting of the crackers (the highlight of Deepavali) had already ended.

Yes that Deepavali had become a normal working day for me and Durga Prasad. But we had achieved something that will last for a life time. We had succeeded in delighting the customer who will remember us and Network for a life time. Yes we were the company that sacrificed our Deepavali so that our customer’s day would be lit up like the Deepavali night. 

Excellence in Customer service - A Network Experience - Part I

The year was 1988 and I was a sales executive with Indian Communications network Limited. Network was the market leader in the Electronic Typewriter Industry and it was famed for its ace sales people. Way back in 1988 we were marketing successfully typewriters worth more than Rs 50,000/-.  Even our cheapest typewriter was over Rs 10,000/- rupees.

On that eventful day I was the office sales executive. Office sales executive is the backup sales executive. The city had many sales executives and the office sales person takes the place of the sales executive who is on leave or if all the sales executives are present then he is stationed in the office to take care of the walk in prospects (walk in prospects are customers who might walk into the office to buy a product).

At around 1600 hours a prospect did walk in. He was a strapping man who had ripping muscles. He appeared to be quite knowledgeable. He asked us many intelligent questions. It was crystal clear that he not a window shopper. We had to tread more carefully. May be this man meant business!

The prospect asked for a demonstration. I along with our stores in charge R.C.Raju demonstrated the typewriter. We were still very skeptical. In those days a sale could not be transacted so very easily. We had to struggle and make many sales calls and slog for many months before we could get the dream document - the purchase order.

We had come to know that by that time that our prospect was a Superintendent of Police (SP) from a district in Andhra Pradesh. He was fond of technology and wanted a electronic typewriter to make his correspondence more professional and appealing. The SP quietly watched the demonstration and said “I will take it. How much does it cost?”

My heart skipped a beat. It was like struggling to see Sachin Tendulkar for a second and suddenly coming to know that Sachin would be staying in your house for a week. We have been struggling to get order and here was a prospect who was dropping a order literally into my lap.

I gave out the financials and he quietly listened. He never asked for any discount. We watched with a open mouth as he took out the entire amount in cash (usually customers paid us 10% in advance and the rest 90% after lot of persuasion). We quickly made out a purchase order and got it signed by him. We gave him a receipt.

Things took an interesting turn. Our customer asked us as when we could deliver the electronic typewriter. “Minimum 21 days are needed” I added. Why 21 days?” I had to explain to him that the AP sales tax was 13.77% and the central sales tax was 4%. All our orders were booked directly to our factory at Noida.  The machines were delivered directly from our Noida factory to the customers. Of course the consignment was taken by us (with authorization from the customers) from the airport and delivered to the customer. 

Best Technology based innovations in marketing in the last ten years - Part II

6) Retargeting: Browsing the internet, many browers do feel that the advertisements for a particular company or brand keep following them from site to site. For marketers, retargeting provides a more intelligent way to run display advertising for prospects they might otherwise miss once the potential buyer moves away from their website.

7) Location Based Marketing: Local search, mobile device adoption, QR codes, online commerce all helps lead marketers to the concept of location based marketing. The integration of GPS allows for the accurate detection of a specific location, and mobile computers allow interactive media to be linked, for users to access data.

The small business is getting invested in location based media. According to Google, 20% of all searches are related to location.

8) Video: Technology innovation has made the internet more accessible and faster for the end user. 68 percent of households have broadband in the United States. “Broadband penetration” is now treated as a key economic indicator.

High speed internet has made video more accessible to the masses. According to comScore, in December 2010, 178 million people watched 33.2 billion videos, with the average viewer watching 187 videos per month in the U.S. In August 2010.

9) User Generated Content: The ability for the user base to create the content that drives website presence has taken off with the emergence of social media. Entering mainstream usage in 2005, almost every major site online has some form of user generated content (UGC) function in today’s marketplace, even if it is only a component of the organizations online presence. The ability to enable user generated content is the foundation for sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to become so successful.

10) Mobile Device Technology: The evolution of mobile device technology completely changed marketing scenario. The adoption of smart phones, tablet computers, and other mobile devices will continue to grow. Already in India there are more than 650 million cell phones and that is a penetration of nearly 65% of the total population. India now has more cell phones than public toilets.

Mobile device adoption must become a priority in B2C and B2B marketing strategy. We are in the cusp of a complete shift in how people will consume information.

Best Technology based innovations in marketing in the last ten years - Part I

Marketing is talked about as a live science. There are continuous innovations being tried out. Let us discuss some technology based innovations that are creating a Tsunami of change in the way the art of marketing is being practiced or will be practiced in the future.

1) 1-to-1 Personalization: 1-to-1 marketing (personalization) refers to marketing strategies applied directly to a specific consumer. With four main steps in the process (identify, differentiate, interact and customize), organizations like Amazon, Nike, and Dell all leverage one-to-one marketing campaigns in their overall marketing mix.

2) Gamification: Beyond Angry Birds and Farmville, the concept of gamification refers to the use of game design techniques to solve problems and engage audiences. When one shares something in places like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, by way of the “progress buttons” illustrating the number of shares and likes it is gamification. Additional methods of gamification that have become more widely adopted include Achievement “badges”, “leader boards” and virtual currency

The concepts within gamification tactics are getting more heavily integrated in employee recognition programs, wellness adoption programs, and even project management tools.

3) Group Buying: Group buying, also known as collective buying, might have been around for centuries, but widespread internet adoption has allowed group buying sites like Groupon and LivingSocial to thrive in today’s marketplace. Group Buying offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers would make the purchase.

4) Social Networking: Facebook and LinkedIn lead a growing number of public and private social networking communities, attracting all forms of networking, from purely personal to specific interests. When Google+ opened to the public last week, traffic was up 1,269% in one week, making the site the eighth largest social network on the Internet. The Google+1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day all over the web.

5) Inbound Marketing:  “inbound marketing is the use of inbound customer interactions as an opportunity to cross-sell and upsell products and services.”

The most concrete example of inbound marketing success came from the 2008 presidential race, when Barack Obama’s Internet Marketing strategist Chris Hughes leveraged blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and more social media platforms, to help build Obama’s campaign, and ultimately winning the Democratic Presidential nomination and election. 

Generation Gap!

One day my nephew was bemoaning the fact that they had only one car. He was saying it was not fair. I was lecturing my nephew about the fact that his generation should consider themselves lucky that they are going to the school in a car/auto/motorcycle. I told him “you are lucky, we had no option at all. We had to take the public transport and at times had to walk both to school and back to home". 

My father who was listening to the conversation piped in. He told me "your generations should consider yourself very lucky. My school was 8 kilometers away and every day I walked all the way to the school and back to the home. And I had no foot wear. My first foot wear was bought when I was doing intermediate (11th)". 

The travails of three generation of school going children were apparent in the gasps of amazement given out by me and my nephew.