Consumercy

just doing the so called job

"Were you happy with the pizza,Sir" asked the Pizza Corner customer relationship exec over the phone. "The Pizza was fine. But took almost an hour to be delivered"."Sorry Sir, but we don't 'penalize' our delivery boys". !..no make that !!!!...(conversation continues)...."And it would be great to have mustard sauce sachets with the delivery"..."sorry sir, we don't provide that"......

The question is, Why the hell did she call me up???? 92% of the customer care execs (or some such big chunk) around the globe are just making calls because it's their job..they get paid for it. And the norm demands it.

Perhaps they are not to be blamed at all. Each 'goodfornothing' CC interaction speaks of the organization turning human factor into miming cultists. And perhaps speaks of it's appraisal system resting on several such procedural calls and other routine'ry performed to the detail.

Point: The customer is the one step shop for ideas pertaining to consultancy, marketing, advertising, branding, you name it. Instead of paying loads to "accredited" professionals to do the same, appraise your CC execs based on how many customer's ideas they get in.

Marketeers say, 'satisfying every consumer is impossible'. Bullshit. For every mustard sauce delivery request processed, thousands of mustard loving consumers get satiated at one go! For every 'unpenalized' delivery boy, the system stays the same to irk thousands more.

Put a chair. Sit across 1 customer. Ask him what all will 'absolutely' quell him. The minutest of descriptions. 10 customers later you would have sufficed 10 million.

Also: Put the name and if possible the photograph of the consumers who suggested the changes, on your website or message-board . Let all else see & know that they are a part of the organization rehab procedure.

Let your CC-Execs know that they are out there fulfilling and facilitating a greater role than just bleating bromidic verses,than just doing their so called jobs.

air travail and another thought

Oh, yes almost skipped this one on my prior post on wishful thoughts. Last trip on Continental, I suddenly got a li'l itchy, the flight just having taken off. Could've been the seat-cover, the pillow, the food, the beverage, the toilet handle, the ear-plug. whatever. Such mischances don't just bother. What bothers is the lack of remedial measures.

The airlines hadn't stocked on anti-allergens. The question is, on the flight everyone is travelling and which traveller might not need an anti-allergen...and even if he didn't need it, wouldn't appreciate being supplied with it...just in case.

I see a huge chance to make a dent..graciously, in the minds of the consumer. An XYZ anti-allergen pharma co. signs a deal with the airline. Anti-allergen is provided to each passenger in the travel kit. Even if he does'nt use it, he sees the pharma brand again and again over his travels.

The airline gets tagged as being 'thoughtful'. The drug gets a recall value. The consumer travels minus dermal eruptions.

(little thoughts) i would like to see...

Product makers and marketeers lack instinct. And the senses to comprehend them. Now 'am into the business of getting paid making tons of presentations, proposals and reports, as consultants are. Whether one  likes it or not, one hasta do it on microsoft word or powerpoint. Whether microsoft likes it or not, I have clients not just in USA.

So I have 10 billion people who would like to read 'dispatch' as 'despatch'. And many more such words. And I'am bloody tired of MS spell check throwing up red underlines every time I type a word the un-American or the un-specified way! Everytime I toggle between Indo-American-British-Singapore-French english i need to keep on switching editors even though i know what i'am typing. Why not make it intelligent enough to accept words as correct in either languages rather than manually specify it or having to set it as default?

Talking of mindless marketing, why not have 'sniff-pads' pasted on each perfume-deo canister or bottle for people to get their sniff not having to tamper with the seal or empty up 'tester-samples', or put up with fake-smile reps.

Favorite marketing jag is the " 'footfalls'-turning-to-sales" maxim. hyuk-hyuk.

No, not company or product logos please. The wearer does'nt wanna look like your brand hawker. Captions, quips, graffitis that echo your brand ethos and so does the wearer's are welcome. Have' em on your t-shirts, bags, mugs, shopping bags etc and let the watched and the watcher be enticed to uncover your brand.

Point.Try to emulate the consumer's instinct, his first reaction to your offering. Don't let it drown in too many brains, storms, meetings and plans. What does your own consumer's instinct say.Good? take it up. Don't think 'for' them.Think 'like' them.

Permalink to a previous wishlist.

be spruced up or be suitable

You alter yourself to suit the suit. Natty dressing not just stilts everyone's expectations of you, but yours from yourself. Decked in Armani, you can't bargain, scratch your crotch or eat mustard oozing hot-dogs.

Clothes leave an impression. That can't be helped. Good or bad, is well your call. I personally have a set of 'on-shopping' clothing. Worn out jeans, spoiler cuff shirts, t-shirts, hipsters, sneakers, casio pro-trek, et'al.  Leaves a sad impression. And mind you, that's swell.

If you are moderately sane, moderately loaded and moderately narcissistic you don't want 'em sales gals and guys to be flocking you, trying to make the costliest pitches to you, diverting you to Abercrombies and Versace's,  gazexamining you hair to heel.

But for the store camera's extra-timing you, you can enjoy un-intrusive shopping. Suits me.

Point. Clothes are essential. As a seller or a consumer. As a consumer, one who likes being serviced or one who loathes prodding. Conducive-clothing helps, depending on which part you are out to play.

from the outside, looking in

33 brokers, 7 localities, over a hundred streets and definitely a couple of hundred miles later i'am yet shelterless. I'am out house hunting and it's over two weeks. Started with a moderate budget which is now inflated to the point  my cousins would envy. Only if I could get a house i could love to show-off.

I'am at a point, which perhaps many of us as consumers have visited. One wherein, we are out to purchase a 'love-at-first-sight-product'. We are willing to spend. And there indeed are a lot of products available to  siphon you out of that cash.... but none worth it.

The problem is a demand-supply heuristic that plays against the consumer. Necessities(as a house in my case), ought to be procured. Demand far outweighs the supply. And while prices are high, the supplier can slip by providing a kitchen with an attached bathroom. Ergonomics, architecture, quality is passable.

From the consumer's perspective, for everything purchasable there exists something better for a marginally higher price which another consumer is willing to pay. So you raise your bar..marginally. Few bars later you choke yourself. And you still don't have a house you love!

House owners stay in beautiful houses. What they however construct for tenants is not a house but a shelter to satiate nature's various calls. The same lopsidedness is vehement in most product and service streams. Ultimately, I as a consumer 'am frustrated. Come to think, all I wanted was to pay good for what's good.

One needs to ask oneself, whether the product he delivers on the fringe is the same he would love to possess/use as a consumer. An elementary self-check as this, is enough to bridge the manufacturer(marketeer)-consumer divide. Done this, where's the need for Kotler'ish marketing brouhaha and the works!

Can consumers be good marketeers? or shall they too cease to see the other man's perspective when they are that? can abiding citizens be good politicians, or just being a politician warps one to be the loathsome being that he is. Can one ever know for sure? After all, prior MBA's these very same people were suffering consumers ranting on supply-demand heuristics, marketing muck and thereof.

On High Collar Business Schooling

Interesting how MBA's from distant lands think alike on certain matters. Me, more like from here, and well Seth from far far away.

A write-up that got published the year before last and Seth's recent post.

Nonetheless, ideas become verdicts when they gather census.

Or, simply click below to read the stuff.

Download Learning_By_Degrees.pdf

worthy of one's hire?

200 people picked up at one go by one company from my grad school. How good is that? Considering that two hundreds of'em are not on the streets anymore sounds anything but an alarm. I bet they are happy. They who got picked. And they who picked. Life's a song now. A long one, me wonders.

Well, for sure there's a lot of economy fire brewing. $8 bn Forex addition in just a month(February). 300 or thereof corporate houses setting shop n offices. Sensex skimming 7000. Exports up 31%, 25000 recruitments in a month. Can't blame 'em stocking big on firewood when we've got a good fire going. But then such crescendo's are seldom harbingers of good times.

Simply put:  Employment exponential. Lotsa income money in the market. Expendibility high. Competition to bait these 'richer' consumers, fierce. Consumers per player, stiff. Reasons for synergy, valid. M  & A, unquestionable(what with P&G-Gillete, Oracle-Peoplesoft, Verizon-MCI,  SBC-ATT). Layoff's pertinent. (for someone has to rationalize costs post mergers)

Morning Star points out that 92% of Fund management groups opine mergers a top trend in 2005. Challenger, Gray & Christmas points out to the doubling of telecom layoff's alongside mergers in the vertical.

Do they even have a plan for such magnanimous workforce? Is there actually a great job waiting each one of'em in there? And if there isn't, then they shall be the first ones to be scalped when waves subside, for it has to.

I see a darker lining. Pharmas, IT, Finance and Energy co's are doling with Dividend-Payout ratios at 60-100%. One reads a lot of it in the papers. One reads a lot about mad hiring. One doesn't hear much about remarkable expansion plans. How could they pay investors as much, if they had any?

conforming to aliens

There is an awesome lot of trust that floats about. It does'nt seem just as much, but it does. We cross the road or drive our vehicles with unspoken or perhaps even unconcious trust in perfect strangers. That they won't come and dash us. That they'll follow the the protocols. That they'll be careful with us. Mischances apart, that is generally the case.

Everytime I shop on e-bay or Amazon, I realize that I tend to deliver myself to the choice of many. I tend to bid on the fare that draws more bidders. Outdoor shopping, one flocks to the sale that attacts hordes, no matter what better another sale has to offer. In a fair one visits the show that has a long queue. One reads what everyone is reading. The fact is, crowd attracts crowd. Like drops of mercury that coalesce, people tend to aggregate. An inherent subliminal faith takes over. The faith on unknown strangers, the faith that something so many are vying for ought to be good. The faith that we all out there shopping are on the same side. That we all are "Consumers" and belong to one mutually trustable clan.

In eat streets wherever, I sometimes tend to break the norm. Contrary to my inherent urges, I  patronize a shop that is not getting many customers. Believe me, sometimes it takes just one to start getting in the rest.

The idea is to create crowds. Be bizarre, appropriately enticing, or simply good. Get the trickle in, and the flow shall take over.

confute one to sell the other

Is it any surprise that each of us takes to trusting a dealer who points out a flaw in one of his wares and advises us against it. Guess not. We, innately believe that we know the best that there is. And even if we don't, we don't want anybody else pointing it out. So we take a dislike to anything that is thumped on to us as a verdict on someone else's  behalf. Much a marketing does that. Self efficacy.

Orators who begin their talks with quips on self-stupidity are lent eager ears. Divorce lawyers who denounce divorces are popular. Stores that pack free advices sell more than stores offering lower rates. Consumers need a second perspective. A point-of-view. Give 'em that and you have their faith. Faith translates to sales.

Point. It actually isn't a bad strategy to store a few odd shoddy items, only to advice your customers against it and divert them to better (and costlier) items on the fringe. They'll reel in. A good product shall be sold. You shall make money. Customer shall be happy. He shall speak his joy to ten more.