With the pundits, government and people believing that the economy is on an upswing, there are some learning’s that the past year or so has provided.

1) Stay the course - It is extremely relevant to continue on the same course, adopted in the past year such as control of costs, evaluate each project, product before taking a plunge, in short not to get swayed by the hubris of good times.

2) Capitalize on the spurt of business opportunities - The idea is to explore different business opportunities that have come up or grown with things looking better.

3) Capitalize on market place opportunities - The past couple of years have shown a trend that besides the metros, different niches & markets have sprung up, which would only grow in the years and it’s important to capitalize before it becomes to expensive.

4) Focus on consistent awareness - A key area, be consistent in creating awareness of your brand, product, merchandise through the bad & good times.

5) Acknowledge potential increase in consumer’s knowledge & changes in shopping behavior - The past year or two has shown a consumer who is intelligent, gathering knowledge from multiple sources & looking for value and as a brand it is critical that this is kept in mind.

6) Emphasize authenticity, optimism & connection - Piggy back on the optimism wave connecting to your consumers, sharing the authenticity of your brand and value provided to them.

7) Maintain constant and consistent dialog with loyal consumers - These are the people who have carried you through the turbulent times and it is important to keep in touch with them, talk to them continuously and consistently.

Focus on developed brands - Do not get gungho about launching a slew of brands, focus on the developed brands for the immediate two quarters before introducing new ones.

The word luxury bandied around these days is a clear misnomer. What was Luxury then is a part of a good life now.

In fact the sooner brands clear the gross misconception that

- Luxury is only for the rich & famous older population
- Luxury must be unaffordable to be appealing
- My rich & famous will always love me & only my brand.

the faster they would grow and this is extremely valid in India. What was thought of as luxury is now Lifestyle & more importantly the numbers have undergone a meteoric rise in this segment.

I have in the past written about Vodafone and my experiences here, here & here

It has been nearly a year after that, in the meantime I changed my handset twice over, finally settling for a BlackBerry Bold 9700, which entailed my going to the store, paying a year in advance, following up for nearly 48 hours and getting it activated.

During this time, Vodafone also made its presence on Twitter, where for nearly a month it got hammered for the EDGE services, since they had not intimated its customers about some hardware & systems upgrade.

In the past 4 months, I have had the experience of prompt service from them on the following aspects:

1) EDGE not being activated, had tweeted about it & in turn substantial people also joined in. Received a call from a young lady, who explained the problem and assured that it would be done by a time line which surprisingly they adhered to.

2) Once EDGE was activated, within a couple of days it stopped working, again tweeted about it, promptly someone from BlackBerry services replied with the problem & got Vodafone to call me. The same young lady provided an explanation and also assured me that I would not be charged for that month so effectively for my package now would be allowed 13 months. (I am yet to verify this, however, I have no complaints about such issues in the past & have found that they keep their word)

3) One month later, received a whopping bill, which charged me double, so back I tweeted about it, promptly the call came with reassurances that it would not happen and I could pay the correct amount; however a week later my ECS withdrew the entire amount & on tweeting the problem, the young lady called back with reassurances of my account being credited in the coming month’s bill etc.

Traveling, busy with work, I have decided to wait for the next month and verify this.

A lot of people have asked me why do I continue with Vodafone? Also told me that soon number portability shall come & then I can teach them a lesson.

My take is very simple:

a) At the end it’s a % game, losing customers is built in the business.
b) Who amongst all others is ready to guarantee that they shall provide better service?
c) I have been hearing Number Portability for the past 3 years & do not see it happening for maybe another year or so.

Yes, I have had problems & suppose would continue having them, but over the past couple of months their reaction albeit via twitter has been impressive & as far as I’m concerned as long as that continues I am happy with a known devil:)

CRM - Customer Relationship Management as it is called, though I prefer calling it Customer Retention Management.

It is the core component of effective brand visibility as well as resultant sales. Whilst, everyone jumps on the band wagon of CRM, they forget that concept needs to be tailored to their industry, brand, people which involves a fair amount of Personalization, Training and some Trend forecasting which should add some unique value to the brand.

The customer with variety of options has become quite fickle & loyalty is now at a premium.

It is quite interesting to see what companies have done in the recent past and how CRM is actually evolving rather than the same vanilla offering of card, points etc.

Shoppers Stop arguably has one of the best programs which they have invested a lot over the 10+ years.

Personally, I like the Future Group - Green Card - which offers instant gratification - 5 - 15% off on immediate purchase, no worries about collation of points etc. And mind you they offer this discount during their Sale time also.

Tata, Westside, Landmark et all offer the vanilla card calling it CRM but which is of no real use. You collect points and encash at their outlets, which is fine, but 1 point for Rs. 50/100 means spending a Lakh or more to get something worthwhile, but yes there are people who keep collecting these cards and then of course need a bigger wallet to carry all of them & then get a back ache because it digs into their rump.

However, there are some good samples of how some brands are changing rules of engagement; some of them

Brioni believes in intensive direct marketing & ensuring sale conversion in a consumer’s own space.

Ferragamo/Kenzo/Cavalli/Paul Smith/Canali all hold Trunk shows in different cities where they don’t have a retail presence. This enables luxury brands to increase not only their sales, but also customer brand awareness, before they finally take the plunge to enter the location.

Emporio Mall in Delhi introduced the concept of Personal Shoppers probably the first time in India where an experienced stylist finds clothes & accessories that fit your tastes, size & budget thereby increasing probability of a sale at relatively low cost and it worked well, but I do not know if it still continues.

Some brands inc liquor brands began referral programs, which were a bit different than the Pyramid scheme or member get member scheme, but these eventually die out, having finished its cycle.

Then of course there are those extended distress sales; SMS marketing; New Brand Ambassadors but is this really aggressive marketing or retailers fear a spillover effect of brand equity dilution.

But in this broad spectrum of generation, catchment, geography that one needs to address in India the only ones that shall succeed would be those who would be able to communicate across multiple channels, quickly, crisply and answer the consumer’s basic question “What is in it for me”?

After a lot of discussions, debates, advice I had opted for a custom DELL XPS M1330 in March 2008.

Except for a couple of small glitches (more to do with my being a technical retard) the order placement, delivery etc. was all seamless.

I loved working on it (though at times I did miss the finish of my Sony VAIO) but you cannot have everything.

In June 2009, I had done some editing for my daughter’s presentation, but before I could copy it for her, the screen went black:( And the next day we had to leave for Pune with it.

In desperation called DELL, quoted all the numbers etc. was assured that by 12 noon the next day, a technician would be there to ensure that it would work soon.

So whilst the old copy was there & started work on it again, hoping against hope that DELL would deliver. Mind it! They did - promptly at 11.45 am their technical support came with a large box & upon enquiry was told that “Sir, you had opted for 3 yr on site warranty, so I need to change the panel, including the motherboard” Wheee, it took him an hour & half but the complete new DELL was ready & raring to go!

Now only if they work out a super NETBOOK, I do not have to opt for Lenovo or Asus!

It is rightly said that “There’s no such thing as a Free Lunch” & ATM usage is a classic example.

A couple of months ago, there was a huge hue & cry about how now you could access through any Bank; in fact I had tweeted saying this is going to be a service problem & could not last. In fact whilst the going was good also, there were many service issues.

There were substantial increase, nearly 25%  in the number of ATM transactions since 1st April 2009.

Banks ideally should have upgraded their systems, but that means money which they were unwilling to invest, besides in India, consumers are last priority, so there!!!

For the uninitiated the following process, with minor variations is followed by two different banks for the ATM usage:-

An Kotak Bank ATM card holder swipes his card at an HDFC bank ATM, where the ATM links to its own network to verify card. On confirmation, transfers requisite data to the Bank switch, which then connects to its banking network, thereby processing the transaction. Then there is the handshake between the two banking networks before the cash is spat out.

And all this is in 30-45 seconds. A lot of it does not work, due to hardware, software, connectivity incompitability, whereby you are left without cash & searching for another ATM.

So instead of making life simpler for the consumer, the Banks now have come up with another offer - More than 5 transactions & you would be charged 20/- per transaction - brilliant, nobody will notice, life will continue as it is.

But I fail to understand, why does the premier bank not do anything about this? Do they not understand or wish to ignore the consumer plight?

Having been meaning to visit the Speciality Mall Ishanya managed to do so on the recent visit to Pune.

A lovely Mall, with ample of space, set in one end of Pune near the golf course is a very nice piece of architecture. And there ends the good things.

Some points that one notices….

• Directions are a bit vague if you go from any other road
• Security is a bit lackadaisical
• Lots of Parking
• Mall seems to be only 1/3 full

Desperation seems to be evident, because renting out the space in the atrium to churan stalls & some low competition is just not happening.

Yes, the recession can be blamed but there is a lot of catchment driven activity that the mall authorities need to undertake now especially to make it happen for the tenants.

I received a call from vodafone a while back. The young lady spoke to my wife, who after the first couple of questions dumped the phone in my hands & walked off to do whatever wives do during lunch hours!!

The young lady started with a bang —–

• Sir, May I have your name (If you have called me, then you would have it)
• Sir, Company only gives us series of numbers (Huh! By just connecting to the computer & MTNL directory this problem should be solved)
• If you have 3 vodafone post paid numbers, we shall give you 1 more free & change all to a new plan where for Rs 160 each all 4 of you can speak unlimited to each other. AND we shall change your billing plan to .60p for within circle & Re. 1 for national for phone & text yada yada yada (Duh!!! Hold on madam, why would I want to do that? I am currently on a plan where it is .50 p circle & national for both voice & text.)
• OK no problem sir, then how about the offer of Rs. 160 (We do not speak worth Rs. 640 in either case)
• OK no problem sir, we have another offer for senior citizen yada yada yada (Sorry not interested, can you offer me something better than my current plan for data & voice?)
• Sir, we are not authorized to offer anything other than this.

Phew!! I have not understood what kind of marketing does Vodafone expect to achieve with this. Because I think this is the old tried & tested funnel theory. Call as many as you can, speed talk them, pick up documents, issue activated card, bill them. Repeat next day, week, month AND the DSA (direct sales agents get Rs. 100 - 150 per subscriber)

A couple of weeks ago, on a thursday, back from the gym, with nobody at home decided to grab a subway @ infiniti mall.

After passing through the mandatory checks, parked the car & took the lift up to the food mall.

Since it was already late & a couple of nice english movies waiting at home, decided to grab a take away. Once the packing was done,  tried to take a lift to the basement. With the light still on, the lift refused to come up from the basement. Besides me a couple of other people with children were waiting peacefully.

Finally we went to the other side, where I asked the security, who told me that after 9 pm only one lift worked. Fair enough, in fact good that electricity conserving was being implemented. BUT, upon being asked that it was after 9 that I had come up & why was there no notice informing visitors of the same. No answer except the standard one, please ask the office.

So down I went in my citizenary zeal & asked the customer service who looked completely blank at me, maybe since I interrupted his personal call to his girlfriend or whatever. After making me repeat the questions twice, he called the Security head, who had his own version & called the security gaurds, firing them for not informing me, coolly side stepping the fact of the notice.

Anyway NO ANSWER except being asked to call up the Infiniti Mall Office on 26374530 the next day and check with them. But yes they asked me not to take photos:)

YES! Did so twice, some vague, white wash offered & today more than a month later still NO SIGN!

I do not understand

• Why Malls cannot spend a small amount on communicating with consumers?
• Why citizens prefer to take the easy way out, instead of following it through?

It is small things like this which ensure that lethargy continues, the same corporators win, the same lok sabha shall come & all this Jaago Re! shall remain Soja Re!……

It was quite a pleasant shock to receiving money back when one handed over a large note for 2 tickets at a nearby multiplex.

Whilst I guess there are numerous reasons for the price reductions & why not? If everyone can do it.

However I have always been curious to know, why do the multiplex chains not weave in the loyalty factor, so to speak.

A couple of examples may illustrate this point -

A couple of friends are always keen to either watch a movie on thursday night (paid preview) or friday night i.e before any review clutters the mind. It is painful to find out if there is a paid preview, when would booking open (thanks to yashji undecided whether to release in multiplex etc) amongst other. Can there not be a card with the prefixed seat number for a month/quarter/year that one could buy (this could be for 1/2/4 seats) so that one is assured of the seat, the multiplex is assured of income in advance, which overcomes the problem of discount being offered. Here there can be variants…..such as days; combos etc. that could be introduced.

And now cutting prices - at 40% why not try out the 1:1 for people, movies, timings what have you. Take a leaf off the pizza guys.

And yes I know, some of them do have offers, unfortunately the conditions are so constraining that you just decide to give up.

AND MY FAVORITE - Just like the airline, pizza, mcdonald etc. Why can you not offer the add on/Up sell in the beginning, when tickets are bought - Sir would you also like to order your coke, popcorn, samosa to be brought to your seat…..this can work on internet, tele booking & of course the counter.

This keeps customers happy; allows logistical planning & more important adds revenue!!

Multiplex owners write into me for more nuggets:)

Multiplexes cut movie ticket prices by 40%