Miracle called Deep Red Ink

Deep Red Ink, as I think about the name it reminds me of the explanation behind the name which ran into number of pages. Well today I will consider it as an accomplishment as CEO of Dot Now Social. But when I accepted the invitation of Santhan and Deepti to be part of the ecology it was an easy, obvious and humbling choice.

DRI is an ecology formed to support great ideas. DRI is not any other business, not one that can be defined by the boundaries of capacity and limitation of bandwidth. DRI is a “concept business” which is all about supporting great ideas driven by passionate entrepreneurs.

DRI is a concept business, in many ways but this is my favorite, because of the way it is structured. DRI is an ecology of 6 partners.Santhan, Deepti, Anil, Netrix, Quick Silver & Dot Now Social. The structure of the partnership is that all revenues are divided between the 6 partners equally irrespective of who participates in a particular project in what capacity. I’ve been enamored by entrepreneurship and enterprises for over 4 years, and have studied business models with the vigor of a geek, but DRI beats them all. To common sense it does not appeal, nor does it sound totally logical, even remotely viable. But it is perhaps the most interesting journey of my entrepreneurial journey to see DRI evolve as a sustainable, profitable and growing business.

I’m very glad to be part of the DRI experience. Please read the original post to get the whole picture. Thanks All.

Customer Feedback – SBI Best Practice

Couple of months ago I was at a conference organized by Conscious Capitalism Institute in Mumbai. Easily the best session was by Mr. O.P.Bhatt the chairman of the State Bank of India. The man being credited with turning around the giant public sector enterprise. He spoke in depth about the “Parivartan” (meaning “change”) program which touched every single employee at the bank. The strategic initiatives of getting their basics right are obviously visible with the bank’s stock performing much better than the market.

There are a couple of things that he said I would like to highlight before talking about the SBI case. One was the initiative to sensitize the staff of the bank that the average customer who has a savings bank account with Rs.5000 balance or a Rs.50000 fixed deposit, its lakhs of these average customers who provide the bank with required cash to conduct its earning ways. The other was about Parivartan2, a program to help the employees of SBI find purpose in their job.

To see SBI and its functionality for myself, few weeks ago I stepped into a newly opened branch in Hyderabad. Quite expectedly I had to move from one counter to another to another in a small branch of 6-7 employees to open a savings bank account. Finally the assistant branch manager gave me a form and thats all he could do. He couldn’t tell me about the features of the account, detail forget selling it to me. Obviously disappointed with I began to walk out while i noticed a print-out stuck on the wall which read “If not satisfied with our service please SMS “UNHAPPY” to 8008202020 I immediately messaged UNHAPPY to that number, not expecting much from a Govt. run bank.

Much to my surprise I got a call from the local head office enquiring about my grievance. Once I explained to them what had happened, the assistant branch manager called me to ask me why I complained. I tried to reason that I was present in the capacity of a customer and was to be treated like one, not as a burden. Thoroughly disappointed by their rather rude behavior again I text messaged UNHAPPY.

Within half an hour I received a call from the branch manager politely enquiring about the incident. After giving me a patient hearing, he apologized and invited me to pay a visit again to the branch the next week with in which period he wanted to “counsel” his staff about behaving better with customers. Not convinced by his explanation (which I truly thought was very appropriate) I said I required to open an account immediately and couldn’t wait for his improvement of service and that I needed to choose my banker soon. He immediately as a gesture offered to personally come down to my office, take the required documents and open my account.

This was an excellent experience but it didn’t end there. Couple of days back I received another call from the Local head office enquiring about the status of my complaint, if it had been resolved, if I needed to escalate it etc. This follow up was again impressive.

The entire experience left me spell bound. A Govt. Run enterprise, with supposed red tape, with one of the strongest banking employee unions was able to deliver this kind of service. First round of applause for the bold initiative to take up asking customers to complain at will through a simple text message. Second round of applause to the branch manager, who would be a fairly senior officer, dealing with smallest of customers (just a savings bank account with a minimum balance of Rs.1000), carefully treading the path of managing his staff who would be protected by very strong labor laws & unions by not taking action but by “counseling” them. Third applause for following up and making sure the grievance is being attended to.

Since the experience my respect for the banking giant, SBI, has grown a notch higher. It makes me wonder what stops every business in the service industry from putting in place such a strong feedback system. It is more than worth investing in feedback from customers. If an elephant like SBI can do it, so can everyone else. Looking forward to my clients of the service industry implementing such robust feedback mechanisms and that this fever spreads across the world. Businesses which are not customer centric will have to fade away into oblivion.

UPDATE: SMS UNHAPPY has been nominated for eIndia mGovernance initiative of the Year Award. It is being implemented across 1100 SBI branches in AP serving over 14 million customers. In 6 months they have received 11000 complaints and have resolved 96% of them. ISB has taken up the project as a case study and is likely to implement it as part of course curriculum. Read more. Vote for SMS UNHAPPY.

Recession Times – Best time for Branding: Real Estate melt down means better time for Branding – validated by example

Its news to few that today’s great economic slowdown is thanks to a real estate melt down. Experts, many of them, said it was the best time to indulge in branding.

Just last week I saw a great example of the connection. In Hyderabad, I visited the manager of a leading Mall/SC. The manager was ready to offer prime space at throw away prices. Slots which he had rejected on offer, and quoted exobidantly is on offer for peanuts.

Builds a case for a strong branding exercise. The footfalls have only come down marginally but the once cash rich big wigs are now protecting their reserves. Time for SMEs to jump into action and build a great brand for themselves.

If the story is like this of the leading mall, the fate of others is only given. Well SMEs, jump into action, grab the pie before its too big to bite again.

How brands get complacent and lose customer focus? Do they succeed? Will they eventually succeed?

Complacency is a much hated word and often used and is vary apt many a time… many people get complacent and do not pay attention to minute detail… but many a time it may happen that some important detail is also not paid attention to and this is a clear sign of decline..

Today as part of a research exercise I was at visiting various organized players in the fitness industry of Hyderabad… I visited the established ones and the promising new ones as well as part of my study… I visited them as a potential customer…

One of the established fitness center, one of the most popular chains with presence in Hyd, B’lore and Vizag… I was greeted by a senior trainer, detailed explanations were given and was handled very professionally with a personal touch, typical to a sales response making an effort to pitch the brand although not overstating themselves… they are well known hence explains it…

I was also at a new franchise of an existing chain which is rearing to go and is in an aggressive marketing mode… I was dealt with highly professionally, with an enthusiasm to sell, with an idea to promote
the brand, concept, facilities, quoting good prices, leaving a good experience to the potential customer…

I was also at a well established national chain of Gyms… it was the most cold sales response I got during my 7 visites… there was no intention to convince me, no intention to explain in detail about the offering… no attempt to showcase the brand… to see the gym I went along with one of the general trainers who showed me around as if he was simply performing his daily duty with an unbreakale flow… the conversation with him ended with a,”hope to see you at talwalkars soon” with his face turned away from me waiting to converse with someone else… The sales desk asked me to give my personal details on a ‘piece’ of paper and didn’t bother to collect it from me…. it was a bad experience in the shoes of the customer…

Well… all three were brand of some reckoning… but the most established brand had the least care for its customers… I expected to have some best case practices to be noted from the best gym in Hyderabad, on the contrary it was a poor experience… When brand become big, they neglect the small things, because they have an established reputation and customers will be in the door with out the additional effort… I feel this is symptom of decline…

But I’m not sure about the feeling I have… a couple of years ago I visited one of the leading CAT coaching centers in Hyderabad… he claims to send more students to the IIMs than all the others put together… I had a similar experience with them… they spoke about the course and timings but never bothered to understand my requirement… I eventually walked out and joined a competitor who payed attention to my needs… That day I thought, if they do not pay attention to their customers they will lose out eventually… but no where has it been showing for the last few years… their growth in terms of enrollments is double digit year after year despite tough competition from other brands.

This attitude of ignoring the customer violates the fundamentals of sales philosophy… these organizations have been growing based on only showcasing better results year after year, time after time and winning the confidence of the customer, despite a poor sales effort…