Customer Feedback – SBI Best Practice
June 11, 2010 § 11 Comments
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.
10 Key Learnings of 2009
January 8, 2010 § 8 Comments
The difference between knowledge and wisdom is doing. So the learning I’m going to share are not pieces of read text, but the wisdom I gained in the year 2009. Hope many can relate, few can contradict and many more can quicken their journey’s to wisdom through this post.
1. Starting-up is good fun: I myself started two enterprises (NxT Bizness Solutions & Dot Now Social), and worked with few others in 2009. From taking the decision to start-up from understanding of market need, potential customers to actually finalizing the name, registration its all good fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the freebies of starting up too; the learning, the hiccups, the obstacles, the glamor etc. I explored my inherent affection for startups in 2009.
2. SMEs are a HUGE market: Studying SMEs for the entire year, taking off from my stint at Milagrow, I realized the potent market of SMEs in India. Realized how much of market need exists, how little is getting met. It was very nice to see many entrepreneurs across the country dealing with this opportunity in their unique way. I also touched base with how little is known about SMEs on the whole. There is a huge gap to fill about understanding SMEs in India.
3. Power of Social Media and Social Technologies: Though I was an early adopter of social media while in college, then graduated into a laggard after I started working. Once on my own, I explored social media encouraged by a study by McKinsey. It is a revolution that is catching up, and what we have experienced is the tip of the iceberg. Social Media and social technologies can greatly aid business. This is beyond marketing and can prove extremely useful through all Conversations of Business.
4. Ecology is the new Business Ethic: Ecologies have existed in business ever since. I got introduced to linkages and ecologies in 2008 during my stint at Milagrow in an all new way. 2009 was the year to grasp the big picture. Co-Creation, Co-evolution, core competence taken to a new level, leverage of strengths (processes, customers, relations etc) and many more forms. I came in touch with very many and truly experienced the power that lay hidden. I’m more than ordinarily convinced that Ecology is the next Business ethic.
5. Culture is the secret of great organizations: Culture is very powerful. It has defined the progress of civilizations of the world. The combination of value system and belief system manifested into practices holds the key to not only civilizations but also organizations. During 2009, I came in touch with several organizations, some had weak cultures, some had strong cultures, some cultures were elevating and some destroying. It was the year of experiencing how culture defines the organization. I also learnt, culture is not for a wall poster, it cannot be “driven in”, it must be identified and not cultivated, in the context of an organization.
6: Relationships of Business: Healthy relationships are the key even in business. But understanding the relations of business goes beyond. Business is done between one who needs and one who provides. As long as the context is business, there is no more, no less. This is the most important lesson of 2009 for me. When there is an existing relation with a person beyond the purview of give and take, it is advisable to think twice about bringing objectivity that is required for business into such a relation. It was extremely difficult for me to build the objectivity (disclosure: I failed at it) into a relation that had business as the newest dimension.
7. USA is a nation built by Entrepreneurs: I read that USA had high business quotient, it was a nation pursuing personal liberty etc. When I visited USA, it was truly an experience (much to my surprise). It was an experience of how the power of individuals has been harnessed to build a nation. I had only come in touch with the fallacies and the ills of this excessive personal liberty leading to unprecedented greed, but experiencing USA was about realizing the collective potential individual endeavor.
8. Control is an Illusion: Like most of us I was one of them who congratulated myself for each achievement and blamed circumstances for all the failures (though I truly deep within knew neither was I totally responsible for success nor failure). 2009 is when I began to accept that events happen and I only did what I could do, I did not control or create any outcome. I began to practice letting go, practice not pursuing the end, but pursuing the means. I began to respect the Hindu philosophy of Karma one more notch higher for it gave the entire civilization the strength to let go and let come without attaching too much value to it. I’m slowly beginning to travel for the purpose of travelling in this journey called Life (be it professionally or personally)
9. Money is not that unimportant: Money to me was always a secondary virtue. Of a lower class of sorts. The year that went by taught me things about money I never properly understood before. 2009 was the year I began to give a lot more respect for money in a manner that I understand its value. I realized “Money can Buy”. Hence never discount it to second grade.
10. I’m not that much of a rookie after all: I began 2009 by moving on from Milagrow to start my own consulting enterprise. For a 21 year old it was quite an important decision, but I made the leap. Many times I thought to myself if at all I’m capable enough to take on the challenges presented by my clients and my startup. But I thoroughly enjoyed many of the solutions I gave to my clients all year through. My clients were much more experienced than me, few of them had done Graduation in Business, one of them in an top 25 B school in the world. But I too added value, enough value that they could acknowledge and appreciate. While I will always be thankful to all of them for having put faith in me and given me an opportunity, I’m also a lot more confident and don’t feel like a rookie anymore.
These are just 10 of the most important ones, and mostly only in the professional domain. 2009 was a bumpy year where I learnt many things both professionally and personally. Elaborating further is beyond the scope of this post, but I’m grateful for all the opportunities I got in 2009, I’m thankful I met the people I did, I’m glad it came, I’m happy it is over!
Start-up No.2 – conversation to revenue
November 4, 2009 § 5 Comments
My father has this excellent style of narrating with obnoxious examples. Just noticed I’ve picked it up and am searching for the obnoxious example to explain the title of this post. Admit, I can’t find one… Its simply about how my new entrepreneurial journey began as a conversation and now we are on the verge of receiving our first cheque.
AIESEC was a phenomenal organization which has left an impact on my professional life. I was closely bonded to the organization because of my belief in its vision and values. Its vision said “Peace & fulfillment of human kind’s potential.” AIESEC was the international platform to discover and develop their potential.
“Discover and develop human kind’s potential” It was a life changing statement. Since then as a conscious effort I have tried my best to engage with people and help them “discover” their potential. I always had this philosophy with me.
So when I came across a tweet from a batch mate, who was looking for a good opportunity to do something related to Social Media, an obvious bell rang. The idea was see what potential lay with him and how can it be utilized best. So I invited him over to discuss “an idea”.
So that conversation, starting to be part of helping people discover their potential (and for obvious capitalistic reasons benefit from it) started this idea doing something related to the fast growing social media.
Coming from a management consulting back ground, consulting was my obvious choice. Consulting businesses on how to benefit from social media. After a lengthy discussion, he know just what to do for which kind of firm etc. I was amazed at the low down he gave me on how the new Internet is going to penetrate our life in an irreversible way. And developed nations have already begun imbibing the culture.
I being the social media ignorant chap and he being the domain expert, we began the journey at the end of the conversation sure that this is n attempt worth trying. I was to add value to the org on devising a sustainable and scalable business model of his expertise of understanding social media tools.
Thus I started exploring the space and what all could be done here. What is the value businesses are looking for? What are the tipping points that businesses will be willing to consider as enough value to pay more than cost? Who are competitors and who are peers in the business? Where can business leads be generated? Who are acclaimed thought leaders in the space?
While I was fleshing out the business model, my business partner had already identified a first potential client. A potential client who understood the power of social media. We were abruptly set into action. After only a few discussions we were sitting on a proposal to be finalized. Being a startup, and among the few of our kind in Hyderabad, we agreed on a 40% fixed and 60% performance kind of model to assure our delivery ahead of the money. And we were set in irreversible motion, even without our feet on ground.
We worked over time, spent all the time we had in either understanding the business or servicing the client. We began to track everything that was happening around us in the space. We began to realize the space holds immense opportunity. The truth was that not enough players ad taken shape. The high potential players were trying hard not to wakeup to the opportunity. We took solace in the potential that lay before us and thought to ourself we will do whatever it takes to make our mark here.
Naming this venture was not as hard as the previous one. All kudos to my partner, he is a creative genius. The name was through in less than an hour and acceptance was obviously High. We loved the name.
“.now” to be read as dot now. Dot to represent the internet and Now to represent the real time nature of social media. We stuck to it like glue. The odd dissatisfaction was obviously ignored.
Sustainable activity on social media is key success. Many enterprises cannot allocate full time resources with know how to do their social media work. Hence outsourcing was a solution we were ready to offer to our clients. Our first client also needed this service and this lead to our first hiring. I will not say it was easy, but we surely didn’t have too much trouble.
Now the implementation had begun with its usual hiccups followed by continuous streamlining. With delivering results and delight to the client several changed were brought about to our way of working. Though slightly delayed, our work has now commenced in full flow. We today submitted our first invoice and have been assured of the cheque being handed over tomorrow.
This 2 month journey from conversation to first revenue saw pitch to 4 potential clients, 2 materializing, one paying. It saw us participate in 2 conferences. It saw us reaching out to the eco-system in Hyderabad and beyond. With many more clients waiting to be served, we hope to dramatically change the landscape of social media usage in our vicinity. We hope to inspire a lot more people to discover and develop their potential.
Management Consulting for Small Businesses – Justifies Existence?
October 23, 2009 § 1 Comment
Historically management consultants are among the most hated professional community in the business world. As a student, when I aspired to be a management consultant, I wondered why glamorous management consultants always frowned about being “hated”. Once I entered the profession as a management consultant is when I truly understood how hated management consultants are.
While there are ethical and unethical people in every industry, act of a few consultants (since the emergence of management consulting) who robbed clients without delivering value can’t be rub against the entire profession of diligent value worshippers. Management consultants, over the years, have emerged to be a very important part of the entire eco-system.
Though Indian businesses are not as consulting conscious as their western counterparts, the trends to employ management consultants has begun to improve. Management consultants still get brick bats while moving in industry circles… Especially when it comes to SMEs management consultants are look at like the famous quote “don’t employ a consultant to tell you time from your watch”. Whenever I come across these people, I so pity them for the lack of knowledge and understanding of the benefits of employing management consultants. (more...)
Business of Business Plans
September 16, 2009 § 2 Comments
It is getting increasingly interesting to do business plans for highly potent start-ups. To work with entrepreneurs who seek help on developing business models, fleshing out their strategy, understand actual financial projections, is such a beautiful experience. The experience is being enhanced by nice clients who are willing to listen to what we say, instead of using their “I already Know” filter which they are so good at.
The development of business plans for presentation to debt financers and equity investors is different. While both are interested in viability, the investors are people interested in the business as a whole. How the start-up is making the money is as important as how much money is being made. This becomes exciting for a management consultant interested in strategy. To design a business plan to depict operational models, strategy explanation about starting, sustaining and scaling, realistic presentation of market potential, potential impact, super-duper future potential; it’s a joy to do such exercises.
Not being from the finance background, financial projections were not my forte. But applying a amateur frame-work of developing the financial projections, I almost perfectly completed the job, for the first time (ofcourse with in-house expert help). Now doing financial projections and interpreting key ratios being part of my learning kitty, doing business plans is getting even more interesting.
I’m so packed with doing business plans for very interesting industry-agnostic start-ups. I think slowly the start-up practice is taking good shape. Some investor pitches lined-up would add great dimension to our developed expertise. We will become lesser reliant on the experts on board and being to develop our own expertise and frameworks to deal with start-ups.
This is just another testimonial to the power of passion for learning. How one averse to numbers, by simply being passionate about learning can make healthy beginnings and who knows may be succeed. It just shows that reading and keeping channels of learning helps immensely. From newsletters to blogs to expert opinions to interviews, even without formal management education entrepreneurship can be pursued. Learning is such a key element.
Business Plans look an amazing beginning. I hope the over load of business plan work continues and the momentum is sustained. The business of business plans looks exciting.
Americans turn to small companies
August 19, 2009 § Leave a comment
A survey conducted revealed 22% of American workers who were laid off from full-time jobs in the last year found new jobs with small businesses. Another59% would be interested in working for a small business, and29% are considering starting one of their own. The potential for job growth isn’t the only reason. 56% said that a “family-like” work environment appealed to them, and 48% felt they could make more of a difference in a small company. (courtesy CareerBuilder)
Hope the trend reflects in India as well and more talent agrees to participate in entrepreneurial endeavor in Indian SMEs.
Customer to Entrepreneur – journey with the motto “we can do it better”
March 16, 2009 § Leave a comment
Better service. Better product. More innovation & imagination. As customers and consumers many a time we feel, if it was just “this” better.
This very idea that “we” can provide this “one simple yet effective innovation” is a thought that leads to the birth of many entrepreneurs. Customers & consumers who feel they would be much more satisfied with “these few changes”, with belief that there will be many such enthusiasts who believe the the same few “changes” make all the difference start up.
Entrepreneurs set out by identifying what they saw the need for as customers/consumers with the motto that “we can do it better” and hence believe that they will be able to attract all those who think like them (who obviously according to them are large enough in number).
Like I once heard an intellectual and innovator speak at a conference, “the user is the best innovator”. His organization, NIF, has pioneered the movement called “user based innovations”. In my opinion another brilliant concept, worthy of an entire blog (not just a mention in a post).
But like wise, user based innovations many times lead to the users turning to being entrepreneurs themselves. Probably N x T Bizness Solutions too is a similar spin off, but I’ve come across few more typical examples.
A batch mate in engineering started off a new social networking website because he was totally not satisfied with the way the existing social networking websites connected people. Only 2 days ago I had the privilege of meeting a couple, fed up with poor floor plans and amenities at various gyms have planned to start a new chain of their own as a culmination of their years of observing flaws. I also had the opportunity to meet an entrepreneur/innovator who observed the difficulties of existing packaging units and brought to market his new innovative design to reduce cycle time, improve productivity, and reduce man power costs.
While any entrepreneurial aspiration is most welcome, a loud word of caution needs to be sounded. While there may always be the need (because they observed, there must have definitely been another who observed the same flaw) it is important to understand the reasons behind the existing poor design. If the reasons are not validated, then it is important to understand how many really feel the need and can appreciate the fulfilled need.
While user based innovations, typically based on utility (end-use), are definitely a boon, as entrepreneurs it is important to innovate further to make the new innovations viable marketable products/services to offer.
Many entrepreneurs who have started off like this, at least many I know, have failed to be successful. Those successful are those who have managed to innovate further to make refined products appreciated by a larger market segment hence viable and profitable.
Taking speaker podium as an Entrepreneur – another first experience
March 2, 2009 § Leave a comment
The second edition of Entrepreneurship Week India for Entrepreneurship Cell MJCET. As memories of the 2008 edition still remain fresh as examplery examples of achievement, I had the opportunity to be a speaker, in the role of an entrepreneur, at the 2009 edition of entrepreneurship week India.
It seemed proud to be a product an organization I envisioned. It was good to take stage in another engineering college as part of an “external academia” initiative of E Cell. A strategic move which won us the award last year around. An initiative which was the toughest to put together last year, this time around seemed to have gathered lots of momentum.
The audiance were students of Aurora Engineering college and Aurora college of management studies. The topic was “Entrepreneurship with a purpose”.
In typical student style, I got the confirmation of the event late the previous night. With obviously no time to prepare, I had to come up with something different. It had been a long time since I faced a public audiance. No butterflies, but lack of any prep was slightly new to me. No powerpoint slides, so decided to put my tablet PC to some use. The brief gap to connect my tablet to the projector was enough for the already restless audiance to further scatter. 4th and final speaker on the list didn’t seem as ugly when I was informed early about it.
From the response to the previous speakers, it seemed to me as if the students we forced into the hall (I remember this happening often on college campusses). Typically no interest in “Entrepreneurship”. Probably too big a word for them. The topic was high flown, “Purpose”.
Using the tablet in public audiance was a first for me. But the ploy worked. It was captivating the audiance, as they began to become curious of the presentation medium. To break down entrepreneurship was task 1. Myth broken , I began to enter into the discussion. But the audiance continued to remain restless. Thus followed a series of questions, answers to which were being written on the screen. Once I was satisfied most of the audiance was glued to the screen, I began to enter serious discourse.
The idea was to tell the audiance that the “dream” behind the enterprise is the most important success factor. The dream translates into purpose. Purpose driven organizations become great organizations in the world. It was to emphasize on them that toplines and bottomlines are consequences of purpose, the purpose is the key to success.
With the help of a wide range of examples, global super powers to quiet back yard SMEs which are thriving today because of their purpose driven nature, I could satisfactorily drive the importance of purpose.
This formed the prelude to my thesis that today’s global melt down has been brought about by “greed driven entrepreneurship”. The saviour of this world is “entrepreneurship with a sense of purpose”. Enterprises forged to create wealth. Enterprises aimed at further closing need-gap. These are the saviours of today. The flag bearers of tomorrow. I was very happy when the audiance received the crux of my message. A round of applause, from passionate young hands which understood how entrepreneurship is such an important phenomenon we all await.
A truly scintilating experience!
Recession Times – Best time for Branding: Real Estate melt down means better time for Branding – validated by example
February 9, 2009 § Leave a comment
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.
Sashank's Learning 