Learning About Branding from Old Hostel Memories

My two classmates, Rajeev & Pradeep, from YMCAIE, brought together our old classmates into a WhatsApp group. While we were exchanging or old antics, the discussions veered around beer.

The brands those days 1983-87, 28 years ago that we could recall were: Gorilla, Pink Pelican,  Guru, Gorilla and Haywards. These used to cost around 20 to 30 rupees. Now, a beer costs Rs 100. So, the inflation rate for beer is about 4.5%.

But, Jai pointed out that some brands costs Rs 250.  This gave us an branding insight.

Branding Insight:   Branding differentiator  can add 2.5X value to a commodity.

Another social media insight is that those of the gang who were not active in FB or G+ opened up on WhatsApp !! Is it privacy or lack of crowding syndrome, I know not yet.

What I learnt from Two Airline Brand experience Stories

I was rushing to catch the 13th Aug 2015, JetAir flight to Mumbai. Though I had budgeted extra time to reach New Delhi Airport, the Delhi Police's meaningless barricades had eaten up my extra budgeted time.

I had the Web Check-in done and all I needed was two tags for my cabin bags. As I entered the airport, the self check-in counters did not have their usual supply of baggage tags.

The rushed for the nearest counter, that happened to be Air Vistara, I smiled at the ground staff, while picking up two tags, asking "Can I ?".
"Where are you traveling to, sir?"
I say: "Mumbai"
Vistara Ground Staff: "Are you traveling by Vistara?"
"No, JetAir", I say.
"Sorry Sir, we can't let you have the tags", said the staff bluntly.

I hopped to the next counter, asked if I can get two tags and they gave me without questioning me and I was off to the security check.

The flight was not yet announced, so I decided to wait at Starbucks. While sipping some Kenia Blend black coffee, I remembered an old story...

It was in the hey days of the King of Good Times, the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.

That evening it was raining at Bangalore, and I was waiting at the entrance for my colleague to turn-up, as he had me called to say that his cab was right behind mine. The entrance queue was long and I was still outside, hesitating to join the rush.

My friend arrived, and stepped out of the cab into the rain, he had JetAir permanent membership Tags on ALL his baggage.  A Kingfisher porter with an umbrella rushed towards my friend and covered him.

My friend hesitated and pointed to his baggage tags, "I am travelling my Jetair".
The porter smiled and said: "Sir, you are our potential customer. Allow me to help you"
Me and my friend were stunned! What a hospitality Service Experience Design! We must try the Airline. Next time I booked, I flew by Kingfisher.

Lesson Learnt:

• Service Design should cover all Customer Experience Journey touch points.
• Never loose an opportunity to get your brand onto your potential customers  Baggage Tags are a good space to put your Brand into the hand of your customers.

CX: Social Integration with CRM

Recently I shared the screenshots of failed or site crashes of two respected brands. Both of these brands had their executives call me up. This is the first major step towards the Social CRM (Customer Relationship Management) implementation.

There are two more gates to cross before they get into a CX (Customer Experience) heavenly state.

• CRM executives in both cases were not able to see the screenshot, thus were asking me about the issue again. Also, they did not have any means to get back to the original tweet.
• They ask me to DM (Direct Message) my Mobile Number/ Card Number more than once (over the tweets). Thus, there should be a one time Social Graphing linking activity.

Thus the lesson learnt are:

1. Create a Social Graph of your customers or at-least link their social ids with customer id.
2. The CRM should provide access to a local data warehouse that stores the social media snapshots related to the incident.   

CX: Make it simple for customers to give a feedback

I shopped for an ergonomic office chair at FabFurnish , for my home office (as I am a remote worker) . It arrived by Safe Express today (Easter Sunday !).

I now called the call center, to request for assembly; Expecting an IVR response asking me to call back on Monday. But, surprise! my call was promptly received, and politely responded to and my request was logged. The call center rep requested me to give a feedback, and I too wanted to give a positive feedback.

I shortly received a SMS from DM-FabFur :

"We hope you are satisfied with your interaction with Divesh Bhutani from FabFurnish.com. SMS Y or N to 9266801996 to share your feedback. Stay Fabulous!"

I tried to do a cut paste gymnastics on my mobile, but gave up in a while.

So, here I was a happy customer wanting to give a positive reply, but unable to do so, due to wrong choice of channel and User Experience.

So, what could have been done differently?

If SMS channel is used, make it easy for the customer to respond by using a SMS provider who can log the response on the same number.

Use social channels like Twitter/FB, to get a response.
The could SMS or DM me saying :

"If you liked your interaction then tweet back to +FabFurnish.com with #Happy else #UnHappy."

The social channels are like doubled edged sword, both positive as well as negative feed backs are visible.

Or, they could use a voting app on FB or G+ as well. The link to the voting Social Gadget can be sent via SMS.  That way , only the company can see the feedback not every one else.

However, making it visible to all, makes the brand appear more transparent and proactive.

What ever the choice of the feedback channel is make it easy for the customer.