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Romancing the stone (hearted customer!)
IN CLOSED economies, the producer was king. Usually that producer was the government and there was only one brand. The best. And, incidentally, the worst. With the emergence of other players in the market, and with competition all that changed.
Customer was no more the pitiful slave who had to take what was offered, but had the right (and joy) to refuse! And he did. Because he could always look for something better. The Customer rose to Kingship!
With this, producers began to be the ones to grovel, on their hands and knees, for their share of the market. Bigger and better schemes were thought of where the eventual objective was the re-enslavement of the customer.
Even if meant beguiling the King into dalliance followed up by the tying of a knot that bound him hand and foot to the product.
Delighting the customer became the order of the day and companies began to want to know everything about the people who used their products so that they could get them addicted! Organisations wanted to manage their relationship with their customers, use the knowledge so gained to leverage their marketing and sales plans.
With the dawn of the information age, relationship management became that much easier since they could store and mine information at will.
Historical case
One of the oldest tenets of customer care was to treat all of them alike. In a way, this wasn't bad, but it didn't lead to better business or to wider markets.
In fact it led to disaster. Viewed at most rationally, it just does not make sense either. For any business, only a very small number of people generate the revenue to keep that organisation afloat. The larger majority actually aid the company to lose money while a mere handful are about mediocre in terms of revenue generation and fall into, oddly, the `normal' grouping. CRM suggests, quite correctly that it is essential for companies to keep those customers that provide the largest proportion of the company's revenue happy.
The larger majority who are drains on the revenue should be ignored and discarded. The `normal' grouping should be developed into better generators of revenues. Straightaway, the company will improve its productivity and profitability!
Case history
I am reminded of a well-known automotive dealer in Hyderabad who deals with the Tata range of vehicles. Malik Cars, service division is well known to take extraordinary care of their customers' vehicle and when they began operations they did remarkably well.
However their CRM was not in operation, and despite the availability did not trouble to utilise the customer information at their disposal. As a result, they extended credit to customers that abused their trust.
They then decided to treat "all customers alike" and refuse credit to good and bad customers with the result that large bills required to be cleared by cash, which necessitated those customers to carry about wads of banknotes with them, despite the inconvenience and obvious challenge to security.
While this in itself was daunting to the most stoic customer, the problem was compounded by a singular lack of training to their staff, with the result that vituperative altercations and unpleasantness were alloying the quality of their service. To compound matters, billing was done on handwritten paper with no official insignia, and no receipts were issued at the time! Hardly a case for customer delight! More a case for throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Compare this to Mahavir Motors who have trained every one of their front and back office personnel to be unfailingly courteous, and have a very different approach to each one of their customers.
Every one is treated as an individual, and with individual histories of their customers to hand they make little if any loss on any of their customers. CRM at work!
The New Market mantra
Today marketing and sales do not look merely for a customer; they look for and find the best customer.
The new need for professionals in this field is to team their skills with a good understanding of HR and psychology.
The need of the hour is to demonstrate to the specific target of desired customers the service that comes with the product.
It is assumed that all products are equally good, what adds to the value is the quality of relationship that the company promises to the individual customer. Clubs of proud owners are constituted and freebies are freely distributed.
These customers will certainly boast about the special treatment they get thereby enticing other good customers! Also nobody leaves a club to which they pay no subscription and still reap considerable benefits! When the customer feels that he is number one, he is not going to experiment elsewhere, he'll stick with what he has and what he enjoys!
Custo-savvy the new age tool
No number of IT tools can do anything by themselves; the human touch is essential! Witness the lack of a printed bill from Malik Motors! The reason? The printer did not work! Technology can trip, but a written, unreceipted bill is not the answer. What was needed was not the human hand but the human touch! Better understanding of the customer rather than a blanket labelling of all customers will prove more effective. The tag line from Toyota Motors sums it up succinctly. "Know You, is Knowhow!"
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com
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