I love LG!

http://www.lgindia.com/ILoveLG/default.htm

Well, to be very honest; I don't love LG. I hate LG. My wife hates LG. My six year old son hates LG. Why? Because we are deprived of our right - despite paying price to the company for a product manufactured by them. A product which doesn't work. With a service quality so poor and service managers not responding to us in a proper manner and company not bothered about the consumers - am sure Life is Good for them! and they love their company, because who cares! They are just getting salaries to keep their bosses happy. I surely love to work for LG!

Just imagine... my wife wants to buy a new refrigerator, she liked one model but when she looked at the company, she changed her mind. yes, your guess was right - it was LG. My son wants me to change my mini hi-fi system to Sony from LG, so at least he can watch his movies or enjoy music. Is he going to buy LG? No... Imagine my friends - if they are going to ask me to suggest a good brand to buy electronics? Am i going to suggest LG? No. Imagine my wife doing the same. Imagine my son carrying forward this feeling throughout his life...

I am not saying that because one family stops buying product from LG, the company would run out of business. Just imagine... this is just a beginning - there will be more families... Life is Good. Hunh!

God Bless!

The difference between a mediocre and a great company...

People.

The difference between a mediocre and a great company…

Purpose.

This is what I fear the most...

I have come across companies. Just like humans, they come in many shapes, many sizes and at various stages of their lives. But surprisingly, I find one thing common amongst them. When it comes to investing in PR they all have a shoestring budget. And honestly, I don’t get surprised anymore; I always fail to understand. All of them want to reach the moon with investing in just one litre of petrol! {It is possible, but for that you have to go to any Indian auto (tuk-tuk for my friends from overseas) driver and he’ll make sure that you see stars and moons during the day time!}

It’s dangerous. My request to such companies is to change the habit or get out of the business and do something else. How can you run a company or market your product if you do not have money to communicate with your customers! Wake up!

PR is the most amazing marketing tool and it is extremely important for the Indian companies to realize the importance of doing ‘right’ PR. By paying peanuts you’ll get only monkeys to jump around your office in the name of PR. I know lot of them. Original PR doesn’t begin and end with getting couple of news stories published about your company. It is much more than that. It is about communicating with your consumers and assist them to establish a dialogue between you and them. It requires more than few newspaper reports and TV interviews.

But, they don’t have money to invest in good brains or they don’t have good brains to invest the money in the right people. They are happy with monkeys and I wish them all the best! I am sure not many of them would be around in next 10 years. Sorry monkeys!

Reliable Miscommunication

Finally, someone called me to help me solve my problem regarding broadband Internet connection. Well, when I spoke with the gentleman on the other side it turned out that the problem created for me was nothing but a communication failure at every stage in the company! I discovered many new things as I spoke with him and thought how a simple training or communication between the departments or people would have saved me from all the troubles.

I see many companies investing millions of dollars in communicating to their customers or outside world about their services or products and ignore the internal communication. They fail to communicate to their very own people who are responsible for the image of the company at every stage. I strongly feel that if you want to know the professionalism of the company, analyse the person on the reception. How she behaves with visitors, who can be anybody from a courier boy to a visiting client CEO should give you a complete understanding of the company's behavior with their customers/people. If she is been communicated management's vision and what is expected from her to represent her company, she would behave in a manner which is expected and if it is not - you will see the results in few minutes.

This is not just about receptionists but true to any other person in the organization. Learn to share and communicate. Communicate with your people first, then talk to outside world. After all charity should begin at home...

Customer care - who cares?

Frustrated Call Center employees do not make good Customer Care Executives. They are not empowered enough to help the customer - forget caring about them! In my opinion, the Customer Care Executive should be an in-house and responsible professional, who can take instant decisions and demonstrate that the company cares for its customer.

But is it happening? No.

Am I asking for too much? I don't think so.

Is it possible? Yes, it is - if our companies start trusting the customer. The moment I call up so called customer care center they feel that I am calling them with some malign intention - their approach is more of an investigative officer, who behaves exactly the same as Bollywood police than of a person trying to assist you! Sometimes they come up with unique solution - put the blame on the customer for her refrigerator not working properly or last but not the least on the weather! "Mam' your CD player may not work because there is a high humidity in the weather and there could be moisture on your CDs"... C'mon guys! give me a break! Your customer is not a fool - she is calling you only after she has tried doing everything possible in her power to solve the issue herself. Start trusting or soon you are going to RIP. Do you think she is going to buy your product again?

Did you feel that you have read enough? Wait for this...

Impossible it may sound, but it is possible. I have taken a Broadband connection (from a private company, which invested very heavily in re-branding its identity to make it more customer friendly or owner friendly who proudly puts his name at the bottom - whatever!) at home and have been using it for over a month. When I got some issue with the billing and not delivering on the promises made by company while applying for a connection, I called the customer care center; I was told that in their data my name (or the user ID) is not there as registered customer!

When asked about if I don't exist as a customer, how am I using your services and being billed, there was no proper response. On inquiring further; I was told that I should call them back with proper information. What is proper information, I inquired. User ID - pat come the reply. But when I repeated my user ID, they said I am not their customer!

Confused? Don't be... I am yet to solve the mystery but don't you feel that this is like going to a doctor with a photo ID and he asks you to get a certificate that you are alive and the same person in a photo!

I am alive. Bhai - are you listening?

Why I am not writing?

Sometimes I wonder, why do I have to write a blog. But then, I feel that one learns so many things and have some or the other views on the subject to share with people (though nobody reads my blog - except me! ;)) and hence I write.

But - then why am I not writing regularly?

Well, to say that I don't have enough time is wrong and I don't want to say that either.

So, what next?

I promise myself to write at least once a week. And that week begins now!

The Power of Idea

In the recent issue of “Outlook Business” (20 December 2006), I read an interesting cartoon by R Prasad (Deep Pocket), where in one sales guy is telling some gentleman, quote: “Just give me an idea, sir… and watch me sell it to you in 5 minutes flat!” unquote.

Well, if you think it’s just for a humor? Think again. It is a strategic point of view, which many of us in the communication business practice knowingly or unknowingly. It’s about listening to your customer and selling her the thing which she asked for. Borrowing her own idea to sell it to her and it doesn’t even take five minutes. One doesn’t need to explain why?

It’s like telling a mother how smart her son is…

Thank you Prasad for the Deep Pocket. I would rather say Deep Thought.

Expectations

Everyone has some great expectations from lives – our life, their life and everyone’s life. We expect to win. We expect our friends, relatives, sons, daughters and all around us to be nice to us, win trophies, be outstanding students, be good human beings… The list is endless. Everyone expects Victory.

In real life situation, where everyone is busy fighting a battle royal against expectations even when someone wins it, he or she would be rewarded with more expectation for the future! It’s a never ending story of our lives.

I expect someone to come forward and get me out of this rat race. Am I expecting unexpected?

Complete Performance!

In my previous post I wrote about a magic of ‘Management’. I found another widely used (read abused) word – performance! And what’s a performance this word has shown me…

Everyone seems to be bugged by this wonder-word (doesn’t it sound like wonder-drug!). Everything and everyone is being measured by performance.

Men’s Health is worried about performance in bed. Shahrukh is worried about performance of ‘Don’. Sachin is worried, Dada is worried, Sehwag is worried and entire cricket loving nation called India is also worried of performance of ‘boys’ in the field. My boss also seems to be worried about the performance.

One wonders is there any parameter on which performance can be judged. In my opinion its quite subjective because even now Sachin and Dada believes that they are performing (at least on TV screens they are!).

I believe analyzing someone or something with performance yardstick is nothing but trying to analyze how puppet works! Any takers? Anyways, I need to know the real definition of ‘performance’. Is there anyone, who can perform this task for me?

Managing Management!

Management: probably the funniest word in this world. With so many meanings one really wonders what management is all about!

Recently I was reading something about management and it revealed the real meaning of management. While I do not remember the source from where I found this but I remember the message – loud and clear.

Management = Control

When people say that want to mange something, they are implying that they want to control that process or (you!)

I am in senior management = I have more control

So, is this what we are looking for!! Controlling everything in the name of management? Now someone needs to manage the management!

Seize that opportunity...

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized"
::Sun Tzu::