With the ability to access store hours, contact information, and directions directly on these services using a simple search there is very little incentive for anyone to open a web browser, go to a corporate web page, go to the store locator, and type in their address to find the nearest store. Each step that you require a customer to take to get the information they need to make a purchase is a potential drop off point. By contrast, ensuring that you put all the information they need right at their fingertips wherever they look not only makes their purchase decision easier but often has other, less obvious benefits.

Make it visible

Having each and every store in a chain listed on services like Facebook and Google+ not only increase your visibility and drives sales, it also has the added benefit of enabling your customers to act as brand ambassadors for you. When a customer has a pleasant experience and tags content such as an Instagram photo, tweet, or Facebook post to a location online they spread your brand for you. This is an extremely powerful form of viral advertising and some of the most important content in terms of influencing a purchase decision in others. In addition, posts made to local pages have up to 346% more interactions that posts made to brand pages and those interactions act as free advertising with the added bonus of social influence.

As smartphone penetration continues to grow in India more and more people are using mobile app, services, and search engines to find local businesses and make purchases. In order to stay competitive and maximize customer acquisition companies must adapt to the consumer’s behaviour and in this case, that means acting local in as many online channels as possible.

It goes like this. Joshie is the property of a little boy who stayed with his family at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Florida. After the holiday, Joshie’s owner discovered his toy was missing and to calm him down his parents told him that perhaps Joshie had simply taken an extended vacation.

So what did the housekeeping staff at the Ritz-Carlton do after finding Joshie? They created a photo album with the giraffe lounging by the pool, relaxing on the beach, and making new friends with other stuffed animals. And then they sent Joshie back with the photo album and some other swag.

This is the sort of story that customer service directors love. It is also a perfect example of what not to base your service strategy on, Dixon and his team assert. Based on detailed surveys with more than 97,000 customers of more than 400 companies, The Effortless Experience says that delivering superior service does not build customer loyalty for most companies.

Why is customer service important? Because only one in five brands is seen by consumers as truly differentiated. Every brand owner fears that they are seen as a commodity.

In Dixon’s research, 83% of companies believe that customer satisfaction leads directly to loyalty. They believe there are gains to be made from “delighting customers”.

But the facts differ. There is no difference between the loyalty of customers whose expectations are simply met with those whose expectations are exceeded. Dixon advises that companies “grossly underestimate the benefit of simply meeting customer expectations. Customers are quite happy to simply get what we promised them. If there happens to be a problem … help me fix it. No need to dazzle me. Just solve the problem and let me get back to doing what I was doing before.”

Consistently meeting the expectations of most of your customers is the most economically valuable thing you can do.

The second finding is that satisfaction is no predictor of loyalty. One in five customers researched reported that they were satisfied with the service they received but were intending to buy from someone else.

The third is that customer service interactions (your call centre) tend to drive disloyalty. This is driven by psychology. When people discover something great they like to tell people about it as a reflection of their own wisdom. With customer service they are more likely to talk about a negative experience to gain sympathy.

The statistics: 71% of people with positive product experiences engage in word of mouth. Only 32% with negative experiences want to tell other people about them. Only 25% of people who experienced positive customer service will pass the story on. But 65% with a negative experience will talk.

The fourth finding is that the way to reduce disloyalty is to develop an effortless customer experience. Having to contact a company more than once is the biggest turn off. While some companies report that they resolve all their calls first time, they often fail to take into account that if a customer has already been on their web site. If they have, the customer will see this as two contacts.

The book argues that instead of trying to shift the loyalty curve to the right by exceeding expectations, companies will do better by removing opportunities for customers to be disloyal.

The recommendation is that you:

• Boost the stickiness of self-service channels so customers don’t have to phone. What customers want is a simple, intuitive and guided self-service experience.
• If customers have to call, don’t just solve the current issue but advise customers on how to avoid future issues.
• Train your representatives to actively manage the customer interaction and to understand the different types of people who they will be dealing with.
• Empower front line staff to deliver service by moving away from stopwatch and checklist cultures so your staff can exercise judgement.

Everyone loves the great customer service stories from firms like Zappos. But most businesses are not really in the same space and the Effortless Experience will provide you with lots of ideas how to better invest your time and effort in creating loyal customers.

For more, go to http://www.betterretailing.com/

From Left To Right:

Deepa Thomas, Head Corporate Communications & eCommerce Evangelist, eBay India; Madan Mohapatra, Head Media Marketing, Future Group; Deepshikha Surendran,  Head Marketing, Infiniti Retail Ltd.; Uma Talreja,  Head Marketing Westside, Trent Ltd; Puneet Varma, GM & Head Marketing & Corporate Communication, Inorbit Malls (India) Pvt.Ltd; Rajiv Nair, CEO, Celio Future Fashion Limited; Ashish Jalani,  , eTailing India; Rachna Nath, ED, PWC; Abhishek Gupta, Head Marketing The Mobile Store Ltd; Anaggh Desai, Co Founder, Chlorophyll Experience Consulting; Jasmeet Singth Gulati, Co-Founder & CEO, NowFloats; Vikas Choudhary, COO AIMIA;

Moderator:
Vinay Bhatia, Sr. VP. Marketing & Loyalty,
Shoppers Stop Ltd

How to win new consumers?

“Winning a customer and building up a relation with customers is important. ” – Madan Mohapatra, Future Group

• We developed new events around regional customs like “jamai sashthi” in Kolkata,

• To enhance reach beyond the 90 cities that Big Bazaar operates in – introduced a  loyalty programme

Findings

• 85% of smartphone and social network users are below  the age of 35
• 45% of online consumers access the internet only through their mobile devices
• 40% of India’s urban internet users report that their online activities influence what they buy, whether online or offline
• Up to 8% of India’s retail market expected to be online by 2020
• In India, Kirana and traditional retailing still continues to be the single largest outlet for sale of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG
• 60% of urban internet users surf the net for entertainment, networking, business, education and shopping

The foundations of customer loyalty are created by the core drivers of:

• Quality
• Cleanliness
• Trust
• Service
•  Value
• Information

Nature of young, urban, Indian consumer; his and her attitude to life and their relationship with technology

• Self-investment
• Cleanliness
• Trust
• Born better connected
• Value
• Information

Reasons for discrepancy between awareness and customer participation

Keeping in contact: The lagging internet infrastructure makes it challenging for Indians to access

Tangible value: Millenials believe that they should be able to earn rewards in less than three months. This is a long way from the current reality.

Meaningful rewards: Loyalty programs need to better answer the “What’s in it for me?”  Question. Thirty-five percent of our Millenials and 40 percent of our Non-Millennials reported that relevant rewards would encourage them to join a loyalty program.

Multiple opportunities to earn:  A robust loyalty program proposition includes the ability to earn across multiple purchase points with multiple types of payment.

Working together: One way of closing the gap, is through the introduction of coalitions and partnerships — where multiple complementary businesses work together so the sum of the parts offer greater benefits than individual businesses can deliver in isolation.

Loyalty programs: for registration or account checking purposes to see adequate value from them.

Based on the findings of study, the following is an advisory on program development:

• Keep it simple
• Facilitate early redemption
• Optimize for mobile
• Be sensitive to privacy
• Be open to partnership

About the Study

• Aimia partnered with IMRB International to conduct quantitative consumer research in India.
• Both online and face-to-face methodologies to provide a more robust set of data
• In total 1,516 quantitative interviews were conducted by IMRB — 706 online and 810 face-to-face.
• Fieldwork took place in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Guwahati.

• The surveys were randomly administered to individuals aged 19 years and above, SEC A, B & C across urban India.
• There were no specific quotas set for various age bands within the Millennials (19-29 years) and Non‑Millennials (30-55 years).
• Online participants were drawn from IMRB International’s online panel of 150,000+ verified panelists.
• The face-to-face also used the same questionnaire, converted into a Computer   Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) format.

“Now is the Time”: Customer Loyalty in India, Mr. Akash Sahai, Country Manager, AIMIA.

“Inspired by how aroma uplifts the mood & fills people with happiness led me to aroma therapy. I spent my time in Thailand working on the idea of ‘Spa @ Home’. I studied and gathered knowledge related to herbs, flowers and other elements which helped me understand aroma-therapy.” Natasha Tuli, Owner, Soulflower says.

This inspiration was channeled to create Soulflower. The company launched in 2003, with a range of 100% vegetarian handmade soaps. “The first reaction to this new range of soaps was very positive. Consumers thought they were candles, no one believed that a common soap could be so artistic.” says Natasha.

The environment in 2003
Natasha says, “Back in 2003 the retail scenario was just evolving and Shoppers Stop was the only organized retail chain offering a unique shopping experience to their customers. At Shoppers Stop Soulflower found its niche and started by launching a range of handmade soaps, aroma candles, potpourri etc. No longer did the customers need to depend on the overseas market to avail such products.”

Soulflower sells to the aspiring consumer – “Most of our customers fall into the age bracket of 16-45 years, and 40% of our customers are male. A typical Soulflower customer would be earning Rs 4 lakh and above if they come from a city like Mumbai.”, says Natasha.

Soulflower opened new avenues for gifting, starting a trend towards the contemporary. Changing consumer lifestyles and improving standards of living has added to the market opportunity.

“The key investments we made during our set-up phase were on the infrastructure front. It was a challenge to set up a manufacturing unit that produced Thailand quality products in India. We overcame this challenge by a stringent ongoing focus on quality. From a marketing perspective, we focus on digital marketing campaigns, in-store promotions and have also gained visibility through word-of-mouth.” says Natasha.

“A customer who uses Soulflower product once never settles for anything less. This maintenance of quality has earned us a loyal customer base.” she adds.

Currently Soulflower has grown to have 180 stores and is present on 30 e-commerce platforms. Recently, the brand gained the number one position on Shoppers Stop & FlipKart portals. But this growth wasn’t bereft of challenges, “There was no visible market for us, we were entering a vague, non-traditional plane. We tackled this challenge by increasing our presence in Modern trade, and conducted BTL activities like promotions and knowledge sessions, which established awareness.”

What added to Soulflower’s success was their innovative approach of positioning and selling its products. “At Soulflower we understood that people look for solutions rather than products. Keeping this insight in mind we offered over products under three innovative concepts which include: (a). Make your own aroma, (b). Solutions for specific problems – e.g. stress relieving aromas and (c). Selling aroma by mood.”

Apart from this Soulflower has also improvised and altered its Supply chain system to make the business model more effective, “In our supply chain system we are adding one more segment – distributors who cater to the mass markets and expand the modern trade format. We now retail through shop-in-shops.” says Natasha.

Soulflower aspires to have their handmade soaps in every Indian household. This aspiration they plan to achieve through a well planned future, “We plan to enter general trade and the idea is to set up retail points across 53 cities by 2018 and to spread our wings over 42 countries worldwide.” Natasha concludes.