Author: Mukesh Gupta

Customer Engagement

The secrets to building fierce loyalty

I have been following the blog post series by Sarah Robinson – “28 days of building fierce loyalty”. She has some really good folks come and talk about the secrets to building fierce loyalty. So far, we have had some very interesting posts. When I started thinking about folks who have inspired fierce loyaly, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga, Madonna and a lot of others. I realize that they all shared a few characteristics: Fiercely passionate: They were all fiercely passionate about a cause and were totally committed and driven by the cause, a […]

Strategy

Why is Facebook planning to go public now?

I just read about the plans of Facebook going public with a 10b$ share offering. I am sure that this is going to generate a lot of press and noise around this IPO. The question to ask is this: Why go for an IPO? Why now? In my opinion, the investors of facebook have realized that The dizzying growth rates in membership is no longer sustainable. The scope for breakthrough innovation is also reduced which could add substantial value to the company. Other players (Google+, Twitter) are catching up fast. The valuation for the company will only fall going forward […]

Sales

66 Things You Should Know About Your Customer & some more

I just came across the article “66 Things You Should Know About Your Customer” in the Inc.com website written by Harvey Mackay. He talks about the importance of knowing your customer in selling to them. He also stresses the fact that, even though you may be selling to a business or an organization, the real buyer is still an individual and it is important to know about the individual as much as you know about his company, if not more. He also has developed Mackay 66, a 66-question customer profile that includes absolutely no information about the envelopes a company […]

Customer Engagement

Why Airlines need to re-design their loyalty programs

Today, I was reading an article “Why Airlines Need to Reconsider What “Loyalty” Is Today…”. This brought back a few questions to my mind. I work for an MNC and my work involves a lot of travel within India. My company has a corporate deal with an airline (Jet Airways) in India to minimize the cost of travel. So, most of the times, I am required to take a Jet Air flight. I do not like flying Jet but do travel quite a bit in Jet due to the company policy. The company also allows me the freedom to choose […]

Customer Engagement

Delighting customers – Bollywood style

As I have always said, you can always delight your customers. I came across a video of a Finnair Flight which was on its way to Delhi, celebrating India’s Republic Day, Bollywood style – Song & dance routine. Have a look at the video below. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mEsnb3kUDAw] The video has already garnered more than half a million views on Youtube. The reason why this works great are: Element of surprise: No one expects to see a song & dance routine on an aircraft. Effort: The effort the dancers had put in clearly showed. Emotional: There was an emotional connect for all […]