AUDI – Managing customer expectations?

I was at the UB city mall a couple of days back and was amazed at the brand new Audi E5 which was displayed at the mall. Right next to the car, there was a big poster asked prospective customers to SMS AUDI to 561611 for more information about the car. In my enthusiasm to know more about the same, I immediately complied and sent an SMS to the number mentioned on the poster.I was then waiting impatiently for either a SMS response or for someone at the AUDI dealership to call me and explain all the great new features […]

Customer Satisfaction Sucks !!!

Yes. That is right. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SUCKS!!! In a networked world, customers today are spoilt by choice. Customer expectations are increasing every passing day.  What was exceptional yesterday is expected today and will become irrelevant the day-after.   World class customer experience is quickly becoming the price of entry. Also, Satisfied customers are so boring. &They do not demand more out of you (thereby not challenging you to continuously improve) &They instill a sense of complacency in your organization (which in today’s fast paced world can be very dangerous) &They do not go out of their way to promote your product/services […]

Why are rewards programs so boring?

Today, I have been a loyal customer for HSBC credit cards and over the past sometime accumulated some 3000 points on their customer loyalty program. I wanted to redeem the points and so logged into the program site to explore the options that I had. I was not impressed by what I saw. They still have an option to redeem my points for a Kodak Film. Who uses a Kodak film anymore!! Maybe someone forgot to remove this from the list (that is if someone is reviewing this list at all). Then the collection of gifts is un-imaginative. There is […]

BharatGas (BPCL) – Is someone listening?

I recently shifted my residence from one part of Bangalore to another part of the city. An important part of the process is also to complete the formalities for the change in the gas connection, landline phone connection and updating the address in all the relevant places. As it turns out, the process to shift my gas connection proved to be a very bad experience for me and my wife. The connection is on my wife’s name and hence she had to go through the bad experience as well. The current process is as follows: The person who owns the […]

Deutsche Bank – Are you listening?

Today, I got the following alert (both as a sms and an email) from my bank – Deutsche Bank: “Dear Customer, a new bill from BSNL – Bangalore for INR 958 is due on 04/05/2011. Login to db online banking to pay your bill.” Instead of this passive message, I would have loved to get a message which said the following (as an SMS): “Dear Mukesh, a new bill from BSNL – Bangalore for INR 958 (Payment ID: xxxxx) is due on 04/05/2011. Pls forward this message to 55555 and include your transaction password at the end to process the […]