Ideas

Customer Engagement – What if your customers do not engage with you?

There is a lot being said about the customer centricorganizations and how businesses can involve customers at different stages of product/servicedevelopment. There have organizations that have done this verysuccessfully and continue to engage with their customers. I did write about onesuch initiative that FM station RadioOne recently. However, what happens if your customers do notparticipate in these activities? Without their active participation, the entireprogram is designed to fail.  How does one deal with this situation? How would you deal with such a situation? 

Ideas

Caught you!

While driving to my office today morning, I saw avery common sight in Bangalore (and in any city in India). There were 3 trafficcops waiting at a busy T-junction. Now imagine, you are in a hurry to reach your office(or wherever you are going). You see that the signal has changed form Green toYellow and you are right at the turn. You race to cross the signal before thesignal turns red. Alas! The signal wins the race and just turns to Redat the instant you are taking the turn. Bang! The waiting cops pounce on you and slap afine or […]

Ideas

Death of the Car Audio Systems

After a lot of deliberation, I recently bought aSkoda Fabia for myself. As part of the negotiation, the dealer offered to providea Sony Car audio system for free (along with a few other goodies). I was happy withthe deal I got. When I was driving back home, I thought that therewas no need for a car audio system, if it was possible for me to connect myphone to the in-built speaker systems that is a standard fitting for the modelI bought. My mobile has all the songs that I like along with an FM/AM radio tuner. So, for all practical […]

Innovation

Innovation – Re-birth of a paint can?

Have you ever wondered why paint containers (infact, most containers) are cylindrical in shape? Why not any other shape? Is itbecause cylindrical shape has advantages over other shapes or is it because oftradition (this is how it has been done for centuries)? When I thought about it, I did what people usuallydo now-a-days – Googled it. I found some very interesting stories and designs: A see-through container made using PET. Moreinformation on the same here.This helps customers to see the color even before buying it, thereby making thepaint selection process easier, fun and results in a higher customersatisfaction. A square […]

Customer Engagement

What more can RadioOne do?

I wrote about the great campaign that Radio Oneexecuted recently to re-define their playlist by creating a user driven musicpanel. They are also engaging other users (via contests) to validate the new playlist byoffering a 1000INR gift voucher or cash prize for listeners who are able tocorrectly predict the song which did not make it to the playlist. Now, Radio one has an opportunity to take theircustomer engagement to the next level. Instead of just offering cash rewards(or equivalent), they should also start offering social currency to all theirlisteners. Let me explain: Radio One currently has a Facebook fan group, […]