Be it  schools, eating out, jewellery, clothing, electronics .. the search for something unique and different almost every time ends with a new place. The fact that the city is lined with extremely predictable “ditto” hoardings does not help the literal going around in circles.

I so wish that there were more places that were silently different than those screaming their similarities.

It is also amazing how often restaurants choose to ignore the indifferent replies that fill the survey cards. While, being polite is the easy way out for the staff and the diner, it also almost guarantees another night of mediocre experience (if the diner chooses to return).

The wise thing for the diner to do is to stop the tantrums and just tell the staff just how good/bad they were – and more importantly how they can improve. The wise thing for the staff to do is to not give any scope for the customer to complain, and if they do – find out exactly why.

After all while feeding keeps the restaurants busy, a feedback would add an extra ka-ching to the cash counters.

Coke may not satisfy thirst but it sure promises to make happy times happier. A miniature burger does not satisfy hunger, but it does seem like the perfect “happy” meal.

Or does it?

It is interesting – this craving to be happy. Consumers are stocking up on things that seem to make them happy. A dream that is kept alive by the tremendous media effort put together by the marketers.

Once the illusion of happiness is taken away, there really isn’t much that customers perceive as worth buying.

In short if you are the seller, keep the illusion of good times up, and if you are the buyer it’s about time that you did a reality check of what you want and what you really need before you make that next purchase.

All that has changed drastically, no more long waiting periods, transactions can be done from the ease of home, efficient service is provided almost everywhere you go. The customer has been raised to the position of King. This of course has its own side effects.

 Expectations are sky high, after years of oppression the sudden sense of power has made the Indian customer extremely demanding, impatient and sometimes even inconsiderate.

No matter how great the service, product or scheme a minute flaw is enough to tick the customer. The only time good service is noticed is when it goes wrong. Great ambience, variety of choice, valet parking .. all that is fine but I am paying for it, they are not doing me a favor seems to be the general attitude.

The shopping malls provide near perfect ambience; every need of the customer is taken care of – sofas for those accompanying the shopper, eating options close by, membership privileges, clean washrooms free goodies and polite considerate treatment – and yet we cannot get over the delay in billing.

Interestingly these accusations are directed to those who really are trying to be perfect, nobody complains about slow service in a local restaurant, nor do we complain about delayed letter delivery from the government post office. We do however, go out at the four star restaurant when the dessert is five minutes late, we crib if the telephone billing service is slow -after all we all had to wait for a good ten minutes till they got the server up and running. An otherwise prompt courier service receives bad reviews if the letter arrives a day late.

The side effects of making customer the king are many, good and ugly. It could have turned the otherwise overtly tolerant Indian consumer into a critic looking out for the smallest of flaws.

I feel that understanding, patience and a genuine appreciation are required from both involved – the consumer and the provider.

As children most of us would have walked over to a home in the neighbourhood, where some instructor would teach song and dance. At times the instructor would come over to our homes and take personal sessions. Win-win situation for the kids, parents and the teacher.

The challenge now – provide a similar ‘home service’, only this time for the working professional. Even though there is so much more to learn (dance, yoga, martial arts, new languages, music, painting, cooking, prep for entrance etc.), the constraints of time and accessibility are hindering many people from joining these classes .

What if professional learning institutes started accommodating home tutorials? What if it was taken a step further and ‘single neighbourhood’ classes were started? Imagine the number of people who would enroll.

Any takers?

The only way to contact them was via e-mail. A couple of mails (from different mail accounts) were send seeking details on room reservation and possible ways of getting there. The response was delayed and disappointing. None of the queries were answered; instead a road map for reaching the hotel was send as an attachment. After a few more hours of online hunting we managed to get in touch with the person in-charge for room reservation. He choose to respond to our queries with statements like “As we are new to this and far from the city, that would not be possible”, ”Travel agencies numbers are difficult to find, so I am not sure if we can arrange car hiring”.

You would think that small hotels would be more proactive and aggressive in their approach. Startups are known to provide better service, in their quest to gain word of mouth and a loyal customer. In this case however, being small was used as an excuse for the lack of service and poor quality of experience provided.

Examples of small businesses that have made it big, challenged reach and used imagination to advantage are many.

Small should not be an excuse for mediocrity or lack of preparedness, it should be more reason to use possible opportunities to gain more ground.

Summer jobs provide companies with a fabulous opportunity to market themselves. It is during this time of the year that they can gain a great future employee or a loyal consumer. The opportunity important to the intern is of far greater value to the employer.

Despite this, students are seen doing meaningless door to door surveys, making presentations on topics that have long lost relevance or doing clerical work as part of their internship program. Why is there such a blatant waste of fresh ideas and young talent? Blame on a poor mentor, excessive hiring of interns are mere excuses, which encourage further negligence towards the students and the projects assigned to them.

Examples of wasted talent are many. Interaction with a intern may appear to be of low consequence, but think of the bad word of mouth that a disappointed student can generate. What of the lost talent , the missed opportunity to position the brand, the monetary loss from carrying out this exercise year after year…think about the image of the industry that the student now shoulders.

What could possibly have been a valuable close interaction between the consumer and the brand, is turned into a mere exercise. What is being done to stop this from happening at your workplace? Are enough opportunities provided for the intern to learn? What kind of industry knowledge is imparted? Has the company succeeded in sharing the essence of its values, beliefs and work culture? More importantly will you be hearing from the student again?

The face of the Indian News channels has since undergone many make-overs. It began with the war between channels to bring the latest news first, followed by providing distinct personalities as news analysts and then came the war of sensationalising. The objective was not about providing the true picture and real breaking news, it was about bringing in viewership…the capsule of daily news steadily replaced by a mix of news-entertainment. 

  I increasingly see comedy routines, videos available on the net and bollywood trivia seeping through the news segments. There is nothing on the news channels that is not available faster or with greater covergae either on the internet or on print. Very few channels can today boast of exclusivity , be it the news or the insight with which it is covered.

In an attempt to be everything to everybody the news channels seem to be losing out on the loyalty of a valuable section of the market.

This choice that the channels seem to have willingly made is cause for concern. Great channel, great people, existing loyal viewers … and yet following that path that others take. What if you stuck to the original concept of providing truly exclusive first hand information.

What have you been great at? What if you continued to excel? What if you stopped being just another channel?

Walk inside the compound walls of most of Hyderabad’s apartment complexes and you will know what I mean. There will be a huge, shallow, clean swimming pool strategically placed for constant visibility to visitors and residents, and that is where its functionality ceases (almost). 
What is the point of this pool? Women residents do not use it as there is zero privacy, men probably don’t use it because it is too shallow and kids mess the whole place by turning the pool into a giant puddle of dirty water.

What appears as a benefit on the brochure, does not necessarily translate into a benefit for the buyer or the seller. Is your business also suffering from the swimming pool syndrome? Are you promising too much in theory but not able to render the product useful?

An apartment with a well designed pool that addresses the issue of privacy, standard dimensions and specific timings for men, women and children, will definitely be more beneficial to the residents. To gain visibility the pool can be placed within a recreational zone where visitors are allowed.

Takeaway: Provide service that truly matters. If you are going to promise more than what you deliver, do not kid yourself into believing that the customer is the loser. Providing no service is better than forcing redundant, over hyped services which carry a fee.

In-site advertising - to know what I mean follow this link on the NDTV Good Times site and click on the hyperlinks ‘married’ and ‘relationship’.

Simple and highly effective this form of advertising has been around for a while. The concept assures a click from almost every reader and hence sure shot visibility for the brand.

Another bonus is the amount of information the reader is lead to. Unlike its television counterpart in-site advertising allows the reader to explore the product.

However, a clutter of hyperlinks with tangential relevance to the article can ruin the reading experience causing damage to the site.
While discretion and choice of brands is absolutely essential, the trick lies is maintaining the quality of the article while keeping the brands few and far between.