Random Musings

Jun

India Today: A Lesson in “how NOT to do customer service”!!

Fans feel sad when their loved brand is going down the drain.

You flinch when you see Saurav-da struggling against young fast bowlers. You feel bad if Amitabh plays some silly role – after all, you have seen him in all fanfare.

Such is the case with India’s premier magazine, India Today. We have grown up reading that magazine, and seen its transformation into a lively mouthpiece on affairs of India.

And now, as I experience one of the most pathetic forms of customer service from this magazine, I feel frustrated as well as sad. How the mighty brand has sunk to a low-low!! In continuation with my earlier post on the subject, I would like to reproduce the chronological details of the sorry saga. The conversation over email, with my communications (ME) and those of India Today (IT) with dates and details is as under:

ME on Jan 11, 2009: conveyed that I had sent my subscription amount and had not received magazines so far, nor the gift that was part of the promotion. Asked them about both.

IT on Jan 13, 2009: Apologized. Confirmed the subscription period from 19th Jan onwards. Confirmed that the first copy will reach my in 24-48 hours. And conveyed (for the first time) that the gift will be despatched in 8-10 weeks after processing of the subscription!! Requested me to ‘bear with them’ till then!!

ME on Apr 3, 2009: conveyed to them that long time had passed and I had yet to receive the gift. Enquired.

IT on Apr 3, 2009:

Dear Mr. Metha,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

We regret to inform you that the dispatches for the subscription gift of “Mystery gift with Bag” are held due to certain logistical reasons. These gifts are currently in the process of being shipped in and the replenishments are expected to be with us within 3-4 weeks. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services, always.

ME on Apr 3, 2009: conveyed that this was unbelievable. What kind of logistics challenges are those that in today’s age, first need 8-10 weeks to process a gift, and then need another 3-4 weeks to get it ready. That it was not acceptable to me, etc.

ME on Apr 6, 2009: enquiring for a further reply to the email.

IT on Apr 7, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

We are sorry that you have had to write to us repeatedly due to non receipt of gift. We do understand you have every reason to be vexed with us. However, we would like to inform you that we are in process of sending gift which shall be delivered to you within 2-3 weeks time. Kindly confirm the receipt of the same. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

Please feel free to contact us for any further assistance/clarification.

Assuring you of our best possible services, always.

ME on Apr 7, 2009: conveyed that this was not acceptable. However conveyed that this is the LAST chance that I will give to India Today. If the gift is not received by Apr 30, 2009, then I would not like the gift. That I would like full refund for the entire subscription amount, and still have the subscription continue till end of the period. Or in short, if I did not receive the gift by April end, then the subscription had to become a free subscription.

IT on Apr 9, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

We sincerely regret all the inconvenience caused due to non receipt of gift.

We assure you that all possible care shall be taken from our end, so as to ensure safer delivery of gift within 2-3 weeks time. Kindly confirm the receipt of the same. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

Please feel free to contact us for any further assistance/clarification.

Assuring you of our best possible services, always.

ME on Apr 9, 2009: Conveyed that the above mail from IT was to be construed as a confirmation that if the gift does not arrive by Apr 30, then the subscription will be considered free.

ME on May 1, 2009:

You surely MUST change your email id, from “WeCare” to “WeDontCare”!!

April has ended. I have not received my gift.

As committed and confirmed in the email interaction herebelow:
1. I expect immediate 100% refund of the subscription money paid for India Today, for the year,
2. I expect the subscription to continue till end of the year, free of cost.

There is no other choice, and I am afraid, there is NO MORE TIME LEFT for getting the gift!!

If you do not comply with the above, I am afraid that I will have to complain for fraud, malintention, swindling customers, false promises etc. against India Today and its senior management.

…<snip>…

ME on May 8, 2009: conveyed that there was no response, nor refund cheque. Waiting for the same.

IT on May 11, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you due to the non receipt of the magazines in spite of our assurance. We do understand you have every reason to be vexed with us. We request you to kindly reconsider your decision to cancel your subscription and allow us another chance to continue servicing you.

As per the status received from the department concerned, we would like to inform you that earlier the dispatches for the subscription gifts were held due to certain unavoidable reasons. The dispatches have now recommenced and are presently underway. We request you to kindly allow us 3-4 weeks so as to enable us to do the needful. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

We would also like to inform you that our subscription gifts do not contains any commercial value with it and are only complementary along with the subscription copies. Hence, we regret that we shall not be able to extend your subscription in lieu of the subscription gift.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services; always.

Note: ** For the first time, there is an attempt to belittle the gift. That they are of no commercial value and are only given as complimentary. While pushing for subscriptions, these are put up ahead as the big lure, but when it comes to non-delivery of those, they are made to appear to be of no commercial value, with a clear intent to sneak their way out of any commitment on those!! **

ME on May 11, 2009: conveyed that this was not acceptable and that I would not take anything less than a full refund. I did not care about the gift anymore.

ME on May 13, 2009: reminded about the reply that had not come and wanted to see if the cheque had been mailed out or not.

ME on May 18, 2009: again reminded to check about action from their end, as I had not heard anything from them.

IT on May 22, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

At the outset, please accept our sincere apologies for all the inconvenience caused to you due to the non receipt of the gift in spite of our assurance. We are sorry for the inordinate delay. We do understand you have every reason to be vexed with us.

We would like inform you that we are taking up the matter with the concerned person to expedite the delivery of the gift. We are arranging to send you the gift and the same shall be delivered to you within 10-15 days time. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

We also request you for your kind understanding and co-operation and promise you that the gift will be delivered to you within the given time frame.

Further, we would like to inform you that your subscription is still active in our records. We request you to kindly reconsider your decision to cancel your subscription and allow us another chance to continue servicing you.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services; always.

Note: ** Yet another 10-15 days. Although for a gift that I had refused to accept now! They are accepting the ‘inordinate delay’. Not much to offer besides sweet and polite sounding apologies. They are confirming that my subscription is active, which I had never questioned!! I had NEVER asked for the subscription to be CANCELLED. I had asked for the same to be converted to a free subscription!! **

ME on May 22, 2009:

Which part of the following statement is not understood by India Today?? What language should I write in?? Why do you insist of causing exasperation and frustration with your subscribers???

Please read again, and don’t come back with same old story again and again:

I AM NOT INTERESTED IN RECEIVING THE GIFT ANYMORE.
I WANT FULL REFUND OF MY SUBSCRIPTION AMOUNT AS IT WAS A FRAUD THAT YOU HAVE INFLICTED BY TAKING THE SUBSCRIPTION ON PROMISE OF GIFT WHICH NEVER GOT DELIVERED.
I NEED THE CHEQUE FOR FULL SUBSCRIPTION TO COME TO ME IMMEDIATELY. I EXPECT THE ACTUAL DELIVERY OF MAGAZINE TO CONTINUE TILL THE END OF THE YEAR, IN ANY CASE, EVEN WITH THE FULL REFUND.

ME on May 31, 2009: complaining about not having received anything yet. No cheque for refund!

ME on Jun 5, 2009: again reminding them on non-receipt of any response from their end!!

Some interesting thoughts in this regard:

Subscription paid in early January, 2009. Now, in June, 2009, that is about 5 months later, no sign of gift!!
When they have no clue what they are doing, why are they offering gifts?? Why don’t they just stick to the business of making a magazine??
Note the delays: originally, 8-10 weeks asked for delivering a simple gift, then in early April, additional 3-4 weeks asked for, then on May 11, another 3-4 weeks asked for, then on May 22, another 10-15 days asked for. Of course, so far, there is no sign of gift nor of refund. So let’s see, how much more time goes by. Does India Today have ANY VALUE OF TIME?? (Pun unintended)
I am sure that few people pursue a matter the way I did, with them. I did so, to understand a customer service case from an academic point of view, as much also on account of the fact that I was using a calendar program that kept giving me next dates of reminder, and I just had to push off emails each time! If they had any kind of authority delegated to them, someone could have just purchased a gift from somewhere and mailed it to me. It would have ’shut me up’ at least. But they had no authority apparently, to do so. And here I am, writing the saga of the story and burning their reputation down, some more!
Amongst the funniest parts of the story are the fact that their email id is “wecare@..” (I assure you that they don’t care!!) and that each of their email always ended with “Assuring you of the best possible services always”. Now isn’t that a ROFL statement??

I will continue to edit this story with updates. Let us see where this one ends up.. !!

** Edited on June 6, 2009 **

The episode gets funnier by the day. In fact, I am more amused now than I am angry. To see how pathetic a brand like India Today can get!! I conveyed this blog URL to them on email yesterday. Told them how I am making the entire saga public now. And here are the latest episodes in the India Today soap opera now:

IT on Jun 6, 2009:

Dear Mr. Metha,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused to you. Due to some unavoidable circumstances we could not dispatch the gift earlier to you. We assure you that this time the gift shall be delivered to you within 15-20 days time.

We also request you for your kind understanding and co-operation and promise you that the gift will be delivered to you within the given time frame.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services; always.

ME on Jun 6, 2009: Conveyed my amusement. Rejected the gift and pointed them to the blog again!

Notice the assurance of the best possible service always.. lol!! They never miss that!!

Watch this space for the developing further episodes…

*** Further and final update now: ***

IT on June 10, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

We would like to inform you that as per our records, your subscription gift has been dispatched through AFL Courier vide docket no 203810806262523 recently and hence the same is in transit right now and we ensure that the same shall be delivered to you within 3-4 working days. May we request you to kindly confirm the receipt of the same.

Further, we would like to let you know that we tried to contact you at 022-xxxxxxxx but unable to get through.

We assure you that we are here to solve your query so that in future you don’t face any kind of problem with our services.

For any complaints/query please contact our Customer care no-0120-2479900, Toll free no -1800-1800-100.

Assuring you of the best possible services, always.

I must add that in between I tried to send my saga details to their top boss, Mr. Aroon Purie. Althouth I did not have his direct email id, I took a chance with some generic email id structures. One of them bounced back, but the others did not. And chances are that one of them must have reached him. Because after the 6th June email asking for 15-20 days more, this email confirming despatch on 10th June was unusual. Also it came from a different email id. From “WECARE”, it became “TODAYCARE”!! Anyway, I got the intimation. Story does not end there..

In fact, on 10th itself, I got a phone call, from India Today, asking me if I had received the gift. I conveyed that I had not. She was very surprised. She said, “but it has been despatched by so-and-so courier and it should have reached you”! I conveyed that well, it had not reached me! Disappointed, she put the phone down.

Thereafter, on 11th June, in a proof of their left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, I got ANOTHER email from that old “WECARE” email id, and which was:

Dear Mr. Metha,

This is with reference to your e-mail.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you.

We are arranging to send you the gift and the same shall be delivered to you within 10- 15 days time. Hope you shall bear with us in the interim.

We also request you for your kind understanding and co-operation and promise you that the gift will be delivered to you within the given time frame.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services; always.

Meanwhile, the gift actually arrived. On June 11, 2009. Yeah!! AND the “TODAYCARE” folks were tracking it over phone all the time. Quite likely, as I suspect, under the direct command of their top boss, Mr. Purie, who might have got a copy of the email! Because inspite of the above mentioned email that claimed that it will take 15-20 days more, and which was received on June 11, 2009, this girl was tracking the shipment delivery and called to confirm the same.

And then from “TODAYCARE”, I received this final email on June 11, 2009:

Dear Mr. Mehta,

This is with reference to your e-mail and our telecon with Mrs. Mehta on 11.06.2009.

We would like to thank you for confirming the receipt of the subscription gift “Mystery gift with Bag”. We appreciate this opportunity to be of service.

For any complaints/query please contact our Customer care no-0120-2479900, Toll free no -1800-1800-100.

We assure you that we are here to solve your query so that in future you don’t face any kind of problem with our services.

Please feel free to get back to us for further assistance/clarifications.

Assuring you of the best possible services, always.

And thus the saga ended, with their assurance to me, of their best possible services, always!!!!

Whew!

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: India Today

May

See the change in the logo of Bombay Times??

Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2009: Some Management Lessons

7 Comments

There have been jokes in plenty about the KKR’s disastrous IPL season. Till date, I have also been involved to that extent only – had fun at their expense!

But an article in India Today, probing an analysis of the KKR performance got me thinking. One of the comments made by an ex-Australian cricketer (who is not named in the article) mentions that high profile coach John Buchanan was good to fine tune a team of brilliant individual cricketers (as in the Australian team that he coached then), but he would not be able to handle a team that has disparate and somewhat mediocre cricketers too.

This is an interesting thought, really. I remember during our college days, we had the Agrawal Classes in Mumbai, which had an amazing record at the IIT-JEE exams (and also the class XII HSC exams). The fact was that it restricted admissions to the absolute best-in-breed students and simply honed them to write the perfect exams. There were questions asked those days that if Agrawal Classes were really that good, can they take average performers and make them winners?? And the jury was out on that question. And we have seen others, such as the Super 30 – IIT group out of Bihar, where the not-so-perfect group has been converted into winners! Lagaan and Chak De India told similar stories. In real world sports teams, captains Mike Brearley (England), Warne (Rajasthan Royals) and Dhoni (India and Chennai Superkings) have done similar work. They have not necessarily had stars in their teams, but they have transformed average players into winning ones. Unlike John Buchanan!!

Could the same concept be true with CEOs? Would some CEOs succeed only when given star teams, whereas others manage to convert average performers into winning groups? Which is a better captain / coach / CEO to have? Buchanan or Brearley??

Another related and interesting thought with respect to sports teams is shared in the recent book, “Simplexity“. It talks about why good teams often lose against bad teams. The concept mentioned there is with respect to the ’single line of fault’. With all the best players and strategy at a team’s disposal, how critical is a dropped catch in the 20th over?! Or a no-ball bowled or a wide given or a batsman giving away his wicket to an indiscrete shot at the very end?

That ’single line of fault’ can undo all the great work of the great team, and which is the difference between winning and losing.

Like sports teams, companies are equally vulnerable to such ’single line of fault’. There is a lot to learn from Mortaza’s wide in the 20th over to Rohit Sharma losing his wicket when just 4 runs were required in 4 balls. That could easily happen to your company too.. !

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Buchanan, IPL, KKR, management lessons from sports, Simplexity, single line of fault

May

The con job that is India Today magazine subscriptions!!

4 Comments

India’s leading magazine, India Today, may have a great reputation on the content side, but they are a perfect fraud with regards to their promises on the subscriptions front.

I must share a rather pathetic experience that I have had.

At the time of subscription purchase, there are a lot of lures. Free gifts and the like. I went ahead and subscribed. An email of confirmation came sometime later. Interestingly it was from an email id that was called “WE CARE”. That must be the biggest irony. The more appropriate one should have been “WE DO NOT CARE”!!

It was at the point of receiving this email that I discovered that the ‘free gift’ with the subscription will only come 12-14 weeks later!! Can you imagine? In this world of e-commerce, courier delivery etc., they need 12 to 14 WEEKS to deliver the gift?? What world are they living in?

I realized later that their game was about subscribers forgetting that a gift was ever promised. I mean, how many of us would remember after 12-14 weeks? And in that assumption that people will not remember, is their business model, perhaps!

Well, when I read that long delivery schedule and having a calendar handy (Google Calendar), I put a note for myself. And after the full 14 weeks had gone by, there was no sign of the gift. So I decided to write back to the “WE CARE” (lol) id of India Today. They must have been surprised that someone actually remembered about the gift! Taken by surprise, they kept a polite facade and proposed that it will take another 4-5 weeks to deliver. Okay! 12-14 weeks was obviously not enough. They are not tuned in for “express delivery” it was clear So they needed another 4-5 weeks.

I was not happy. I made it amply clear. The oh-so-polite “WE CARE” chap apologised a plenty, and promised that it will reach definitely in 4-5 weeks. So now as I write this post, those 5 weeks are up. And there is certainly no sign of the gift. Looks like someone has seen through their game. They did not have any plan for any gift at all, after all?!

With the holier than thou reputation that the magazine claims to have, we now know the goings on behind the scene. What shocks me is the absolute lack of fredom to act, for their executives. I mean, how many people are likely to take up the case for a gift as strongly as I did? All it took was to find a way to send a gift across to me, even if it was completely out of the system, just to “shut me up”. But that liberty was obviously not given to them.

Clearly an old economy company which does not get the new realities. I read recently a report that quoted Aroon Purie, head of India Today, saying that they do not expect to make more investments into Digital media. Obviously not. They don’t get it!

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Aroon Purie, India Today

Apr

Vote Thoughts: Musings on Election Day

2 Comments

A question posted by a Facebook friend on his status got me thinking. He asked “give me a good reason why I should go and vote tomorrow?”. With all the extensive mobilization and promotion of our duty to vote, that such questions still remained, made me wonder.

At the outset, I came up with this one answer to that question, “Voting gives you the right to crib for the next 5 years. If you don’t vote, you can’t crib.”

Having said that, why really, does the thought of not voting come up? I have been there, in previous elections. Sometimes because I was frustrated by the system. Sometimes because I was giving an excuse to myself (”cunning intelligence”) while actually, I wanted to take a holiday, or was too busy at work. Those times, I had also asked similar questions, “Why should I vote? What good does it do? Finally the government is decided by rural votes..” and thoughts of that kind.

Maybe the terror attacks, maybe some ‘wisdom’ (??) over the years, has ensured that I don’t ask that basic question, about voting.

But there is a feeling amongst the intellectual classes that their vote does not matter. That there are vote banks, and they vote en masse, on account of certain factors – be it caste, be it money, whatever..

My thoughts on this subject are:

1. Maybe vote banks ARE big. Maybe they ARE influenced. Maybe they ARE manipulated. Or MAYBE NOT?! Maybe the so-called vote banks have seen through the manipulation. Maybe they have realized that election-after-election, when they voted together, it did not really deliver them any kind of salvation to their woes. So MAYBE they take their own calls, and vote differently. Or at least SOME do. And we see a shift. Perhaps a small shift.

2. If OUR chosen candidate does not win, if say a Meera Sanyal does not win, and an apparently lesser mortal wins, then do we sense frustration? If we get say, a 3rd front or 4th front emerging ahead at the center, do we again feel cheated? Do we resign ourselves with the thought that “vote banks at work again”? Hey, ever considered the fact that what we want, may not be the popular vote after all??

3. Elections finally are about popular vote. We “intellectuals” (and I include myself here) think that we know what is good for the country, and if things do not happen our way, then things are really wrong. Well, going down high-speed elevators, driving our air-conditioned cars, and having cups of coffee at 5-star coffee shops, gives us a certain view of the country. The real India may be different. In their own limited intelligence, they may have a view of what is good for them. And maybe we just do not identify with it. Gandhiji reached his sphere of influence after traveling the country, by road, by train, by being with people, by empathizing with them completely. If he was a practising barrister in England or South Africa or even Bombay, and from that pedestal, if he had preached about what is good for the country, we might still have been a British colony!

So, let what happen, happen. Lets believe that we have a system which is largely clean, at least as far as the process goes. And lets accept the verdict that we get. As the real popular vote. If it happens to be what we also wanted to see, great. If not, tough luck.. !

Just for the record, I have had my share of depression about the system, even during the run-up to this election, as you can see from this earlier post!

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: elections, india, votes

Apr

Streetsmart – and how?!

Some intriguing questions for a lazy Sunday morning..

5 Comments

Newspaper headlines and some small print that I managed to catch, generate a few questions in my mind. Would love to have answers to these?

1. Are politicians such super beings? That while they have been busy members of the parliament for five years, they have also managed to be either fantastic investors or awesome business persons on the side, to have been able to increase their personal worth several notches! Even as accomplished full time investors and business persons have seen their worths going down, thanks to the stock market collapse, real estate pull down and the general recession. Rahul Gandhi’s worth went up from a couple of laksh in 2004 (wow.. was that a joke or what??!) to more than 2 crores in 2009. Would you not like that kind of growth in your capital?? He is said to have acquired a couple of shops in Delhi, worth about 1.3 crores. Would income tax investigate the matter to ask for the resources used to acquire this property?? Or that is only meant for common people like you and me?
Mind you, Rahul Gandhi is not an isolated case, most politicians’ worth has gone up. HOW do they do it? Maybe they can run some courses for us..

2. Priya Dutt, daughter of Sunil Dutt, fights on a Congress ticket. Her brother, with whom she has shared many a platform, and sworn lifelong love and shared the Dutt tradition and all that, now tries to take a SP ticket to fight the elections from Lucknow. The same brother who is an accused for very heinous crimes, during the Mumbai riots, and has been out on bail.

Cut..

To the candidate who is to oppose Priya in the elections. Mahesh Jethmalani, eminent lawyer, on a BJP ticket. BJP, the party with the Hindutva agenda. Who want to take stern action against Pakistan, should they come to power. Now Mahesh’s father, Ram Jethmalani, was quoted by Pakistani TV, making some very embarrassing (to India) statements, in the immediate aftermath of 26/11 Mumbai attack. In fact, both Mahesh and Ram have often defended hard core criminals, including the ‘enemies of the country’ kind, in courts.

With all this baggage, Priya and Mahesh get tickets from India’s two national parties! So the question is, “HOW?”. Do the parties not get candidates with real clean slates? Without any kind of baggage?? Or are these issues not considered as baggage anymore in Indian society?

3. Priyanka Gandhi’s father-in-law is found dead. “Found” dead. The most famous political family, a celebrity family like none other in India, and a scandal of this size. And yet the story appears almost in fine print in the dailies. And the hounding investigative media, who can run day long bulletins, after issues like why Katrina is chosen as India’a Barbie and not Aishwarya, choose to go quiet on this big scandal.

What do you make of this? Is this the ultimate “Godfather family” of the country (Italian connection is incidental.. or maybe not..?) who no one can dare speak a word against? What was the real reason behind the death? How was he just “found dead”?

4. The Telgi scam. Huge headlines. Thousands of crores of money (well,s tamp papers) simply printed. Huge participation of government sources. Dirt flies on minister Chhagan Bhujbal, DCP Pradeep Sawant and many other big names. Most have to lose their jobs, because evidence is clear enough.

Cut.

Few years pass. Other scams and other events capture public’s imagination. 26/11 happens. Huge political damage takes the toll of Maharashtra CM and Dy CM. Replacements have to be found.

Quietly Bhujbal is back. No one even notices. Because 26/11 is far bigger and everyone is focused on that. No one questions how Bhujbal is forgiven and brought back to power.

Few months go by.

And as if on cue, DCP Pradeep Sawant, accused in the same scam, also returns. Is reinstated. Again no questions asked. All is forgiven and forgotten.

Interesting eh?
The question is, “Is public memory so short after all? Will politicians and scamsters continue to thrive in these circumstances? Will we suffer crooks always??”

5. Under the circumstances, we go to vote in a few weeks now. And they tell us to go and vote, to be conscious of whom we are voting for, to be sure that we vote for ‘no criminals’. So the last question that I ponder over, on this lazy Sunday is “Is there anything like ‘no criminals’? Is there really an alternate option with a hope to actually pull in the votes and make us feel proud of our politicians??”

If you have answers, let me know.

Meanwhile, as in case of most other citizens, for me too, this phase will get over. I will return to my Sunday beer, my cricket match, my family, my Facebook, and pretend that these problems do not exist!

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: bhujbal, chhagan, elections, india, pradeep sawant, priyanka, Rahul Gandhi, telgi, vadra

Apr

Google to acquire Twitter? Might be good, in fact..

4 Comments

I caught this news early on Thursday morning, on a tweet from Guy Kawasaki. That Techcrunch was reporting about late stage talks of Google acquiring Twitter. I checked to ensure that it was not an April 1 story, and that these were indeed “truemors”!

If this were to happen, I believe it would be a good move for all parties concerned.

Let’s understand first, who are the parties directly involved:

1. Google

2. Twitter

3. We, the users of both!

Well, there is also Facebook which went after Twitter, failed to acquire it, then started aping Twitter. And then there is Microsoft, an investor in Twitter, still trying to catch up in the social space. And other such.

But really, the main three constituents of the deal are the ones enumerated above.

So why would it be good for all of them.

Google has been struggling to find the next wave of growth. Ad revenues have been down, many of the new projects it invested in, have not delivered. There is constant pressure, at least from media and analysts, that its losing its way. And that Twitter is a big threat on account of its ability to offer real time search results.

So it would be a good boost for Google at this time, to get Twitter.

Twitter on the other hand, has been under pressure to get revenue flow started. Its clean interface without clutter of ads, is appealing, but it haunts them now, as they cannot suddenly be seen to fill it up with ads. They did raise more funds recently, but I am sure the investors were also looking for some revenue side action from Twitter. A feeble attempt to put a small ad on home pages and talk of a pro-version coming out soon, were starts on to the revenue path. But when you start from zero, its always a LONG way to go!!

So being acquired by Google would not be bad for them either.

What does Google bring to the table then?

A working advertising model, with advertiser and publisher relationships like no other, in Adsense / Adwords.

A model of revenue sharing which is well established and which can be put in place on Twitter in some or the other way, in no time.

A huge understanding of contextual advertising model, and some ability to filter our spam from the same.

All this can be unleased on to Twitter, to generate revenues for Twitter, very quickly.

While we all like it clean and free, we also know that there is nothing like a free lunch. So rather than wait for Twitter to run out of money or get desperate, or have its service quality suffer, this may be just the right antidote.

And where does that leave the last constituent of the puzzle? We, the users of Google and of Twitter?

I think it benefits us as well.

For one, we can be sure that our favorite microblogging service is here to stay.

And our favorite search engine is more empowered now.

And that for our search, we can go to a single place, and pick up real time as well as historical data.

And can get amazing trending information, for now, and for the past.

Yes, it would be good.

I would say, its a real WIN-WIN-WIN for the three parties involved.

Where does that put Facebook? I don’t know. Maybe there would be one more interface revision of Facebook, with a Google like search (maybe powered by MS Live) to go with the Twitter like updates that they have already incorporated??!

Categorized in Business, google and twitter
Tags: facebook, google, google to acquire twitter, twitter

Mar

Keeping your customers: a lesson learned

4 Comments

Sitting in India, we have the luxury of having someone to drive our car, having someone else to wash our car (manually) daily, etc. I have been enjoying these privileges too.
I have had a separate person who cleans the car and another one who drives me around. Recently, we got a new driver, who after having spent a few weeks with us, suggested on his own, that he can also wash the car, and can he do that please? Thinking to be one of the very trivial decisions, I agreed. And got a message sent out to current car washer, that he should stop washing the car from 1st of March.
He earns what I consider, a very small sum of money, for washing my car daily. And I did not even think about this, when I decided to make the change, to have the car washed by the driver.
However, come the first Sunday of March, and the car washer sought the opportunity of my presence at home, and came up to see me. I thought he may be wanting to settle his account. But I was surprised.
He made a fervent plea to me, to allow him to continue to wash the car. He asked me if I had any complaints of his washing. And if not, why do I want to deprive him, of his earnings of me? Also that based on a certain regular flow of income, he has his expenditure planned out, and losing one, will affect him. In short, he appealed to me, at all levels.
And ultimately, I saw reason in his argument, and decided to let him continue the service.
I could have insisted to change, and he would have not been able to insist further, but he made a strong case, and wanted to get his point across. He spent a good 15-20 minutes, making his case, and ensuring that the opportunity of having an audience with me, was well utilized. And he retained me.
I thought about this, as a lesson in customer retention. In present tough times, when our clients are changing vendors to save costs, or for other reasons, are we trying half as hard, to keep their business? Because for the car washer, it impacted his life directly, he was more concerned. In a corporate environment, the loss of a single client does not necessarily translate immediately, or at least apparently, to a personal loss. Does that make us a little complacent about letting the business go without putting up an adequate fight??
Think about it..

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: customer retention, lessons learned

Mar

The AIG bonus issue: a viewpoint

9 Comments

There is a lot of noise and disapproval about AIG giving ample bonuses, to its executives, after having been a recipient of a huge bailout package from the US government. The general sentiment is that why should the bailout money go to enrich few individuals, that too, so amply?

The sentiment is right in it’s place, and from the point of view of public perception, it makes all sense.

But here is another viewpoint to the same issue.

And I must admit at this point that I do not know a lot about AIG and it’s matters, in particular, and that my argument is about the concept, and not so much, about the specific case.

Say, a company (in this case, AIG) is in big trouble. And the only way that it can be rescued is, by getting some external aid (like the bailout, in case of AIG).

Now, if the company is in big trouble, besides the money, it will also need exceptional management skills to bring it out of trouble. Maybe the current management is no good, and which has caused the company to be in its present state of trouble, in the first place. Fair enough. Then, there is new management that needs to come in, and fix the mess.

So how does a troubled company get in new and capable management? Why would a smart team come in, and work for a company, which at best, can be rescued back to life, and quite likely, it may continue to flounder, or even sink? Why would a capable team leave their current assignments and come in, to do this rescue act? Or if there are a few good team members, in the company, why would they stick on, and not leave to take care of their own careers??

Not everyone is a Lee Iacoca. Not everyone is doing out of personal motivation – for the brand, for the company, for the country. All those things are fine, but people have their own lives and their careers to worry about.

So if an individual or a team decides to take up this huge challenge of bringing out the company from it’s deep hole, they need to be rewarded fair and well. Perhaps more than fair and well. Because they are taking a risk that they do not need to take.

Of course, the structuring of the package can be done well, and can have a huge incentive on success, but even without success, a basically decent package is required to get the person/s in, in the first place.

So even as it appears wrong, as per public perception, I believe that decent packages, perhaps inclusive of good bonuses, are a need, at such times. Otherwise, you pay peanuts, get monkeys, and lose the bailout money without rescuing the company after all!!