Serendipity and Learning

Just as we speak, I received a spam sales mail. As an L&D head, I receive a whole bunch of sales "spam". Not all of it classifies as spam, let me clarify. But a badly crafted sales message is spam. Similarly,  A mail that does not take the organization need into account. A mail that uses techniques like "can we meet this week or next" is pointless - because I dont intend to meet - because your mail did not connect to our need at all.  A mail that is not compelling.  A mail that has no differentiator.  Yes, you are a training company and yes, I am a potential client. Yes you need to get my attention and I might be happier ignoring it. So, how to make that transition? To me the method is to stand out, make the other curious and thats it. When the need arises the client will come (having been on the other side). Someone I had 5 years ago will be working with us because they are "different" - and that is what we seek now.  But my point is - unless your cus...

 Every company claims to be customer first. Yet, they bombard you from day 1 on cross selling, upselling, notifications (check the types of notifications on any app), phone calls, spam emails.  A grocery app has decided to add ads before the customer starts adding to the cart. It also sends me useless information on nutritional value of cabbage (yes, it does). Plus sends me useless offers on a continuous basis. I finally silenced notifications.  The ecom app sends me more scratch cards than I can ever itch. And I have not managed to use a single one yet.  Ditto with the payment app that sends me off on useless collections - stamps, tiles, destinations and what not.  The bank, has spammed me so much I have auto blocked most numbers.  And oh, the grocery app which got taken over a conglomerate, has suddenly offered me a personal loan.  If you are customer first, can you please stop it? Point being: How do you know when to stop? Is it so difficult? Put yo...

  A few days back I received a mail asking me to download an app for customer learning that promised to teach me to invest wisely. Being the curious types, I actually downloaded the said app and decided to take it for a spin. Here are my observations : First, it asked me for my personal data. Now already, for me, this is not customer education any more - it is about creating a sales pitch. #Fail Then it introduced a rabbit as a mascot. Why rabbit? There did not seem to be any logic. Atleast nothing that did anything for me to recall the purpose of a rabbit and associate it with investing.  Then it promised to show me interesting videos. I saw two videos. Topic 1: Inflation - and asks me to beat investments by investing in mutual funds. The rabbit came and offered me a badge - well begun. Topic 2: Compounding: Using the example of a mango tree - asks me to invest in mutual funds. The rabbit came and offered me a badge yet again. And a quiz. And a debutant badge somewhere along ...

 A few years back a recipe site would be like this: Google recipe --> Click --> Find recipe Now, it is like this: Google recipe -->Click-->Irrelevant story of the recipe -->Irrelevant picture ---> Still more irrelevant stories about the recipe --> Please check out my other recipes-->Useless version of recipe ---> Some more random pictures or ads --> and after what seems like 17 scroll downs is the recipe hidden away in the footer.  Obviously scroll through links pay in ads or page views I guess. Last week I went to the bank for a minor service issue. One of the "customer service" persons helpfully walks up, hears my problem so empathetically I actually make the mistake of thinking it is solved - and then helpfully says, "Sir, close the account and open another one" And after waiting for ages - when nobody could care about - suddenly on realising I was there for something more than a service issue - a swarm of people became interested in...

The first few minutes when you meet someone as a consultant are vital. The person on the other side is evaluating you. Whether you are in a meeting or in a consulting discussion or in facilitation, those first few minutes are vital. How this happens is the people on the other side ask a question and watch how you respond. Depending on how you respond, the conversation goes uphill or downhill. It is important to handle this well. How does one do it? One, by listening fully, being curious, asking the right questions. But this alone wont work - neither will purely paraphrasing - at this stage, they are very likely looking for specific answers. If you dont give specific answers or vacillate - it will also put you in a slot - from where escaping may be difficult. Take a cricket analogy for this. When you are new to the crease, the bowler tries you out by bowling a few interesting balls and sees how you react. Depending on how you react/stand up/perform the next steps happen. Take any...

I recently underwent a training on something related to Customers. I forget what it was - Customer Focus or Customer Corner or Diagonal or something. And I came out of it feeling quite lost. The first half an hour into the program I could sense that it was not getting anywhere - but at that point I asked my intuition to stay put and tried to see if I could get through to what the person was going after. After all, an open mind is essential for any learning to happen. So I tried. The examples of exemplary customer service offered were the same. Nokia, Google, Apple, Fedex and Southwest airlines. Well, trainers, grow up. Nokia was big 10 years back. Today it is being chased by Micromax at the lower end and Apple at all other ends. HTC and Samsung have redefined itself and me, a Nokia loyalist myself for many years now switched to Samsung. All around me - friends are opting out of Nokia and its market share is steadily dropping. Hardly an example of great customer service. Apple, ye...