The Hindu Business Line : The brand creation ballgame

YEARS AGO, I bought a sewing machine. It was an expensive model for those days and had such additional features as zig-zag and interlocking stitches. Unfortunately, it seemed to have a model defect and failed to work from day one.

After several attempts at trying to get the machine repaired, I finally called the CMD of the company. My family members were aghast. They could not believe that I had called the head of an organisation to set right a product sold by his company. My call did bring a mechanic and several calls from one of the many managers of the company. One would assume that would have resolved the problem.

Unfortunately, I still have the machine, sitting pretty in one corner inside a trendy enclosed table, which has now come to serve other purposes such as doubling up as an ironing board.

More recently, I have had similar experiences with a pressure cooker and a food processor. After repeated attempts at repair at various authorised service centres, one has heard the same verdict: There is a model defect, because of which many more visits to the repair shop are warranted. I have not been able to understand how the manufacturer has failed to call back a model knowing there is a defect, leaving millions of users stranded for years on end, spending proportionately unwarranted sums on maintenance costs.

Interestingly, another recurrent theme is the complaint relating to poor service. I called a service centre nearly 12 days ago, informing that a part replaced by it just a few days ago was threatening to break and I had wet clothes in the machine.

Two days later, I received a query from the service centre wondering whether my problem had been resolved. I mentioned that clothes had been retrieved, but I still wanted the technician to visit me before the part broke and I had to replace it all over again.

The service centre promised a technician but the man never showed up. Two days later, the expected happened. The lever that closed and opened the washing machine's door came loose in my hands, yet again with wet clothes still inside the equipment.

I immediately followed it up with another panic call to the service centre. I was promised help by mid-day. I demanded immediate help since my wet clothes were yet again struck inside the machine. That was a week ago. I am yet to see the service engineer. And this time, I have not even heard the polite query that I heard the pervious time.

Consumers more harassed than I may wonder what is the purpose of this recounting. The answers are simple. One of the major concerns that dog India today relate to creation of the India brand. While individual Indian companies have gone global, few Indian brands that have been able to make a place for themselves on the international shelves.

Only recently, the Aditya Birla group suggested that the country's teeming millions could be turned into ambassadors for promoting the India brand.

The idea was widely welcomed, for indeed, the fallout of such a conversion would be mind-boggling.

Imagine every Indian being a salespersons for everything Indian — the India brand would indeed be at somewhere near the top of the chart, assuming of course that public endorsements alone could swing sales.

Unfortunately, brand creation is a different ballgame. Many companies see it only as a pre-sales process. They spend heavily on advertising and publicity, sometimes on a par with what they spend in creating and manufacturing the product. Such high-spenders feel happy if their advertising and media budgets get converted into sales. In the bargain, they forget that after-sales processes are as important for consumer retention and brand establishment as is the actual sales itself.

This lack of understanding and overall apathy results in tardy after-sales service. Few companies ever make the effort to analyse consumer complaints to establish if they relate to a product design or handling.

As a result, you have the same faulty design finding its way back into the market again and again with each product upgradation.

In companies where consumer complaints are analysed, bad design resulting in poor quality products are glossed over. Product recall is unheard of. Companies fear that consumers would tend to view such a course of action as confession of guilt.

And while this fear is real in the short run, particularly in markets unused to such honesty, companies fail to understand that they forgo the advantages:

In the long term grateful consumers would tend to see the company as being an ethical, which takes responsibility for its failings. And that would undoubtedly create a life-long trust in the brand that no amount of advertising and media management can buy.

Interestingly, while the value of ethical selling and prompt after-sales service is not yet fully understood by Indian companies — one could make an excuse on the grounds that this reflects the level of maturity of the market — it is surprising that even MNCs forsake international best practices when they operate in nascent markets.

Here one wonders if it has something to do with the Indian soil, which makes global companies imbue the worst of India instead of opting for the best of practices the world has to offer.

Alternatively, it could be that Indian consumers do not protest. This permits companies, Indian and foreign, to get away with murder.

(The author is a freelance writer and can be contacted at

jayanthiiyengar1@yahoo.com)

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