The Hindu Business Line : The customer is King. Sez who?

I AM a cricket lover. That's a convenient euphemism or a gross understatement. It's a bit like calling the Taj Mahal a pretty nifty tomb as one of P.G. Wodehouse's characters did. For I live, sleep, think and dream cricket. In between live telecasts, highlights, cricket golds, Hitz, cricket classics, newspaper reports, blogs, animated conservations, I do the other things that normal human beings do - work, spend time with family, yoga - if there is any time left. I do plan my life around cricket, but despite my best-laid plans, I cannot be in front of a TV set on some match days. And this happened a couple of weeks ago in Hyderabad on the day of a Nat West match between Australia and England.

I check into a hotel, anxiously check if ESPN is on. It's on. I go to the meeting with my mind on the ensuing match. I return to the room in the evening only to find ESPN not on. I lose my cool. (You can almost hear my family say "so what's new?") The manager of the hotel is very polite and firm saying that he is prohibited from showing the channel lest Hathaway Cable take him to court. And I silently fume because I do understand something (though not a great deal) about media and I do know that media planners sell ESPN or Star Sports in the country based on the estimated number of viewers of cable and satellite TV in the country. Rarely, if ever, is every programme of either of these two great channels shown in every cable and satellite home in the country; though it is every one of these homes that forms the price-basis for media planners. Thanks to this ongoing tussle between TV channels and cable operators, I hate going to Delhi and Mumbai because I am certain that I will miss an important moment in my life like Glenn McGrath's 500th wicket.

It may seem slightly ludicrous (even) to someone who does not follow the game. But my question is pretty basic. As a consumer, am I not eligible to ask for telecast of cricket? And as media-buying companies is it not the bounden duty of MindShare and Mediaedge to ensure that their clients' commercials are telecast everywhere and not only in the monitoring agency's TV set? How are TRPs worked out? Do they have any relevance if this keeps happening all the time - each time under a different pretext? Tamil channels get blacked out in Karnataka wherever there is a problem with its neighbouring State, which seems to happen all too frequently. Although some of these are non-controllable, I sometimes feel much inclined to ask God to permit me to commit homicide just once. And the victim would be ... you guessed it - my cable operator.

And the travails continue

But to come back to me and my hotel room in Hyderabad. I am defeated but not yet out for the count. After all I have my mobile phones. Two of them. I go to Reliance to check out the cricket score. Not surprisingly, RWorld is not ready. I go to Airtel, which incidentally is a pretty good mobile service provider notwithstanding its propensity to share my mobile number with every credit card, bank, hotel and car salesman in the country. But I am unable to access it. Now, I am on the verge of panic. I SMS my brother in England who is in the stands at Leeds who messages me every wicket fall. But I go to the assistance operator who, as my luck would have it, is a trainee.

"Roaming subscribers don't have access to 646," he says. I am foxed. I must be the largest single user of 646 in this country and I am usually roaming and I have used it, not once, but several times. I ask to speak to the supervisor. I crib to her. She apologises for her colleague's ignorance. She promises to sort it out. And actually does. Lo and behold, I get connected. But what follows is simply mind-blowing. Everybody wants me to enlist for KBC. That's Kaun Banega Crorepati. I am not tempted. I am focused. Single-minded, if you will. I will not be distracted. I wait patiently. Cricket is 14th in the queue. Can you believe it?! I can and am still there. Finally the voice says, "For live coverage of cricket, say cricket." And I repeat the magic word anxious to know the score and anxious to be in touch. And the Anglo-Saxon voice says, "Sorry, I didn't get that." I repeat the word "cricket" in every possible accent - Tamilian, Malayali, Hyderabadi, even with an Aussie accent, all of which are met with the same lyrical, "Sorry, I didn't get that." What must a cricket lover do, then? Well, he goes to a TV dealership under the pretext of buying a plasma TV and sees Hussey's histrionics in the dying minutes of the game? At least someone is serving his prospective customer, even if my buying a third TV set, in a different city, seems a bit far-fetched even to me.

You could view these as the ravings and rantings of a rabid cricket fan or the anguish of a distraught customer missing a "value added service" that the brand prides itself on. Mike Clasper, President Procter and Gamble, made this prediction some time ago. "I would label the consumer of 2025 in three ways: more demanding, wiser and more worried." Let me ask you a simple question. Aren't you more demanding than you were five years ago? I for one most certainly am. (And if you ask my family, more of a pain). But my question is simple - am I not entitled to watch the TV channels that include me as their target audience when they sell their channels? And just because the cable operator plays truant, should I miss out on what I am due? Should I not get the value-added services that are the reason for my patronising a particular mobile service provider?

And on to the Airtel brand

Today a mobile phone is a product for just about everybody. After all, Dhirubhai Ambani had the philosophy roti, kapda aur mobile in his quest for reach and acceptance. This is a far cry from those early days of mobile phones in India. I think the year was 1995 and I remember AT&T charging Rs 16 per minute. And people used to complain about being charged for incoming calls! Mobile services have come a long way since in the country and permeated every socio-economic class. Today a mobile instrument may be something to flaunt, but there may not be image associations with the service provider that you may use. And yet Airtel is a dominant brand that has not only acquired customers but other competitors, aggressively. It is growing significantly and has a pretty good technology back-up for service. The supervisor usually checks after your interaction with the service representative to enquire if the transaction was satisfactory. And yet I am appalled at the two new commercials for Airtel. One in a hairdresser's shop and the other in the paan shop. The message being that with the Rs 200 tariff, just about anyone can own an Airtel connection. I say I am appalled because of this: Airtel wants numbers; no issue. But in its quest for new subscribers, is it putting off the loyal ones who have stayed with the brand for years? And why is there a need to strongly profile the user? I have no problems with chaiwallahs and assistants in paan shops. Theoretically, anyone can be your customer. But there are enough mass brands that have got it right. Airtel, has got many things right over the years, but I am not sure they have got these two commercials right.

At the end of the day

The learning for all marketers and service providers is simple. If you promise something to the consumer, deliver it. It is not rocket science. Execution is key and God is in the details.

Jan Carlzon speaks of five moments of truth in the airlines industry.

Making a reservation

Getting tickets

Boarding

Flying

Retrieving baggage

It is important that each one of us identifies the `moment of truth' in our respective industries.

Customers will be fickle, demanding and unreasonable like me. In fact, today's consumer's mission statement is the (at times) annoying word "more." We cannot wish it away. Because the difficult customer is also a "high net worth" one if my mobile bills are any indication. But I do know that as a customer, when I do get outstanding service, I talk about it and on occasion write about it. As Regis McKenna says, "Customer loyalty begins with an experience." I am ready to be loyal. But I want experiences that satisfy, time after time. And the time for companies to get their service act together is now. Or it just may be never.

(The author is CEO of Brand-comm.)

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