New Media, Marketing and Entrepreneurship

This is one of the best wins of my social media/ Internet career and I am feeling amazingly excited today. So here’s the story. The last blog I wrote on MakeMyTrip.com’s customers posting negative comments on their official fb page, got some interesting feedback.

And Here’s the Experiment

So, what I did was simple. I reached out to 3 people who had left negative comments on the MMT facebook fan page. When I say I reached out, I simply went to there fb profiles and sent them a message. A message which clearly said that I am not a MMT employee/ representative but someone who is amazingly passionate about customer service and obviously about creating a great organisational structure, which is driven by the customer WOWness.

After sending the message, I waited for them to reply and so the reply came, of 2 gentlemen, who had faced genuine problems in their respective cases while transacting with MMT.

And so came the reply

When I received the reply it was all about sharing by these gentlemen about how they faced problems and what solution would suffice them and what suggestions they have for MMT.

The reply was forwarded to relevant people at MMT and they Swung into ACTION

I forwarded the reply to the relevant people at MMT and wallah, they swung into action. Interestingly I was not even aware what was happening, till I got this ping on fb by this gentleman who said, Paritosh thanks, my issue has been sorted out and I have my refund from MMT. The issue was taken care of within hours of you reaching out to me.

I had and still have no Interest whatsoever in this story

Why did I do all this? Well, I have no personal interests. Neither am I being paid by anyone here, just that MMT is one company I have always respected, especially for the leadership it has in the form of Deep Kalra, someone I deeply respect. I personally could not see it going down like this and hence took the step of trying to get it right.

Social Media and Brand Reputation

People talk about social media and brand reputation (ORM), well, here’s a simple example of how a customer who was utterly negative about MMT, finally wrote a wonderful, thanking comment on the official MMT fb page

There’s no magic here, just pure passion for customer service and to see MMT from great to Greatness! I am happy that it all worked out well and that this experiment created an actual POC and a roadmap of what one needs to do. You don’t need to invest shit loads of money into your social media, you have to be passionate about your customer and the service.

Lets see if I do get a recommendation by MMT now he he..

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Is there something called a perfect organisation?

While looking back at my personal experiences over years of both working for large organisations ranging from IT to BPO to Wealth Management to running my own enterprise today into Social Media and Business Processes, with this blog post, I intend to share my learnings, which answers this deep question, which I have been asked many a times by professors/ lecturers/ thinkers during my talks and lectures, is there something called a perfect organisation?

Before we answer it, lets go back to basics: what is an organisation?

One of the strong personal attributes I have developed overtime in myself is to learn by making things simple for myself. By breaking them down into simpler, more recognizable, more achievable, more understandable pieces of information.

Let me hence break the word ‘Organisation’ down and one of the inherent parts is: ORGANIZE. Organizing is a way of being. It could be as simple as organizing things around you.

In the context of a company organizing is all about working with people, all aligned to an over-arching vision. Its about building a powerhouse of people who collaborate and work together to achieve a common purpose and create an institution. All of them may join in with a separate purpose, they all might have a different definition of achievement and may also come on-board with different set of goals to achieve, but they all align together while creating a common vision.

But Is There a Perfect Organisation?

I believe so. Though just like life, as we all learn and keep learning and grow to be better and more evolved human beings, same goes with Organisations. Every organisation evolves and lets also keep in view, every start-up may kick-start with a business plan, which may not remain the same or even be near to what the start was a few years down the line.

Then what is Perfect, you may ask?

Valid question. What is perfect is the answer to the question on what is an organisation. Its about people. Its about the fact that as an Organisation and as the CEO/ Top management of the Organisation, you be one with the reality that each one of your people are different. They all come with different values and bring onto the table a whole new set of beliefs.

But then is it not a lot of work to manage so many expectations? Well, not really. Its about keeping the freedom of expression of your employees, giving it value and creating the right ecosystem around them to build upon the very many values they bring together and creating powerful opportunities.

But this is common gyaan, what is perfect in this?

Yes it is common gyaan! Lets re-visit our mythology a little. Lord Krishna’s story has a major mention of a form of dance which he used to perform with his loving female followers (gopiyan).

If you carefully observe the image above, you will see an ORGANISATION. Yes, Krishna stands right at the center of the circle. And mind you, its a dance that is happening. Its a platform where all the gopiyan (your employees) are set free to express themselves. They do it, not because of any rules set around them. They do it of free will. They do it for pure passion. They do it for the love of Krishna (employees work).

Its also said that Raas Leela used to happen at night time (which is a time which is when your offices don’t work (if you aint a BPO), an informal environment) a time when everyone is in their own element.

So now coming back to the Perfect Organisation: what’s perfect about the Raas Leela? Look at the circle around Lord Krishna. Its a perfect circle in which the Gopi’s dance. Thwy do it not because of a set rule that it has to be a circle, but because of adhering to a common over-arching reasoning which says that we would like to be all around our Love, Our Krishna.

What am I suggesting?

While running my own company, I am powerfully intending to set up an organisational structure, where employees are free to express themselves. They are empowered with the ecosystem around them, which allows them to quickly get into the groove of the over-arching vision, such that they don’t have to forcibly work hard in aligning themselves to the expectations of the organisation or work hard to set themselves to the organisational culture.

Instead, they become the Culture.

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Before I share my ordeal, I must say something, which as a small start-up we believe and as a leader, I truly, passionately believe in: employee first, Customer second is good, but only when your employees are trained enough with solid integrity to keep their commitments, otherwise, well, your customer will truly be a second and will probably stay with you as long!

HCL is one company, which I always used to cherish since my early days of entrepreneurship and the professional career, as a home made global brand!

But today as I stand, cheated, frustrated and upon being bombarded with FALSE PROMISES by HCL, I must put across that being a so called BIG 5 billion dollar global brand DOES NOT mean that you don’t care a zilch about your smaller retail customers, who are the reason of you being where you are!

The Ordeal!

A few days back HCL gave a full page print AD in the News Paper about the fact that they were giving away prizes and an assured Philips Home Theater with a HCL Desktop. There were certain numbers mentioned in the newspaper.

I called one of them and asked if its true (just to be double sure of every *conditions apply) and I dropped the call and went to the nearest market “Nehru Place”. The first shop I found there, with a genuine, HCL Brand Logo, a fairly big board which said ONLY HCL, upon enquiry, the shopkeeper said, YES Sir, this is the last day of this deal, go and register your product online and you will get your gift.

And that’s what I did. I brought the system home, and well its been over 1 month and after absolutely crappy and false promises of a truly “CUSTOMER SECOND” (Mr. Vineet Nayar, you stand tall to your claim here, your employees truly believe CUSTOMER SECOND) service, today I stand as cheated.

After I received a message from HCL about 15 days after the promotion was over and I had the system at my place, I called up a number mentioned in that SMS and a certain Mr. Kashish from HCL HQ referred me to Mr. Rahul (who happens to be their Online Marketing Head).

HCL’s Online Marketing Head Says – Its not my department, I am not at office today, please send me an Email and I will connect you to the right person – But its not our responsibility to keep a check on all what is happening in the market

Mr. Rahul, as a comment to you – I am an entrepreneur and run a much smaller company in Size as compared to HCL, but well, all my team members are empowered enough to SERVICE our customers in every way. Absolutely every way! Period. We know how to take responsibilities and owe up to them!

Anyway, I sent an Email to Mr. Rahul on May 20th, today its over a month and NO REPLIES. I presume Mr. Online Marketing head is a little too busy facebooking than looking at his customers, and if he is one, well, I must believe, he should reply back to this post immediately (if his team is tracking HCL’s reputation online).

A few weeks back

A few weeks back I got a follow-up sales call from a sweet talking lady to whom I repeated the entire case, and she said, Sir, I personally will take up this matter with the management and make sure your gift gets delivered. I was relieved.

But HCL – being what they are (CUSTOMER SECOND, your’s truly), we treat you as second always and forever, well, it was again an empty, totally blank promise with no substance to it. NO action, NO follow-ups, NO nothing!

What happens today?

Mr. HCL if you dont know what is happening in the market and if you are NOT interested in knowing what is happening to your market and who is duping your customers where, well, you truly are a company worth never doing business with.

Mr. online marketing head – Rahul, you still don’t really know what customer service is about, its passion, it runs in your veins and when you are truly passionate about your organisation and its brand, well, Sir, you care, without conditions!

Do I want this gift?

Mr. HCL, go play with the gift at your home and listen to songs. If you want some, I have a fantastic collection, I would be happy to share

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