Innovation has been his driving factor, whether it was with Brooke Bond Lipton during the initial years of his career or what became popular marketing stints at Tata Coffee for its launch at various centers. So, when it came to ‘Best Practices in Marketing’, Harish Bijoor was the best person to gain insights from. Over an interesting conversation for more than an hour, we re-discovered and further confirmed our belief on how important it is to be different and unique in your marketing strategy, not only while communicating with your end consumers but even with your franchisees and distributors or your very own employees in the present day context.

Excerpts of the interview:

What led to the implementation of a new marketing strategy?

I joint Zip Telecom on 4th July 2002 and the company had more than 23,000 pay phones which meant more than 23,000 franchisees and it is extremely important for any company to maintain franchisee relationships. They are the front end of the organisation and have several interactions with both the primary consumers as well as with other telecom companies and competitors who visit your outlets. We had franchisees located across 17 places-both big cities as well as small towns. The easiest way to manage customer relationship was through call centers and the company had this facility as most companies today do. However, I always think call centers is the most artificial, and synthetic mode of interacting with customers with no human touch to it, which is very critical in any relationship.

In the 70s, customers had to be served, in the 80s, customer satisfaction was the objective; late 80s and the 90s, the focus moved up to customer delight; come 2000-customer delight no longer suffices; it is the age of customer ecstasy today. Keeping this goal in mind, any product/service provider today has to strive for ‘Pro-active Customer Relationship Management (CRM)’. Any player in the market has to ensure that his customer does not even articulate a problem. The problem needs to be solved even before it arises. This is where a call center falls short of utility since there is no pro-activity. The problem is looked at only after it arises, so it is addressed only after the initial dis-satisfaction has risen.

What exactly did the programme comprise?

Zip Telecom had a large number of customer relationships at the time I joined since Telecom was growing tremendously and I felt it was critical to service our customers such that you take the continuum of delight ahead. So, in September we launched a unique CRM programme called ‘ZAT-Zip Adopt Ten’. Under the programme each employee in the organisation across different rungs- right from the pune to the manager sitting right above had to adopt 10 franchisees. We had 400 employees, which meant that we would cover 4000 franchisees over a period of 6 months after which it would rotate and we would move over to the next set. Each employee had to choose 10 franchisees in and around his area. Initially we had to make a first visit to each of the outlets wherein details such as Name, address, problems existing when the contact was made were all noted down along with the level of satisfaction on a scale of 0-9. Any problem faced by any of the franchisees had to be solved within 12-18 hours. The appointed employee had to leave his personal telephone number. The company actually works only from 9-7 after which there is no personal touch and we needed to remove this obstacle and make each employee completely accountable. We received 14630 complaints in the first two weeks alone. If any a competitor walks in, we could lay assured that the franchisee will jump out. All these problems had to be solved within a week.

Were the employees open to the implementation of the programme and what motivated them to go beyond their respective job profiles and do it?

The whole programme had a zero hierarchy effect. However, there was complete chaos the first two weeks. There were employees who weren’t willing to take up the job. Employees from other departments found it difficult to initially understand certain technical complaints and co-ordinate with others to solve the problem. We had to create an evangelistic effect in the employees. We had to motivate each of the employees and bring about a sense of belonging in them. They were further incentivised according to their performance in the assignment and their bonus amount would be according to their performance. On one hand, the project also educated every employee and embedded a piece of knowledge on telecom and how exactly things work which is very essential for each employee working in an organisation. Therefore, it was personally enriching for every employee. The entire ZAT programme was actually not only a marketing strategy but also a HR strategy and programme in many ways. Even in a very efficient organisation, not more than 5-6% of the employees are at the overflowing level with too much of work on their heads. The remaining 94% have top-up time. We were able to avoid this to some extent through the programme and that by itself was a step forward towards progress.

How exactly did you monitor and control the proper implementation of such a large networked programme?

I nominated myself as the ‘Chief ZAT Evangelist’ and would monitor it personally. I would review each file and would spend at least a minimum of 10 minutes on each file which is a lot of time. I would get into the nitty-gritty and call the franchisee in front of the employee, which depicts involvement right from the top rung of the organisation. The point is the entire programme had to be driven by leadership so that the employees too are motivated. I also made random contacts with some of the franchisees. Each employee had to maintain a file with a history of contacts. They had to carry the file if they travelled anywhere with me so that I could review the file. We had briefing sessions for all employees stressing on individual honesty and integrity.

What kind of tangible results did the project result in ?

The programme helped break the gender tilt in CRM in the telecom circles and it was a rare sight for the franchisees to see women coming and addressing their problems. We did a check on the level of customer satisfaction three months after the programme was initiated and the aggregate level had risen to 3.5-4 from almost zero the previous time. The aggregate had further risen to 7 when the same check was done after 6 months. Satisfaction does not rise immediately because problems keep coming up one after the other and at times, it becomes manually difficult to solve them immediately. However, when you solve 11 problems over 20 weeks, the satisfaction jumps high. Though the entire relationship is a B2B space, the franchisee satisfaction pushes the ultimate consumer demand too since he speaks high of you to the consumer. The hygiene standards of the phones improved and the average revenue per unit definitely went up. In the first 3 months, we saw almost a 16-17% increase in sales. Moreover, the call center was disbanded completely. What gave me a real sense of pride, however while continuing to be modest about it is the fact that three-and-a-half month after the programme was implemented, there was another company, which sent 500 of its employees out into the market on a similar programme.

How long do you think such a programme will remain effective?

Any idea always needs to face the anti-gravity force and the true test of any innovation is when every employee in an organisation bites into it. The programme can sure run as long as the COO can maintain evangelism in the process. I would suggest that such an assistant be appointed to monitor such programmes with the active participation of the COO. Further every employee needs to be given training so that he/she performs well.

Conclusion:

CRM as a process has become too much of a system. We need to bring it back into life and give it the human dimension. It needs to be clutter breaking. Knowledge is paripasu. Implementing knowledge to your benefit is the true challenge and that is what will remain your USP and give you an edge over the others.

Issue BG21 Dec02