C'mon India 'chak de' Delhi's Commonwealth Games

So much is happening with these 2010 Games, or may I say not happening? Obviously, the Go To Market plan wasn't perfect. So, the question is : Should games go on as scheduled or be postponed? If the show must go on, how can India revive them?

So, lets see, what should have been the focus of the games?

The games first of all are for the thousands of athletes competing in multiple disciplines. They need to feel motivated, safe and inspired to give their best performance. After all, athletes have been preparing for 4 years for the next games. Several athletes are thinking twice about the safety, are demotivated about the coverage the games village has received and the appalling conditions that are shown in media. The state of preparedness was so bad that even the companies that would serve the food in the Games village had not been finalized.  

The spectators come next. Records, performances, cheering their national teams and living every moment of it. When the bridge next to the main stadium came down, the Delhi CM game a foot-in-the-mouth statement saying the bridge was not built for the athletes, but instead for common people to cross from a car park to the stadium. Yes, that is soooo true. There is no value to a commoner’s life in India. With schools in Delhi region closed for 2 weeks to encourage viewership, I wonder, how many of Delhi parents will feel safe to take their kids to the games.

Showcasing India and its talent-yard that is powering the changes on the world stage would have been perfect story that India would have hoped to achieve. The coverage India is getting instead is one of corruption, incompetent, incapable, slow, bureaucratic, etc. It took Modi three IPL’s to establish a brand new, professional, sporting image for India. An image of India that projected it as young, energetic, confident, dreaming to make it big and of an India that can deliver. This could have been the perfect opportunity to showcase India’s talent across multiple areas. India had 7 years, since winning the bid in 2003, to deliver the CWG. Clearly, lot of time went into intellectual discussions and very little in execution.

So, should the games go on or be postponed?

Since the corporate world gets involved in leading & delivering such large scale events, what could have the organizers learnt from them?

Test the product in advance: if the product is not ready, don’t start selling it. That’s common sense. In the software industry, its common to have early sneak previews for users, media, avid bloggers who can give useful feedback about product improvements. We need to look at the overall experience that athletes will go through. Landing at the brand new Delhi airport is a welcome image. The next stop - the games village which is not ready. The construction seems shabby. Its common for builders to outsource work to third party companies and often the rooms, toilets are left in a mess by the workers. Anybody, who has bought an apartment in India will vouch for it. Next comes the actual stadiums and the training facilities. Nobody has focused on these. If the players can’t train in the last few days, how do you expect them to achieve their best and create new records.

If its not ready, postpone the launch: Having periodical reviews at GTM mile-stones is a best practice followed in large organisations to integrate efforts across different functional teams. And delaying the launch plans is a common practice in the corporate world to get all 4P's aligned and ready. You don’t want your users to start returning the product and bad mouth about your company. With almost everyone connected to Internet these days, it takes a tweet these days to update the world. Even Rahman has reacted to the feedback and has redone the theme song.

Manage the expectations: Often, the corporate world shares the stories behind the new experience, the consumer insight that has led them to create this new product. The focus of the games should have been the effort that has gone behind the games, the story behind the execution and the achievements. Instead, the media coverage has been on everything else except the games. Dengue is also present in countries like Singapore, but does the world know about it? NO, its well-managed by the Singapore government. The weekly dengue cases in Singapore varies from 100 to 300. Compared to this, Delhi crossed 1500 Dengue cases till Sept, 2010. Singapore has 5 times higher dengue cases compared to Delhi. And if we factor in the size in sq km or population in millions, Delhi performs very well. It’s all about knowing your weaknesses and trying to minimize them and playing to your strengths or advantages.

By continuing the CWG Delhi games, I can surely say that CWG event organizers in India are taking lot of risks. If indeed the games go on as scheduled, then these are the 5 things India may do to ensure success:

Involve expert people/organizations: Lalit Modi who had the experience of successfully creating the USD 4 bn IPL brand should have been involved. Involving people like him and corporates who know how to manage should have been identified earlier. Some corporates have already started chipping in - http://bit.ly/dc5T2h . Get more to contribute.

Address the problems, fix them as they occur real-time: Now is the time to solve problems real-time, as they occur. Even if that means going over-board. The debates about differences in hygiene standards & expectations is deplorable. Let the good things & stories be shared – leak them to media.

Crowd source the support: the CWG games offer multi-sports, multi-sensory experiences to its audiences that includes viewers, in-stadium audiences, media and global audiences. India should encourage viewers to share their experiences, stories online via the new digital channels. The online buzz about the performances, the live action will get the right positive word of mouth and polarity behind the games.

Get the stories behind the performances: Athletes who win and others who compete have spent countless number of hours and effort behind the winning performances. Collaborate with the relevant country media, their coaches, family members to get their stories out. Kids love inspirational stories. Agreed that the Village has been far from perfect, but there are lots of other areas that can be talked about – the stadiums, the infra-structure, the new airport, the opening & closing performances etc. 

Finally get some surprises: Bollywood, celebrities and their performances can make a lot of difference. We all love them. While, they shouldn’t over-shadow the performances & athletes, they do carry the aura to excite, engage and set the hearts racing. E.g., getting Shah Rukh Khan to come and give some medals, getting some stars to do cheer-leading and support the teams will get the zing back into the games.

Only time will tell, if all goes well. Good luck Delhi. I will be watching alongwith a billion plus people.

Failing to connect with customers? Avoid what these brands are doing!!!

Every month, every household in UK receives hundreds of direct mail from brands informing people about the latest, the greatest, the cheapest promotions, convincing, cajoling and exhorting them to try something new, buy more, start a relationship or even dump their existing company. Over the last 10 days or so, I received about 30 letters and 5 caught my eye for some strange reason. These letters had the classic 5 mistakes that brands are making in failing to understand their consumers and in the process end up disconnecting themselves. While, this is not intended to be an exhaustive list, nevertheless its a good beginning. If you have similar experiences, feel free to share. Read on –


Barclays: Starting a relationship? Forget the basics of being truthful, be genuine and have originality!
I received a personal “special offer” from Barclaycard to get their Platinum credit card.Titled “the view from the top is better with a Barclaycard platinum”, it offered me an introductory offer (0% balance transfer, 0% of new purchase, 16.9% APR). It set me thinking - don’t all credit card companies offer the same? My local supermarket would match or offer even better!!!

It then goes on to offer “great benefits” by promising “identity protection” that covers for the cost of restoring a customer name, if they are a victim of identity theft. And in one of the leaflets, in size 4 of course, it mentions it will cost nearly £ 70 annually. Pretty sneaky.

Two questions to Barclaycard :
- Wouldn't it merit to mention the actual details & costs on the cover letter itself? The lack of transparency is killing the financial sector.

- Secondly, how did Barclays get my details in first place? Either it had sent me the offer after buying my details form a 3rd party or it had paid a 3rd party direct mailing company to send thousand of customers their special "view from the top" offer. The very fact that it had bought my details or paid some organization without my permission is cause for concern for me. That sounds almost illegal. How can customers trust Barclays to protect their identity, when Barclays is buying such info off-the-shelf from other organizations? I don’t recall authorizing Barclays to send me offers. And I always decline to get promotional offers on websites.

Just like a real relationship, companies need to have the courage and honesty to be direct with customers - yes romancing to win their hearts is fine, but don't hide the facts. And wouldn’t it be great if companies are forced to write on their direct marketing material the source from where they bought a customer's details? That would add transparency to the relationships they are trying to establish. The Barclays' letter was a classic case where companies treat customers as a number on balance sheet and fail to build an honest relationship right from the word go.


Toyota : Don't address whats bothering your existing customers
Toyota sent me a letter titled “Reassurance that goes on and on”. I was excited to read the headline thinking that maybe they have decided to extend the warranty for my car, as it was expiring. My car model was one of the 8.5 millions vehicles globally recalled by Toyota. Cars of the same model sold a few months after mine were recalled. As I read more, I realized that “the reassurance” was only for customers buying new Toyota cars and the company was giving additional 2 years warranty – overall 5 years now. Hmmm…To add insult to injury, Toyota suggested me to consider (read downgrade) buying their starter model Aygo. I thought that from their database, they knew which car I had. And companies always try to upgrade their customers.

Toyota has been in the middle of global recalls – nearly 8.5 million vehicles recalled. Nearly the same it sells annually. They have come up with big print ads informing people about the recall vehicles. But on TV, they ran a campaign talking about how every car goes through quality checks. To me as a customer, they didn’t bother to reassure me that my car is safe to drive. No communication. I had to go to their website to check it for myself.

Worse, the resale vale of Toyota cars has been declining (up to 6%) due to the recalls (read http://bit.ly/bE23jK ). In fact in the country of law-suits (yes, USA), there have been class action cases against Toyota to get damages due to reduced resale values. Ford had previously paid nearly 800,000 customers about USD 500 each for reduced resale values.

Wouldn’t it be great if Toyota had sent me a simple mail saying that everything is fine with my car – “the real reassurance that I needed”? Or better saying that Toyota is so confident about its quality that should something happen to my car, they will repair it free of costs, thereby extending me one year warranty? That would have set the customers talking. A classic case, where Toyota failed to read what was on a customer’s mind.




NHS : If you are a monopoly and the customer has prepaid, then why bother? They will come anyway...

NHS, the sole health-care service-provider in UK, is always at the receiving end for its state of affairs - slow response rate, state of the service, over-/under-staffedness, parking charges etc. Recently, when I received a letter for my physiotherapy appointment, I was quite surprised to read a stern message in the end “If you fail to attend this appointment and do not let me know beforehand, it may result in you being discharged without a further appointment being issued”

That’s pretty uncaring & rude for an organization that prides itself in being “Primary Care Trust”. Couple of things came to my mind:
- Service levels: To first see my own GP, it took me one week. When I visited him, he gave me a referral and said I will get a call in another 3-4 weeks. In 5th week, I got a call from the physiotherapy. Then I got an appointment after another 4 weeks. That’s 10 weeks without any action. I am sure that NHS would have certain performance service levels defined. However, never have I come across these levels displayed in local surgeries stating the rights of the patients, should they not get the defined service levels.
- Pay for performance: It’s the tax payers money that goes into funding the public institutions like NHS. Just because its prepaid, doesn’t mean that NHS doesn’t conform to any service levels. Would we get better services, if consumers had the option to rate the service experience and Government can fine, deduct or pay the NHS medical establishment after a monthly average. The Chinese immigration have installed feedback machines for evaluating its immigration officers. People can give one consolidated score for time, service, courtesy etc. Kudos to Chinese.


What would it take to get better services from the public sector companies? The tone, culture, the discipline and customer savviness needs to start from the top.



Arsenal: Should we make a real effort to know and retain our customers? Nahhh - lip service is good enough!!!
My Arsenal membership was up for renewal. Normally its costs about 30-40 £. Arsenal sent me a £ 3 voucher to encourage me renew my membership. For a company that’s nearing half a billion pounds of revenues and hires players for tens of millions pounds, that’s peanuts. I am sure if I read the fine-print, there would be conditions like you can redeem the £3 voucher on a minimum spend £ 100 at the Armoury shop. Hmmm...Arsenal you disappoint me. You exist because of your fans. Send offers that would mean something.

It would be so nice to get well-thought offers from brands that excite consumers and make them feel special. And brands can really do it, when they know enough about their customers and they have the resources and thought leadership. 


Mercedes : Its the scores that count, silly!! Real customer feedback - whats that?
Recently, I had got my Merc serviced. Before I could make the payment, the service coordinator asked me about anything that I would like to share regarding the service or any recent experience. I narrated a recent incident about a road-side assistance that my wife needed as her Mercedes car had broken down. She called the Mercedes MobiloLife’s Roadside assistance line. She was told that Mercedes will call her back in 45 mins. After 45 mins, she got a call that an technician will be coming over in the next 60 mins. That’s 2 hours of roadside wait for a premier car brand. Can Mercedes afford to shows its broken-down cars on the highways?

I was on the phone with the Mercedes Roadside Assistance, where the customer care agents and even the manager expressed their helplessness. That’s a quite crappy service, considering its Mercedes. Worse, they finally sent a 3rd party mechanic, who asked my wife for a manual for the car. Even RAC & AA offer better service levels and faster assistance. Mercedes wake-up!!! In fact, Merc owners have complained about the sloppy service on its website - http://bit.ly/9eYpEf in social forums. Still no visible action.

Anyway, back to the story – the service coordinator lady told me she will mention my wife's road side assistance experience internally. I don’t know whether she really meant it or was just fooling around.

A few days later, I got a letter from Mercedes requesting me to rate their services as ‘outstanding experience’ and asking me give an ‘outstanding 10/10’ score if I am contacted for a survey. That’s bizarre and a case of selective dementia.

It doesn’t take quite a lot to aggregate all customer communication in one single window? And have a history trail. And before sending the next communication, doing a sanity check. It’s a prime example of different departments of a company interfacing with a customer and doing their bit. For customers its one company. If the sales department gave an excellent offer but the service was crappy, the customer is going to be annoyed overall. Its high time for companies to start integrating their disparate communication across multiple touch-points and start delivering the brand promise that attracted the consumer in the first place.




All these communications from these brands raise the question – Are brands spending enough time to know their customers well? Do these brands really care about their customers? Do they know what to communicate when? Perhaps, it would benefit them to understand where each customer is in their life-cycle. And then make a real effort to have a dialog that continuously builds a relationship. Time for for some fresh thinking.