Understanding customers is crucial

Understanding customers is crucial
Preeti Kulkarni, TNN

Having realised that customer responsiveness is the key to understanding customers’ needs and making provisions to fulfil them, organisations in India have started adopting the philosophy wholeheartedly.

They seem to have got a good grasp over the concept, which is still in its nascent stage in India . Indian corporates’ commitment to their improving customer responsiveness came to the fore at a panel discussion organised by The Economic Times in association with Avaya GlobalConnect in Mumbai.

The panel was made up of CEOs and directors of companies from diverse fields – from hospitality and jewellery to IT and travel. After Avaya GlobalConnect’s vice-chairman and managing director , Niru Mehta, presented his welcome address, Pradeep Udhas, head, markets, KPMG, opened the discussion by asking the panellists to talk about the efforts they’ve made to understand their customers better.

Manjunath Jyothinagar, group president , retail jewellery business, Gitanjali Group, started by explaining how a few years ago, Gitanjali had to face the problem of a communication gap between the company and the customers, which enabled its competitors to edge ahead. He said that in order to counter this hitch, Gitanjali came up with a concept wherein customers were allowed to experience the products before they reached the market. This allowed the company to determine if the products met the customers’ requirements before putting up the jewellery items for sale.


Sanjaya Sharma, CEO, Tata Interactive Systems spoke about his company’s decision to recruit a person specifically to cater to all the needs of foreign clients when they visit India, thereby delighting them. Sunil Nayak, CEO, Radhakrishna Hospitality Services (RKHS) said his company is in a business where it is necessary to constantly measure customer satisfaction., “At every given point of time, we have to be customer responsive . We treat every customer as the first customer,” he said.

Devita Saraf, CEO, VU Technologies, which focuses on selling luxury technology products, said, “We offer our customers the best product at the best price and ensure that they are delivered ASAP.” The other lady in the panel, Bilkish Tejani, director, Equino Fun Holidays (winner of ET – Avaya Customer Responsiveness Awards 2006 under the travel and tourism vertical) said, “We’ve always had the customer at the centre.” With a view to assure the customers of best quality services, Equino has obtained the ISO Certification.

She also said that her organisation made it a point to send mid-level managers along with a touring group — particularly corporate travellers — to ensure they are served better.

Sanjay Deshmukh, country manager, India/SAARC, Business Objects, said that for his company, customer responsiveness meant fulfilling the commitments made to the clients. “At Business Objects, customer success is our core value and hence there is a lot of emphasis on customer responsiveness.

We also use our own technology of business intelligence internally to track customer responsiveness,” he said. He added that his company conducted customer assurance programmes and highlighted the role of technology in this regard.

When the discussion veered to the significance of branding, Mr Sharma said, “We have isolated five reasons why customers prefer us over others. One of the reasons is that we are part of the Tata group.

Several companies across the world want to be acquired by us, so it can’t be that branding doesn’t work.”

Mr Jyothinagar said, “In our business of meeting aspirations, branding for customer products is very important. The product has to be in place before advertising starts. Merely putting up the hoarding is not going to help.”

Agreeing that branding is crucial, Mr Nayak outlined the efforts made by RKHS to build its brand. “Branding is vital for any customer company.

A brand cannot be built overnight. It is built through the customers rather than customers choosing the products because of the brand,” remarked Ms Saraf. Ms Tejani pointed out that in her line of business , where the ‘touch and feel’ factor does not come into play, branding plays a key role. Mr Udhas rounded off the discussion by underlining the importance of being customer-centric . “Organisations need to bring the customer to the centre of their universe,” he said.

“Customer Responsiveness (CR) has become a serious business differentiator for organisations that are creating winning strategies around CR and actually setting aside financial and people resources to improve their client experience . Besides budgeting for CR plans and placing them on Boardroom Agenda, organisations are also working hard to ensure that the culture of Customer Responsiveness percolates across their realms.

In order to achieve this, the key executives of companies, including the CEO and line managers, are personally driving CR initiatives and leading by example.

At the same time, they are harnessing the power of their Intelligent Communications infrastructure to better understand the requirements of their users, establish a stronger connect with them and ensure that customer needs are addressed on a 24x7 basis.

By making CR a major business goal and determining the efficacy of CR strategies from their bottomline impact, companies are ensuring that the enthusiasm and commitment for CR remains high at all times.”

(Niru Mehta, Managing Director, Avaya Global Connect)