"We do not Mis-sell"

Unfortunately the state of affairs are so bad in India that one can actually brand oneself as "We do not mis-sell". Mis-selling generally happens in apparently complex products where there are too many ifs and buts, too many clauses. But in India we have breached all boundaries in terms of mis-selling even simple products. Just because all others are doing it is no excuse for you doing it. As long as sense does not prevail in these companies, an opportunity presents itself of just doing business cleanly and using it for branding.

Financial products come to the fore when you think of mis-selling. Its very easy to conceal information and dupe the investor of the real risks when all they are interested in is saving tax and get infeasible returns. To some extent the consumers themselves are also responsible for their plight. But then consumers have limited time and limited knowledge to see through the products deliberately worded to promote mis-selling.

It is a known fact that there is little room for differentiation in such financial products with most of the companies selling the same thing with different names. What you can sell to them is that "peace of mind". Remember the Pure for Sure branding by BP. Of course everyone is expected to sell pure petrol (not adulterated) but since no one is doing it (and which is a shame), it gives you the opportunity to just do the right thing. People who really care about not being cheated and do not have the zeal and time to understand complex clauses of your products will come to you. For this you do not need to do anything out of the box, just play fair. Isn't it simple. Ya I understand that you might not get that all important high market share to start with, but what you are trading it off with, is Customer's trust which is of immense value in the long run. The sale of such products is highly dependent on recommendations and not on outlandish names because frankly no one understands their meaning. As a informed investor you are expected to do due diligence for all the things you are investing in including insurance, markets, bonds etc. but won't it be great if some one sells us the satisfaction that we will not be cheated if we deal here. Its like the Pre-paid taxi counter.

Of course what drives companies to do it is the sheer number of India's population. Right now there are so many of us that they do not bother about repeat business. If we mis-sell to one person, we will get another two. But the simple fact is retaining a customer is 4 times cheaper than acquiring a new one. Are there basics in place?

By branding like this you are also sending out a subtle message to your target market that your competitors might be mis-selling to you. So if you want not to be made a fool of come to us. No one wants to be duped and you might just become the easy choice.

Some times I wonder why is it so difficult to remain honest and earn money in this country. I just hope this kind of branding is not sustainable in the future. But right now I see no reason why this should not work.

P.S: I tried collating some data on mis-selling in India but could not get any reliable and consolidated information. If anyone has please share the same.

"Make it less annoying"

Say whatever you want but when you go with that survey to any of your responders, its deeply annoying for them to fill it up. Though you might feel all happy that you have got another guinea pig through your persuasive skills, he/she is not receptive and does not care a damn for your research. They just want to get done with it irrespective of the quality of their answers.

I wrote a post on Customer Insights and Marketing Research here. In the post I argued that the MR process through Surveys is very time consuming and waste of time and effort because of the type of questions asked and their sheer number. I also mentioned that there is a need to make the process "less annoying" if not some thing which your responders will love.

Seth Godin today, writes a post in which he gives 5 tips as to make the surveys less annoying for the responder and much more effective.

Are all you Marketing guys are listening?

Customer Insights and Marketing Research

Seth Godin has published an amazing business insight his today's post. Its about how to make your product or service click with the customer. He argues that customers come to you either because they are in love with your product or its less annoying for them to use your product or service. Though counter intuitive these two are the two ends of the same spectrum. As you delve deeper you realise how simple the concept is and how true the application. And as illustrated in the post, the insight can help a lot in forming strategies for the future. He has explained the concept beautifully with some very good examples including that of FireFox, FedEx, post office etc.

The underlying idea of this post is to understand the approach and perspective of thinking and apply it to Market Research (used as MR subsequently). Whats interesting to know is that how Mr Godin must have reached this insight. He did not do any survey to find this out. He never asked any person to tell him what kind of services he is looking for and nor did he smother some random people and goad them into filling questionnaires of which nothing can be derived. He just went above the daily transactional data, saw the patterns, read between the lines and made meaning out of it. Its like peeling the onion layer by layer and getting to the core. Why can't this kind of in sighting become a part of MR and if it can why do they still teach you to make questionnaires and shove them upon people who are in the least receptive mind and who don't give a damn for your research.

Of course there will be some areas where you cant do away with lengthy questionnaires, but is this MR all about. I believe in this whole ballyhoo of MR its the key insights that get lost in the heaps of data which is of no value if you are just making a pie charts and histograms and running some complex statistical tests to state the obvious and keep the management happy. Then I don't need MR. If you are able to get beneath the issue and let me know how the customer will behave and how is he likely to act in the future, what is he thinking, what he needs in the future, then I am interested.

Here's the thing about MR –
1) The questions are not satisfying to the customer - instead they annoy him/her to the core because of the sheer length and stupidity of the questions.
2) The questions are not satisfying to the assessor either because
a) Authenticity of data is in question (given the annoying state of mind of the customer)
b) Assessors don't go till the core instead they just flirt with the initial layers and present the results with cooked up data just to prove something which management wants to hear.

I fail to understand why every time you have to start with a questionnaire to kick start your MR and even if you have to, why are the questions so annoying. Why cant the questions be totally done away with for a longer conversation instead. Why cant the whole process be made less annoying.

Well I am no expert in MR but my argument is anything which was working 10 years or even 5 years back need not work now. Look at the effectiveness of the whole exercise. Is the process giving you what you actually want to achieve and to what extent. If you are willing to pay enormous amounts of money to MR agencies just to hear what you want to hear, its sheer waste - you might as well burn that money. Instead question the process and its effectiveness.

Well in fact you can take a tip from Seth's article himself. If not something which people love, one can make the whole process much less annoying. :)