The best and the biggest international brands are here in India –but the irony if it all: where is the after-sales-service? So integral to a brand, so critical for it s success and so taken for granted in developed markets! In India, after sales service is, for want of a better description, the pits.
So what’s stopping the best companies from pulling out all the stops when it comes to providing the best service? Do customers expect for too much? Or is it that in India they don’t really care?
Brand Equity fanned out to MNC as well as Indian consumer durable companies, stockists and dealers, analysts and market researchers to get a feel of what’s really keeping after sales from being used as a cutting edge marketing tool in pushing products across categories.
Take promise versus performance, and after-sales-service beats the worst performers on Dalal street. Expectations are built up by the company itself – not only during pre-sale activity but also with promises made during the sale.
Common sense dictates that there are only two ways to satisfy a customer: either keep your word or don’t promise at all. If you promise to deliver in six hours, but take 12 hours instead, you are going to end with a dissatisfied customer. There are companies as well-known as Kelloggs who give email addresses on cartons for suggestions and complaints…but the address turns out to be defunct.
Today, companies in India are finding it hard to meet expectations, let alone surpass them. A large part of the reason is that margins are being squeezed and market growth has not been high as expected. Increasing cost of raw materials, oil and bloating advertising budgets in a market more cluttered that ever before… all put margins under pressure.
Worse, average prices in the refrigerator and washing machine segments have even decreased slightly, what with the Korean brands introducing low priced products to push volumes. With big companies like BPL, LG, Whirlpool, Godrej, Videocon and Akai and Philips advertising aggressively, industry ad spends are increasing dramatically.
The upshot: If you’re trying to make ends meet, after-sales service is to be low on the priority list.
“Allocating resources beyond the sales period is not what companies can always afford as they have to give extra features are improve quality,”says Thomas Puliyel, President, Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB).
Going forward, the market is only expected to become more price sensitive. Rising disposable incomes are creating new aspiration levels amongst the lower middle class and the middle class and a large part of market growth in the future is expected to come from small towns – and from lower income groups in large towns.
Not only are companies devising aggressive market schemes to attract customers, scores of financing schemes are trying to attract the low and the middle income groups. After sales can go take a jump.
Buyer behavior compounds the problem.
The days of corporates picking up mithai or dry fruit boxes and dispatching them en masse to customers with hastily scribbled cards are long, long gone. Today, the corporate gift market is dynamic and evolving, and every season we see something new, whether it s a floating crystal clock or a branded, delicately embroidered Chinese silk neck-tie. ‘Customers are asking for new designs, and it s because they are exposed to international trends,’ says Vikram Sethi, CMD of Giftex.
If design and the novelty value of gifts has become paramount, it doesn’t mean that utility has taken a back seat. Corporates want to gift right on all counts. ‘If the gift goes into a showcase then recall value is nil, and so the trend towards usable gifts,’ says T.
S. Raman, CEO, Asian Adores.
However, while brand recall is what the bottom line dictates, corporate gifting is more than just that.
It has been transformed into an art. If a company gifts too little it can be percieved as cheap and if it gives too much it can become a bribe. Gift the wrong thing, and it s considered bad taste.
‘The art of selecting the right gift is to understand the likes and dislikes of the recipients and their particular taste. Only then will they reward you with their goodwill,’ says Brian Almeida, MD of Red Box Rewards. Aspirational value is important too and the best gifts are those that are aspirational in nature.
A foreign holiday for instance. Such gifts are usually often the result of long-term loyalty programmes and are becoming part and parcel of the marketing strategies of airlines and the retail sector. However if a foreign holiday is offered to a company executive by a supplier, it will be considered a bribe.
Selecting an usable, acceptable and yet, exclusive gift need not be an expensive exercise. Practical considerations do demand an economic caste system, and gifts of different value and design are slotted for different levels and for different target markets, say dealers, or multinationals. Even at junior levels and in the less sophisticated markets however, customers prefer exclusivity and novelty.
They are more likely to appreciate a box of dates with almonds ensconced within than chocolate barfi, or a Rs 30/- Chinese clock instead of a classic leather covered address book. As a result, old, traditional items like diaries and table top items have gone on the hit list. ‘How many paper weights and diaries is someone going to use anyway?
’ asks Sethi, relating an anecdote of a pharmaceutical company which presented a doctor with a diary. The doctor told the representative to keep it for himself.
A thoughtless gift creates a negative impression.
At best it might remain an useless expenditure. ‘The gift acts as a reminder that the company exists. It s a kind of advertising, not a bribe,’ says Raman.
In fact, gifting can be a terrific way of advertising, often very economical. ‘Gifting is cheaper than advertising,’ says Sethi. ‘You are going direct to your customer and the cost per impression is fairly low.
’ If the customer uses your gift daily, whether it s a wrist watch or a mixer grinder, he is going to favorably disposed towards you every single day.’
While choosing the right gift is important, how you give it is a vital aspect, because gifting is not just about brand recall, it s about people (probably why corporates, specially BPO’s, are going in for internal gifting in a big way). ‘Gifting builds relationships, and how you present is critical,’ says Sethi.
For example, there are not many people today who would show off a set of glasses with the company’s name emblazoned on it, even if they are made of crystal. No one likes to be perceived as a free loader. And if the receiver can afford glasses without company logos, why would he use those that have them?
‘People give these gifts away to their peons.
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