Its that time of the week when I have to go for the weekly grocery and vegetable shopping, and NO I'm not going to the Supermarket anymore..
I had enough of moments of truth and finally the truth has dawned that I'm not good enough to enjoy the benefits of organized retail.
The "moment of truth" in service marketing parlance is described as the moment when the service triad composed of the Consumer, the serving personnel and the service organization meet. In organized retail, the experiences I had with the truthful moments were never great, but I stubbornly trudged along from one outlet to the other - expectant that some day I will have a truly enjoyable moment.
Imagine a typical scenario:
It is Sunday morning, and I get ready for the trip. I collect the cloth bags (yes, we are trying to reduce our plastic dependance), the list is safely tucked in the pocket and the kids are secured on the back seat as we drive down to the supermarket.
The first hurdle is to find a parking slot. The store is big, but the designated parking slots are too few - and even on the Sunday morning they are full. We poke our noses into side streets and quickly occupy the one slot free.
Next hurdle is getting the empty cloth bags inside. The mighty security gurads are programmed to reject any bags from going inside. If we are lucky we might be allowed with the bags - else we might escape with a simple admonishment that bags need to be deposited at the entrance, to be collected later while the billing is in progress.
It has been half an hour since we entered this wonderland. Our trolley is half empty(we are optimistic people you know), to accomodate the planned items from the list which is still safely tucked in my pocket, as all of us have been stuffing the trolley with things that we don't need.
I refer to the list and ask one of the attendants where a particular item is stacked. It is always a dangerous question. It triggers a chain reaction where the query gets transferred from one attendant to the other and after a considerable delay the response could be don't know, don't care or it is out of stock.
Another dangerous question could be: "Do you have a fresher stock"? This typically happens with perishable items - with warning like "best within 15 days". In cases when the 15th day happens to be tomorrow, expect no sympathy from the attendant - come on you could still consume the item within today. Do you have to really trouble them with such silly questions as : do you have a fresher stock!
The trolleys are full with 70 percent of the planned items bought and we are in the final lap - just the billing is pending. The queue is long, some of the counters are closed, but attendants could have been the receptionist of a clinic for all you know. Typically they were the only ones in the service industry who could get away by being rude. Your appointment should come in 10mts from now, where 10 mts instead of being earth minutes are typically those of Pluto. (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers/day_night/activities/nightlife.shtml)
Coming back to retail - the attendants don't care - selling is NOT their job - they have a role: receptionist, customer care, billing, stacking - thats all - but who sells??
So, now I have come back to my friendly neighbourhood mom and pop store. The store does not have AC, it is not sparkingly clean - but it has a person behind a counter and not a role.
It has a person who acknowledges that I exist, who tries to make small talk - who at least tries to help and pretends to listen when I crib.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Something common between Brand and Religion
What?? The title looks absurd.
I had two completely free days - no not really - but then got bored of assignments, and normal routine work. They say Empty mind is Devils workshop - and we all know Devil wears Prada - and Prada is a well known brand - so one thing lead to the other and ended up spending time in Library and reading about brands.
Came across this book: "Sonic Branding" by Daniel Jackson.
The book discusses, Brand in general and Sonic branding in particular.
Like the way the author has brought out the concept of Brand.
So what is common between religion and brand (no offences meant to religion).
It is the belief of the follower that is important.
The book says:
Brand is Belief.
Belief comes when believers put in their emotional capital.
Hence, Brand is like religion. E.g Christianity- initially the evangelists had to struggle to get the converts – but once converts had bought in the idea – they became the ambassadors.
Now consider the e.g. of Coke and McDonalds.
What is coke – just a normal thirst quencher – like sprite, Dr. peppers, Thums UP. But if you look around – Coke stands for American spirit. It is “the original thing”. And getting coke in a country means that American culture has arrived.
Similarly MaC…
I had two completely free days - no not really - but then got bored of assignments, and normal routine work. They say Empty mind is Devils workshop - and we all know Devil wears Prada - and Prada is a well known brand - so one thing lead to the other and ended up spending time in Library and reading about brands.
Came across this book: "Sonic Branding" by Daniel Jackson.
The book discusses, Brand in general and Sonic branding in particular.
Like the way the author has brought out the concept of Brand.
So what is common between religion and brand (no offences meant to religion).
It is the belief of the follower that is important.
The book says:
Brand is Belief.
Belief comes when believers put in their emotional capital.
Hence, Brand is like religion. E.g Christianity- initially the evangelists had to struggle to get the converts – but once converts had bought in the idea – they became the ambassadors.
Now consider the e.g. of Coke and McDonalds.
What is coke – just a normal thirst quencher – like sprite, Dr. peppers, Thums UP. But if you look around – Coke stands for American spirit. It is “the original thing”. And getting coke in a country means that American culture has arrived.
Similarly MaC…
Monday, February 23, 2009
Loyalty and Choice
When are you loyal to a brand?
When you have enough alternatives to choose from and you still stick to it!
Such a basic idea - lets see whether it holds good in some other spheres:
1) You are loyal to your company when you have enough choices to leave - but you still remain
2) You are loyal to your country, when you have enough choices and still you remain
So what drives the brand loyalty?
When you have enough alternatives to choose from and you still stick to it!
Such a basic idea - lets see whether it holds good in some other spheres:
1) You are loyal to your company when you have enough choices to leave - but you still remain
2) You are loyal to your country, when you have enough choices and still you remain
So what drives the brand loyalty?
Brand Loyalty Defined
”You learn that creating customer loyalty is neither strategic nor tactic;
rather, it is the ultimate objective and meaning of brand equity. Brand loyalty is brand equity.” Daryl Travis, Emotional Branding
So, what constitutes brand loyalty? According to Bloemer and Kasper, brand loyalty implies that consumers bind themselves to products or services as a result of a deep-seated commitment.
To exemplify this point, they rendered a distinction between repeat purchases and actual brand loyalty. In their published research, they assert that a repeat purchase behavior "is the actual re-buying of a brand” whereas loyalty includes "antecedents” or a reason/fact occurring before the behavior. Bloemer and Kasper further delineate brand loyalty into "spurious” and "true” loyalty. Spurious loyalty exhibits the following attributes:
Biased ; Behavioral response; Expressed over time; By some decision-making unit, with respect to one or more alternate brands; A function of inertia .
True brand loyalty includes the above, but replaces inertia with a psychological process resulting in brand commitment (Ref: Journal of Economic Psychology, Volume 16, Issue 2, July 1995).
So are you loyal to your company/country?
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