That’s what a security guard at the Reebok store on 100 ft. Ring Road, Banashankari 3rd Stage said when I visited the store at 11:00 AM last Saturday.
I desperately needed a cap and I had committed to buy one then and there. Instead I was not allowed to step inside the store because — to quote the security guard — “the owners are already in the store, but you have to wait outside for five minutes because the salesperson has gone outside.”
WTF mate? Who am I? A committed-to-a-purchase customer or a criminal who wants to walk away with the store in broad daylight? You might have read, heard, and seen these fancy reports written by fancy experts projecting India to be “the thing” in retail. Ground reality is different. This experience at the Reebok store is not an isolated incident. Most retail outlets treat customers worse than criminals, with salespeople and security guards watching — with eyes that would rival a hawk’s — your every move.
And my response to the security guard was, “If that’s the way the owners want to run their business, no one’s going to step foot inside this store.” I actually wanted to say this to the owners, but hey, remember, I can’t go inside and talk to them because “though the owners are already in the store, I have to wait outside for five minutes because the salesperson has gone outside.”
Pay particular attention to slides 49, 51, 55, and 56. I strongly believe in the following two points made in the presentation: “There is no greater anti-brain environment than the cubicle,” and “When you’re always online you’re always distracted.”
On #1, cubicles usually leave me feeling trapped and claustrophobic by the end of the work day. I am lucky to at least have a window-facing seat.
On #2, I have simply lost track of the number of times my thoughts have been derailed simply by being always online (email, instant messenger, work phone, mobile phone, and web browser - wow!). The back and forth context switch during each such interruption levies a huge penalty on my productivity. Of late, I have been experimenting with “zone out” windows (absolutely no interruptions) and have experienced a truly significant increase in my productivity.
This presentation on how to manage your career is a must see and a must implement for each one of us. It’s brilliant — albeit a bit quirky. How many of these lessons do you actually follow today?
A well researched presentation on the state of the Mobile Value Add Services (VAS) industry in India. Being in this industry, I can say that the authors have correctly identified the problems afflicting the VAS industry.
FlexiCash is a special overdraft facility offered to salaried individuals. Simply put, it gives you the benefit of having a pre-approved and pre-sanctioned cash limit in your bank account.
With FlexiCash, you enjoy the double benefit of ready cash for what you need, whenever you need. From filling those shortfalls to the pleasures of shopping, from paying high interest liabilities to buying consumer durables to meeting your everyday needs, the money is now already in your bank account, ready to use.
WTF mate? How dumb does ICICI Bank think its customers are? FlexiCash lets you pay high interest liabilities being a high interest liability itself? What kind of Bank encourages you to go shopping, buy white goods, or meet everyday needs on an overdraft? Wake up CEO. Is this how you want to run your Bank?
I think the second paragraph was originally worded as:
With FlexiCash, you enjoy the double misery of ready cash for what you don’t need, whenever you don’t need it. From filling ICICI Bank’s treasury to draining your savings, from paying high interest liabilities (ROTFLMAO!) to watching your balance go negative to meeting ICICI Bank’s balance sheet needs, your money is now already on the way to our bank account, ready to lend again.
Since this fundamental truth cannot be printed, the wordings had to be changed.
I once had an overdraft facility on my Citibank Suvidha account. I called to close it. I was informed that once a line of overdraft is closed, I will not be given the option to start a new one again. I have never been happier than that one fleeting moment.
On my way home from work yesterday, I had the opportunity to tail a Maruti Swift DZiRE for close to four kilometers. Having looked at the car from all angles, I have just one thing to say:
Just because you know how to weld things together does not mean that you should weld together everything that you see on your assembly line.
The Swift looks awesome. The Swift DZiRE looks totally lame. It can compete with the Mahindra Logan in an Ugly Duckling contest.
Yesterday, at the Cookie Man outlet located in the Forum Mall, my five-year old niece wanted a single coconut cookie. I was informed that the coconut cookies could only be bought in bulk. While I was explaining this to my niece, the employee overheard my explanation. She immediately went over, got a single coconut cookie, and handed it to my niece. The smiles on their faces were priceless.
Wow! Employees empowered to take decisions. Cookie Man gets it. I’m their customer for life.
Videocon first burns shareholders’ money in creating this meaningless and irrelevant ad. And when it’s time to cut that multi-crore check to each of the multi-crore demanding celebrities, they unleash this lame scheme on the public.
Maano Ya Na Maano!
Pay just Rs 12,990 for the Jumbo 34 Flat TV and deposit a sum of Rs 7000 to get a Plasma 32 Entitlement Certificate. Redeem this certificate after 2 years and 11 months for one Plasma 32″ (81 cm) TV. You can also redeem this certificate earlier to get heavy discounts on the Plasma 32, under the premature redemption option. Hurry. Book your TV in next 3 days!! Better believe it. It’s full Paisa Vasool.
Source: Videocon’s printed ad featured in leading dailies.
“It’s full Paisa Vasool,” actually means “We’re scamming you, you fool.” I asked this question a while back and I pose it again: What do Indian corporates take the Indian public to be? Mindless idiots?
This brilliant ad from Barclays Bank for their credit cards would like you to believe that you are in total control. However, dig deep and you’ll find this:
Barclaycard Gold Card
Our fee free for life Gold card gives you simple options to tailor the card to your needs. Choose between a minimum monthly payment of 5%, 7%, and 10% of your balance, determine your billing date and adjust your credit limit to manage your spendings.
Barclaycard Smart Budget Card
With Barclaycard Smart Budget you won’t have any nasty surprises. You decide how much you can afford each month and only need to pay that amount, regardless of how much you spend. As with all credit cards by Barclaycard, you can also choose your billing date.
I am being encouraged to spend on my credit card and then conned into believing that I am in total control of the situation by paying 5%, 7%, or 10% of the outstanding balance as minimum monthly payments. The naked truth is that when you make a single minimum monthly payment you’re transferring 100% of the control to Barclays Bank. It’s a lost battle from this point forward.
And which bank so far has set the credit limit that you asked for? I don’t carry a credit card simply because of the ridiculous credit limits that banks choose to set on my behalf. One bank set my credit limit at Rs 148,000 when I had asked them to set it at Rs 25,000. I’d be delighted to own a Barclaycard with a credit limit of Rs 10,000. Then again, I don’t fall within their definition of a customer-in-control.
I placed an order for the Dell 19″ SE198WFP Widescreen Flat Panel (Analog and DVI) monitor on January 10, 2008. I was given an expected delivery date as January 16, 2008. The monitor arrived at my doorstep on January 12, 2008 — in just three working days! The packaging was top-notch, the packaging was complete (power cord, analog and DVI cables, manuals), and the monitor worked flawless out of the box. I can’t get my eyes of this beauty.
Under promise. Over deliver. Put a BIG smile on your customer’s face. Truly a “Wow!” experience.
If you’ve been thinking of purchasing a Widescreen Flat Panel, I’d recommend a Dell.
Recently, at the Cafe Coffee Day outlet near Ashoka Pillar, Bangalore (South), we asked:
Could you please change the television channel to the cricket match? We just want to catch the score.
To which came the reply:
Sorry sir. Management has asked us to keep the television tuned to only music channels.
Management for management’s sake — that’s what I have observed in most Indian service establishments. What do you think?
It’s a completely different matter that the “television tuned to only music channels” is always kept on mute. The music that you actually hear is from a separate source.
If you’ve sat on the driver’s seat of a Maruti SX4, you’ll definitely have observed a huge blind spot in the front right portion caused by a wedge shaped A pillar.
On my way to work today morning, I tuned in to a program on Radio City during which SX4 owners in Bangalore could have a live chat with a Maruti Marketing Guy. A software engineer calls in and says,
The car’s awesome. It’s got great ground clearance and spacious interiors. But the front right portion blocks my view while taking a turn.
To which the Maruti Marketing Guy replied,
Thanks for your great comments. But the wedge-shaped A pillar you are talking about is actually a safety feature. I am not sure if your driving posture is correct — maybe your seat’s way too front or way too back — but that wedge-shaped A pillar is a safety feature.
WTF mate? Blind spots being sold as a safety feature? Maybe it’s safe because what you can’t see while turning can’t hurt you. Right? Classic marketing at work — blame the customer.
No. 35/5, Langford Road
Near Double Road Circle
Bangalore — 560 025.
Tel: +91 80 41519430 / 50 Email: me [at] madhusindia [dot] com
Highly recommended. I’ve personally witnessed their efficiency in service. They use high-precision wireless equipment to get the job done. You can also get your vehicle’s emission test done here.
PS: Thanks to Notary for letting me tag along to Madhus, where I witnessed wheel balancing and alignment done on a Skoda Octavia, a Maruti 800, a Tata Indica, and [gasp!] an Ambassador!
Update:
If you happen to live in/near Bangalore South, there’s another awesome customer-focused tyre service center:
Tyre Professionals
No. 1, Lakshmi Towers
200, R.V. Road
Near South End Circle
Bangalore — 560 004.
Tel: +91 80 26561097 / 26561835
They do wheel balancing and alignment, and puncture repair. You can even buy a fresh set of tyres. “Wow!” service — guaranteed.
While applying for a credit card, insist on your agent to provide you with the Most Important Terms and Conditions (MITC). Also, carefully read through the terms and conditions before signing your application form.
Makes me wonder if there are any Less/Least Important Terms and Conditions (LITC) that ICICI Bank isn’t telling us about.
If you run a mobile phone company and broadcast your wares with such lame advertisements, especially in a market considered to be Mecca of the telecom world, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that your shareholders are unhappy.
Select your country, enter your phone number (any), and hit the CALL button. That’s it and you’re connected to me! Once we’ve hung up, I’d really appreciate your gesture of leaving a comment about your experience.
What are you waiting for? Call me now.
Note: Unfortunately, the flash based calling widget doesn’t display on a few RSS readers (I checked with Google Reader). If that’s happening with your reader too, then hit this link.
Disclaimer: I have no financial or management interest in Jajah. I am only testing their service as part of my role as an expert on Techdirt’s Insight Community.
Update: The trial funding in my account has dipped to zero, which means no more satisfying your itch to call me for free!
I walked into the Jayanagar branch of ICICI Bank and was greeted by a wall-mounted primitive-artificial-intelligence-capable monolith device. This device has 15 buttons in total; 6 rows with 2 buttons each and 1 row with 3 buttons, all with textual inscriptions in a tiny-sized font.
As a customer, you are required to press a sequence of two buttons corresponding to the task you want to accomplish after which out comes a piece of paper with a cryptic token number. If you want to accomplish multiple tasks, you have to repeat the above sequence for every task, thereby ending up with multiple cryptic token numbers.
If you’re encountering this device for the first time, you’re guaranteed to be bewildered. There are so many choices to read and select. Before you can scream out “WTF mate!” you discover that one guy has been employed just to help you press the correct buttons. Heights of [un]employment!
When your token gets picked for service (as displayed by a wall-mounted beeping monitor) depends on your karma. As one customer found out, though he came in at 08:29 AM his token was not picked even at 10:00 AM! I got my token at 09:47 AM, hung around till 10:15 AM, and then walked out. All I wanted to do was close a savings account. And good luck to you if you have multiple tokens!
Reminds me of that ICICI Bank advertisement “Hum Hain Naa?” (We are there for you right?)
My response: Isliye? (For this?)
On the other hand, ICICI Bank’s raising truckloads of money. For what? What do you think?
In response to the simple question “What can we expect to see from Technorati in the next year with you at the helm?”, Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati said:
We’re really centered on trying to create a wholly unique media experience and improving our properties. Our big thing is going to be working on the advertising side of things to connect brands to the idea of global conversation that we strive for. Most of the opportunities and initiatives we’ve got coming up are going to address those two things.
Wholly unique media experience? Big thing? Global conversation? All I can say is WTF mate? Richard pointedly refers to the “amazing array of assets” they’re sitting on, without once saying what they actually are. Technorati is, fundamentally, an aggregator. I fail to understand what those “amazing array of assets” are. Do you?
Moral of the story: To evade answering simple and direct questions, construct and connect sentences that make so much nonsense as to confuse the person asking the question.
Recently, we mentioned that Amazon’s MP3 Download Store got the DRM-free part right but screwed up on the pricing model — the real Achilles heel of iTunes. As it turns out there’s another angle from which Amazon could go one-up on iTunes: extend the offering across more countries.
The moment I heard about the launch, I enthusiastically hit Amazon’s MP3 Download Store and eagerly clicked on a “Buy MP3″ link only to be greeted with a “We are sorry… We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”
Wow! What’s that again? Geographical restrictions on music? Because I am a citizen of India and not a citizen of a country where the music labels think that DRM-free music should be made downloadable? That’s just dumb. Similarly, a long time ago, iTunes informed me that I don’t have a “foreign” credit card and hence it won’t let me download stuff although I am willing to pay for it.
There are more than a few ironies here:
The music that I am trying to purchase is readily available DRM-free on CDs at a store nearby. So why place an embargo on the digital one?
I can order stuff from Amazon and have them international-couriered to India, but I can’t download a digital file off Amazon because I am in India.
Here’s my feedback to Amazon: If you really want to exploit the “long tail” and “short head” economics of online music and be anywhere close to a threat to iTunes, look at creating a world where music is not constrained by borders. You have the clout to do that.
Vinaya HS is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Vinaya HS and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
The comments that this article attracted were full of insight. I’d love to hear your thoughts too.
Now, reader Shridhar writes in with his Do Not Call (DNC) registration woes:
Yesterday, I registered - via SMS and the online facility - for DNC through Hutch. Till date (08-Sep-2007 13:40 PM IST),they have sent me 45 SMS saying “your service will be activated in 45 days.” SMS flooding is continuing. I calculate that I will get 80 SMS per day till this 45-day limit is reached. Totally fucked up. Hutch is worst.
Have you had better luck with Hutch?
I managed to mess around with Airtel’s online implementation of the Do Not Call registration mechanism. The damn thing used to think that “Stop” meant “Start” and vice versa, but they’ve set it right now. I’ve generated so many reference numbers that I don’t know which among them is the correct/valid one. I guess I’ll have to play the “I am on the DNC / I am not on the DNC” game with a rose in my hand.
