smartphone

Maybe I am being naive!

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Over the last two weeks I have encountered different types of services, private and public and on all occasions I have been left wondering, “what is the reason behind this never ending relationship between customer service and the ball point pen in Zimbabwe?”. In almost all instances there is always a computer at every service desk! Sometimes both the pen and the computer are used to record the same event, meaning I have to wait twice as long to be served without any real improvement to my experience of that service.

Am I expecting too much, does anyone else not see that, for time and age that we are living in at this very moment, we are not equipped to be effective and efficient? One colleague reminded me that my problem is I have diaspora expectations, I should accept that things are different here but what is the real difficult in producing customer service provisions that exceed current levels? Surely it is not because investing in information technology is expensive, the technology is already there!. Could it be a lack of training or is it management myopia holding back the development of better service provision quality?

Here are two examples of why I am complaining, at my previous hotel, I had some dirty laundry washed, my details and the list of items to be washed where added onto my room information on the hotel’s computer system, later as I came to collect laundry I was asked to pay cash, even though this was midway through my stay, I produced the money to pay. Payment details were added onto my room information and a receipt book with ball point pen attached was produced to duplicate the very same information for which I was given a copy but only after a 20 minute wait. Upon checking out I was given a 4 page folio copy printed by the system detailing every single thing I had done that week including the laundry business! why do I need it again or why did I have to wait for all that 20 minutes in the first instance when I could have just got the information on checking out?!

The same goes to my mobile phone provider who made me wait in three queues to be saved at 3 desks in order to change my micro sim to a nano sim! on all three occasions I was asked to repeat the same information for which three different colour hand written receipts were produced while the information was simultaneously added onto the information technology system! After 45 minutes waiting for this elaborate process to be completed I got to the payment station and I was told the cashier didn’t have change for $20 so now I had to find that in order to pay! Life is way too short for this BS!

But all is not lost, as I discovered at Harare Airport where I arrived to check in for my flight to Bulawayo, my first with the airline for 14 years!, with nothing but an emailed e-ticket on my iphone. You can forgive the nervous ball of anxiety in my stomach as I got to the check-in desk but the helpful gentleman checked me in with a smile and without asking any further question or even an ID!

Isn’t it a scary world when anything related to AirZim is an example of best practise! Ahh, its supplier of handling services at the airport should get the applause instead, well done to the NHS for not using a ball point pen! (No!, it stands for National Handling Services, not that other NHS!). As for AirZim, we left on time, well 20 minutes late is no reason to complain when the national airline is the service provider on any trip!

I am sure some will have a counter point and an explantion or rationale for all my complaints, maybe I am just being naive but, come on!
bad-customer-service 2

The problem with Apple vs Samsung: Is this situation going to lead to more marketing share battles being fought in court and not on the marketplace?

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

So it has come and gone that Apple have taken the fight wth Samsung for smartphone and tablet market share beyond basic marketing strategy. I worry that there is a possiblity of setting an ugly trend here were companies that feel insecure about their marketing positions can use legal instruments to win their battles in the shop.

So if Apple could win, who else has a chance to sue their rivals and get ahead in the market. Word is NOKIA still contributes significantly to the antenna technology in all mobile phones. Imagine NOKIA saying F OFF to everyone in the mobile phones game. Apple won’t like that one bit.

The whole thing reminded me of the Olympics in Athens when NIKE wanted to get Adidas to remove some of its branding from products and have just one trademark like NIKE does. They were suggeting that Adidas either has the 3 leaf mark or three stripes or the more modern 3 blocks on the chest but not all three or 2 as is usually the case. Apparently NIKE felt this was unfair advertising and Adidas were getting more out the money they paid for advertising at the olympics, which, incidentally was the same as what NIKE paid at the same time.

The problem I have with all this is it kills competition and creativity from marketers in their quest for market dominance. With budgets topping £28 billion in 2011/12 there is hope yet for marketing to prevail, perhaps the creators of products should stop focusing on their rivals’s product and invent new ground braking technology rather than this endless chain of innovation that has lead Samsung to pay a king’s ransom in fines.

But, maybe we have reached the end of our inventiveness as a generation. I often ask my students – “is it possible to come up with something totally unique and not a copy of anything on the market at the moment?”

 

Forget junk mail and emails, get into the customers’ pockets

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , Leave a comment

 

Random marketing and its effectiveness was a side topics at one of my meetings today. Some people feel annoyed and often presssured into looking at the junk emails that clog up their email addresss. I never open mine but I understand why companies do it. It’s in the hope that they will grab a second of you time to make themselves known so that maybe you me buy whatever it is they are selling.

But this strategy is seriously flawed because no one I know opens let alone read junk mail or emails so it’s a pointless investment of marketing resources. Apart from the recipients not opening their enails, the idea that random marketing works goes against the concepts taught in fundamental marketing, it ignores segmentation, targeting and positioning! With all the tracking power modern internet technology has, companies can pretty much track  everyone who uses the internet looks at, buys and ignores so there is no excuse for spending money on random marketing. Get forcused and start targeting customers with the right offers at the right time.

Has anyone with a smart phone ever wondered why no company ever sends adverts to your phone? They know all the website you visit, with the location service they even know where you are at what time and with people’s phones always emitting signals it is easy to get into their pockets and send messages or news flashes about product offers, updates ets. My feeling is that junk mail/ emails needs to be more cunning and intrusive especially targeted to the customers who need to get that information being the only ones who get it. There are even some people carrying phones with their bluetooth always switched on and sending message to that is dead easy.

The beauty of getting into the target’s phone is that the message arrives as a sms or mms, people read that because it might be important. It could annoy some people but if the offer is for a product they use there is possibility that they could become a customer. The important thing to remember is that there has to be a benefit for the customers, empty messages should not be sent to customers, avoid wasting their time so that everytime you send a message it is worth reading and it engages the customers to an extent that they consider buying or at the very list the product being advertised occupy a part of the customers’ brain for future references.

This is where marketing should be going and I think it is already 18 months late!

 

Nokia, still relevant????

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

So Nokia are advertinsing the “real windows moible phone” to borrow from the words of their CEO, I watched the promo materials and the phone looks nice, their differentiation to the usual Windows Mobile user interface looks nice but should they really be as excited as they are about the market potential of this modile and their union with Microsoft?

Why am I sceptical? Well here we have 2 brands that are the weakest in the compititve smartphone market, Nokia has the lowest performance in terms of units sold and Microsoft can’t sell any phones on their own and HTC is regretting creating phones for Windows 7 put briefly Windows Mobile is even worse in the market that NOKIA’s Symbian software!!. Why are they excited?

I think Nokia needs to review its strategic thrust at the moment, this new relationship with Microsoft is at least 3 years too late and the consumer has moved on, the Windows Mobile platform’s unique proposition to the customer is social newtorking connectivity my problem with that is haven’t they heard of BBM? Social networking was all the rage 2 years ago, not its all about augmented reality, BBM and Facebook where does NOKIA  fit into all that?. Another question is, does NOKIA really need to be relevant in the smartphone market and how much of that effort takes their resources from their core market, low income people and cheap mobile phones?

I think NOKIA are getting spooked by the events around them but they are not strategically ready to respond to these new players taking over their upmarket customers. But, why should they fight on their competitors’ terms, they are still selling the most number of mobile phones in the world, cheap phones but still the most units in the industry. I would suggest, if anyone asked me, that NOKIA focuses on its bread and butter market, the cheap phone market, there are still enough lower income people in the world to make good business for NOKIA. Developing smartpones need not be an obsession for NOKIA but running a strategical sound business is more important. Smartphones for the lower income market, now that’s were the real money lies imagine a $100 simfree Apple phone or a $50 Android phone,that is were the marketers need to go next. Simfree phones or pay as you go phone still account for the large users on mobile telephony.

I’m just saying, stop fighting Apple and Google on their patch, go scratch your own new market and this applies to any other business fighting to survive against dominant rivals