CX

All Payments Are Not Equal – Retail Payments Primer

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This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following question on Quora: I had a similar experience recently. I scanned the Merchant’s QR code at a restaurant with my PayTM app. PayTM asked me to link my bank account to complete the payment via UPI. I refused to do so because I wanted … Read more

How Does Google Maps Know Traffic Conditions In Realtime?

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When I was in Germany in the early 2000s, all my questions about distance would receive answers in terms of time. That too, under two conditions, namely, without traffic and with traffic. For example, if I asked a customer, “how far is your office from Munich airport”, the typical answer would be, “one and a … Read more

Why Does Cross Selling Fail?

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In my last post on cross-selling entitled Cross Selling Is Hard, we had seen several cross-selling flops by majors. In each case, a company that is wildly successful in one product category attempts to cross-sell a new product to its existing customers and achieves very little success. In some cases, the lack of success is … Read more

Why Two Factor Authentication Is A “Conversion Killer” & “Blood Pressure Booster”

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Any digital payment goes through a long and tortuous value chain comprising multiple entities. If we take credit card as an example, the entities include Consumer (e.g. You), Merchant (e.g. Amazon, DMART), Issuer (the bank that issues the card and enables the Consumer to make card payments e.g. Citi), Acquirer (the bank that supplies the … Read more

Why Banks Will Never Catch Up With Fintechs On UX

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Top 6 US banks posted a trillion dollars in profits in the last 10 years. "Top 6 Banks In USA Earn $1 Trillion In Profits In Last 10 Years" ~ https://t.co/coy2mSvu3C via @maxabelson @business .That's the same period when fintech was supposed to disrupt dinosaur banks. #Disruption #Shisruption #Banking #FinServ pic.twitter.com/kjZfCkqSbC — Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) … Read more

Britannia World Cup CEM – Low Budget Campaign Or Outright Scam?

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Britannia recently ran a Customer Engagement Management campaign for its NICE biscuit. Like any typical CEM campaign, the BRITANNIA KHAO WORLD CUP JAO campaign required consumers to find a promo code on the product package and SMS it to a telephone number (92620 92620). But, from here on, the Britannia CEM campaign deviated significantly from … Read more

India Inc Is Not In A Slowdown. India Inc Is The Slowdown

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With a steady fall in GDP growth rate during the last five quarters, there’s a near unanimous verdict that the Indian economy is going through a slowdown. Most experts agree that the fundamental cause of the slowdown is insufficient consumption. I agree with both views. But I differ about the reasons advanced to explain the … Read more

PINless Card Payments – Innovative Or Harebrained?

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I’ve been asked many times to weigh in on the new PINless regime for credit and debit card payments in India. Most recently it was on Quora, where I was asked to answer the following question: Why is it not required to enter a PIN to authenticate a credit or debit card in many countries? … Read more

Britannia “Morning Jackpot” CEM – Making Digital Easier Than Paper

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I came across a Customer Engagement Management program on Britannia bread recently. The program was called Morning Jackpot and it was run jointly between India’s leading bread and biscuit manufacturer Britannia and Payment Service Provider PayTM. Like in any other digital CEM program, each pack of the product – Britannia Healthy Slice and Britannia 100% Whole bread, in this case – … Read more