Why Are Reviews So Powerful In Social Media Customer Service?

Since I wrote Customers Of The World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But The Call Center Hold Music, many more brands are providing customer service via social media. Some of them are doing a great job at it even though it’s early days e.g. Bajaj Allianz GIC (@BajajAllianz), Hootsuite Helpers (@Hootsuite_Help), Ministry of Railways … Read more

Reliance JioFi Second Impressions

In Reliance JioFi First Impressions, I’d shared my initial experiences with the Reliance JioFi Portable 4G Pocket WiFi Router. One month later, here are my “second” impressions: UPDATE DATED 16-SEP-2016: It’s confirmed that voice on JioFi happens via data packets. However, I understand it’s called Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) and not VoIP as I’d previously labeled … Read more

Aspect Ratio Is Not Rocket Science But So Many Brands Still Get It Wrong

A few years ago, images on websites and banner ads used to suck. Poor resolution, bleeding colors – these were the common problems in images used even by leading brands. That’s mostly history now. Image quality has improved significantly in recent times. I wish I could say the same about image sizes and aspect ratios. … Read more

Reliance JioFi First Impressions

I purchased a Reliance JioFi Portable 4G Pocket WiFi Router two days ago. Here are my first impressions of the product and the onboarding process. #1. Scrappy, But Formless, Onboarding There is no Jio store. All leading telecom companies in India like Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have a retail presence. But not Jio – at least … Read more

Fintechs Need Guts More Than Lawyers!

In Part 1 titled “Fintechs Need Marketers And Lobbyists – Not Lawyers”, we saw why marketers and lobbyists play a vital role in a fintech startup’s success, and how successful startups in fintech and other heavily regulated industries don’t seem to have consulted lawyers while conceptualizing their offerings. In this second part, we’ll examine the … Read more

Omnichannel Couponing Drives CEM Success – Part 2

In Part-1 of this blog post, I’d described my experience with PayTM’s CEM campaign on Nescafe’s instant coffee bottle. In this part, I’ll describe my experience with the sachet of the same product. If you’re wondering how packing types matter in a CEM campaign, trust me, bottle and sachet pose different challenges and provide different … Read more

Omnichannel Couponing Drives CEM Success – Part 1

Barring a few exceptions like Dollar Shave Club, consumer brands still don’t sell their products directly to people who use them. Instead, they use the traditional multi-tiered distribution channel comprising distributors, wholesalers and retailers. Ergo they don’t know their end consumers. How do brands overcome the “anonymity” challenge, reach out to end consumers and engage … Read more

Hardline Stance Works Against Ad-Blockers

With the rising use of ad-blockers by online readers, the blogosphere is full of advice on how online publishers should move away from advertising and find other ways to monetize their content. Some of the alternatives proposed by the digerati include: Micropayments Subscription Native Ads Harvest PII Remove Obtrusive Ads In this blog post, I’ll examine … Read more