Teardown Of “Direct To Consumer” Business Model

Both FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) and DTC (Direct to Consumer) companies manufacture their own products. (NOTE: In some markets, FMCG is called CPG or Consumer Packaged Goods. Source: McKinsey.) Both of them sell online and via brick-and-mortar stores. Their products are used by a Consumer i.e. private individual in his or her personal capacity … Read more

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

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

Communications – Low Hanging Fruit For Enhancing CX

In Poor Communications: The Seventh Deadly CX Killer, I described the painful experience of activating the new credit cards I recently received from my bank. To recap, I didn’t get a paper PIN mailer as was customary during the previous renewals, and the instructions given by the bank on how to activate the new cards on … Read more

Demystifying The Ubiquitous Sample Size Of 2000

Back in the day, we learned in statistics that you need a sample size of at least 2% of the size of population to make statistically significant inferences about the population. In common speak, the expression “statistically significant” means “valid”. Nevertheless, if you’re like me, you regularly come across surveys conducted on sample size of … Read more

Discount Is Not The Only Reason For Shopping Online

At the end of my blog post titled Retail Is Still Barking Up The Wrong Tree Against Ecommerce, I’d made a bold prediction that, within a few months, I’d find a few more non-price related reasons for shopping online. Well, it took me longer than that but I found one recently. This was at the outlet … Read more

How To Make Your Product 10X Better

This is a slightly edited version of my answer to the following Quora question: Usually, there are many apps in the market, the developer remains blissfully unaware of them, develops a similar app without being cognizant of the other apps, and then wonders what went wrong. Yours is the right question. It’s a pleasure answering … Read more

I’m The Proud Author Of A Book!

I’m happy to announce that I’ve published a book! Entitled FROM DISLOYALTY TO OMNICHANNEL CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT, my book is available in Kindle and EPUB formats. In this eBook, I trace the arc of loyalty programs run by brands during the last 5-7 years and predict the trajectory of their customer engagement management strategies over the remaining … Read more

Can Chatbots Replace Humans?

If you think bots will never replace human agents, you’re amongst the lucky few who has been served by intelligent human agents. Let's stop pretending that the average Customer Service Rep has an IQ of 140 when we believe that chatbots are not intelligent enough to replace human agents. https://t.co/ErzpUfMmLP via @verge . #CustomerService pic.twitter.com/ujDj2l3593 … Read more