A quick recap from the earlier post:
The Art of Customer Delight [Part 1] covered how to maximise the value delivered to your customers.
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Part 2 - Timing is everything.
“The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.” - Pink Floyd.
Every moment is an opportunity to provide value to your users, your merchants, your partners, your community in the context of the moment. It is important to act in the ‘now’ as there is a Doppler Effect in play here. If an event X happens in your universe, how big of an impact your communication or your solution can create is directly proportional to how close you time it to X (assuming that your communication/solution is relevant to the intended user).
We’ll get to the topic of relevance in a separate post (Part 3 at a later point). For now, let’s jump into events and trends from recent times to understand 1) how some brands see opportunity where the world sees chaos and 2) how timing plays a critical role in delivering high impact.
1) India’s geo-political landscape took a 370 degree turn last week. Heated debates filled our screens and water-cooler conversations like there was no tomorrow. And while the debate goes on, it is heartening to see a handful of brands take a step in the right direction of building a better future.
2) Ab ATM Nahi, #PaytmKaro - demonetisation, in the late 2016, and the introduction of UPI have been game-changers for digital payment platforms in India. But none acted faster on the opportunity back then other than Paytm. Two things made the difference - 1) getting a front page pan-India TOI ad the very next day and congratulating the PM with his image on the ad and 2) more importantly, following it through by launching a distribution drive for QR codes on the ground across India. Here’s an article that gives you a glimpse of what went behind the scenes.
An initiative of similar proportions (to UPI/Demonetisation) was recently announced by Nandan Nilekani - the RBI-backed Account Aggregator ecosystem, Sahamati. In a nutshell, this introduces a digital platform for easy sharing and consumption of data from various financial entities with user’s consent. It will be interesting to see the early movers in this space - startups and incumbents included - in the near future.
3) The Electric Vehicles industry in India. We are probably at the start of what is likely to be a decade that transforms the automotive landscape in our country. In an ecosystem that has just started to shape up, startups working on delivering solutions in the EV space today will benefit from the traction they get from the early mover advantage.
4) From a lighter instance a couple of weeks ago, a few brands were on point when people were going bananas over Rahul Bose’s Tweet.
5) Sacred Games by Netflix. Releasing on 15th August. Public holiday. Potentially a long weekend for many. No World Cup. No Wimbledon. Best time to introduce second season. And a great start to the build up.
6) And then there are times when the universe works in your favour to make time your best friend. Take for example Ixigo’s video on stuff you can (or cannot) take from hotels. This video was posted on 14th July on Youtube. Jump to 27th July - a hotel theft incident by an Indian family in Bali (what are the odds!) consumed all of our social timelines for the lack of better news in our lives. Ixigo posted the video again on 28th July and voila…in the context of the event, it went viral (300k+ views on Twitter alone). Nicely done, Ixigo!
So, how do you get better at being at the right place at the right time?
Definitely not something you can learn from your bank on a Friday afternoon - they have mastered the art of being at the wrong place, at the wrong time with the wrong communication. And they keep getting better at it. You never know when you might be hit with the next “Sir, kya apko car loan ki requirement hai?” call. I just got one.
Back to the point - I’m not sure if there is a secret ingredient here to getting it right (apart from having folks like Akshar, Shantanu, Vivek, Pranav or Shakti on your team). Here’s what worked well for us at Zomato (during my time there and even today):
Build a listening culture - meet users on a regular basis, be aware of what’s happening around you, be on top of your user sentiment and feedback via social channels, if something needs fixing... fix immediately, and delight your users as often as possible. Every interaction is an opportunity to delight your users.
Work with people who can connect the dots well and can delight people by just being themselves - don’t get stuck up on job descriptions. Identify communication in the recent past that struck a chord with you (= your mind was blown). Reach out to the person who created it, try and get that person on board (or at least learn about what they eat for breakfast)! Empower your team to be bold and experiment - learn via trial and error. Doing this over and over builds a virtuous cycle - great teams with great freedom attract more great people.
Prioritise well - more so when under time-pressure. If you need a framework, I came across this recently which might be helpful - the Eisenhower Matrix (do what’s important and urgent first).
Lastly, they say that you find love when you least expect it. This holds true when you put it in the context of user love towards you (your brand/product/communication). Your actions are under your control, your users’ reactions aren’t. Focus on consistently delivering great value and delivering it at the right time and in the process, increase the odds of delivering delight to your users.
Will see you again in couple of weeks with my next post on 23rd August. If you have any suggestions or feedback for the newsletter, I would love to hear it - I’m at prao24 on Twitter or you can just comment below.
Cheers,
Prao