யாருக்கும் வெட்கமில்லை-A Matter of National Shame

http://tinyurl.com/medical-scam

New Blog!

I decided to move to Wordpress, mainly for their convenience and aesthetics. Also this is an attempt to jump-start my writing habit one more time, so can I inconvenience you one last time to update your links and subscriptions?

Here is the blog...
http://ariansbelt.wordpress.com

Flawless Execution

Has it ever happened to you that you saw a company’s advertisement about an offer or a new marketing message or a promise of a certain experience etc. and you went out of the way to make use of it. And then for some reason it was not available, or you did not get what was promised? As a result you went from being completely indifferent to the company, to developing a bit of aversion to it or in the worst case even becoming bitter and completely opposed to the company and its products. Welcome to the world of scary marketing managers-with brilliant insights, great plans and bad execution.

While I don’t have any grand theories on how this could be avoided, I recently came across an instance of failed execution and formulated some ideas on how it could have been different.

First on is at Chase bank, now Chase started this whole “Chase picks up your tab” marketing message that basically says that when you use your debit card (that you “enroll” in this plan) to make a purchase, Chase will pick up the tab for you once a year on a random transaction. Now, I like those odds, maybe they will pick up a big transaction and give me a hundred dollars back-I can take that gamble. To their credit, they had complete consistency in marketing this message with emails, on their website and even in their branches with huge placards explaining the scheme and benefits-so far, the perfect marketing plan ever. And I finally ask the clerk behind the counter to enroll me in the scheme and he blinks! He looks around helplessly and finally says-“You are going to have to come back some other time to do that-all our officers are busy now”. I still persisted, asking another lady who seemed a little more knowledgeable, she in fact went ahead and explained all the benefits of the enrolling in the plan and could she enroll my card? No, all the officers were talking with other customers and she herself could not do it.

Now, there was a classic moment of truth…here I was taking time out of a busy afternoon to do exactly what Chase wanted me to do-and these two employees can’t just make it happen. I would have spent at least a thousand dollars on that card the same month on a flight ticket (but I ended up using another card), I have even turned a bit opposed to using the debit card anymore (“if I can’t get the offer why should I bother using it?”)

It would be naïve to assume that somehow those two employees were at fault. They probably weren’t empowered to do it. Or they did not have the appropriate training on how to do it. Or rather, Chase did not have a mechanism to help me do it on my own so that those employees are not burdened and I am happy as well with an hour saved on that afternoon.

What could Chase have done better? Quite a few things actually…

1. Multiple Channels: Instead of forcing customers to show up at a branch to sign-up it could have been online and if they absolutely needed to have a conversation with me, maybe a follow-up phone call.
2. Call to Action: In all their messages, they could have emphasized a simple method to enroll my card on my own instead of just saying “Enroll today”
3. Training: When a program is important enough to throw up banners all around the branch, every employee should be informed enough at least to talk intelligently about it.
4. Follow-up: At the least, they could have had a simple operating procedure of getting the customer’s phone number and an appropriate time to call them back (and of course call the customer back at that time).

That would be flawless execution, otherwise it will just be another marketing exercise in futility-a lot of dollars wasted on grandiose gimmicks and advertisements with no return; often generating a lot of ill-will as a result.

Two Reasons to Celebrate...

As I write this post, there are several reports suggesting the death of LTTE supremo Prabakaran, and complete decimation of LTTE and it's vicious leadership. This is the news I (and several of my countrymen) have been longing to hear for 18 years since the murder of one of the greatest leaders India has produced. Of course one could argue back and forth about what the motivations for LTTE were, for what it did. However, one fact should be clear as daylight for any observer of this and other conflicts in the recent times-'Everything comes back around'. India aided and abetted the LTTE in the beginning of the conflict despite the knowledge of their subversive activities against innocent civilians, and we paid the ultimate price of losing a great leader and several others to their terrorist attacks on our soil.

Interestingly, United States decided at some point to dabble with terrorists by encouraging a group of rugged fighters calling themselves Taliban, to fend off an aggression by USSR. Fast forward a decade,they lose two standing symbols of capitalism and thousands of their dear sons in war-after-war fighting the very forces they helped create.

Lesson: There is a beautiful verse in Tamil:

பாம்பாட்டிக்கு பாம்பால் தான் சாவு

(Approximately) The one who rears a snake, dies through the snake.

The second reason for celebration? The Indian voters, in a display of incredible clarity decided to dump the commie bullshit-wagon TOTALLY...See this and THIS-both fantastic news. This is especially heartening in the context of the current economic crisis and attempts by the leftists to paint the entire gamut of capitalism as bad. Hope Congress gets the message and opens up more sectors for reforms rapidly so people can see the results within the next five years.

Related Post Here.

Hats off to the Wise Aam Aadmi of India!

The Adage from the Oracle...

"It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked."
- Almost every investment bank
- Every other financial services firm
- The auto industry
- Iceland, the country
- Bernie Madoff
- Ramalinga Raju

and now, Allan Stanford.

Warren Buffett is a genius :).

Awards for the best swimmers in each category here:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12796770

UBS Bows to US Pressure: Are Indian Regulators listening?

Something very significant happened yesterday. For the first time in history, a Swiss bank (UBS) came out of its shroud of secrecy and agreed to provide the names of 250 account holders to the US government authorities. Here is the report on it.

This should be a wake-up call for Indian tax authorities as Indians are rumored to be the second largest investors in these Swiss secret bank accounts. In fact all countries should start a concerted effort to dismantle this veil of secrecy around the Swiss banking system, so that the next best option for a criminal looking to offshore his loot becomes some unstable country like Cayman islands, thereby reducing the incentive to send money offshore.

I have always wondered why on earth a democratic, civilized country would open up its banks for all sorts of criminals to load up, with a stupid tradition of maintaining customer privacy. Who knows, eventually we might even find accounts linked to Al Qaeda in these banks.

Jakarta Diary: Part I

As I sit on the 17th floor of our high-rise apartment, one of the innumerable towers that form the incredible Jakarta skyline, I am amazed by several things about this beautiful country.

The first thing that strikes you when you land in the simplistic Jakarta airport (once you clear the long slow-moving immigration queue), is the traffic, if you are lucky you could get from the airport to the city in half hour and if you are a bit unlucky it could easily take two hours. I had the experience of doing both. The irony is, there is a huge patch in the middle of every major road in the city which could easily be converted into 1.5 lanes if not two. But No-Jakartans would not do that. Instead the roads are lined with trees almost infinitely. My father says that if a tree falls in a road due to some reason, they replace it with a new tree almost every time within the same week. These are not sort of “we-too-are-green” kind of trees that I have seen in some other cities. They are all very well maintained, lush green. It is humbling to see a country so resolutely adopting to be green in spite of all the troubles that it brings with it!

If you have any liking at all for observing people from a different culture, Indonesians offer a remarkable case study in contrasting microcosms living in harmony. An Indonesian friend remarked to my father-“Our religion is Islam, but our culture is Hindu”. This is visible in the innumerable statues of Hindu Gods and Goddesses on the streets of the city. This contrast extends beyond religious beliefs into their economic conditions as well. On one side of our apartment is the striking skyline that stretches across Jakarta, standing as a shining example of a nation that has boldly ridden the free market tide (and has had serious scars to show for it-check the conversion rates of Jakarta’s currency-Rupiah), one that has successfully attracted foreign investment and managed to raise standards of living for a major section of the society. If I just walk across the room, the window opens up to a different sight-a huge slum with people living in dilapidation. Of course an enormous wall separates the apartment from the slum serving as a grim reminder to the barriers these unfortunate people have to scale to improve their quality of life.

That being said, Indonesians, even the ones I saw in the slums are among the very few people who I am truly jealous of, the reason in the next post.