Our life is surrounded by experiences of number of products and services some good many bitter 🙁 unfortunately in the country like us where consumer is still unorganised one can just pant and fume over the bitter experiences and let go on the other hand regarding some good experiences we cant share them effectively to aid others to make their mind in choosing the right options.
One of Alok’s tweets reminded me of an idea I thought about sometime back to teach a bloody lesson to the companies who don’t care about their consumers.
Today these companies are fooling us happily as they know that disgruntled customer can’t do much besides due to gigantic growth they are getting loads of first time customers as a result they don’t bother to retain their existing customers. Actually its a saying in Sales that its easier to retain the customer than to acquire a new one however such sayings are becoming myths 🙁 You walk in to any mobile company sales outlet and you find chaos, old customers quarreling for inefficient service and immediately next to them new customers buying the connections.
I have thought of a website which will quantify the harm done by stupid performance of the product or bad quality of the service received by the consumer on the sales of that company.
Let me explain; there will be a website wherein a consumer can register his own good/bad experience about the specific product or service by providing all the relevant details, such as purchase invoice etc to validate the complaint.
Consumer will specifically mention how many more would be consumers of that product or service were influenced by his story ( This can happen in both the cases I mean good as well as bad) depending upon the number of consumers detracted/ attracted the lost/ earned business will be quantified and displayed on the screen.
Consumers will have satisfaction of depriving the company from revenue or helping good companies to earn more business and other customers can learn their lessons from the overall metrics built up by churning this data for the specific product or the service.
This probable loss or gain of quantified potential sale will definitely interest shareholders, Analysts to evaluate the actual performance of the company.
e.g. I as a consumer will register with the website as aggravated customer of Airtel with specific reference to the service I bought and all the details of the reason for my dissatisfaction, then I shall keep on updating how many people I have discouraged to buy Airtel services, there will be an imaginary but proportionate gain or loss component attached to each lost customer.
In this case if I have turned away 10 customers of post paid connection then assuming ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) as Rs.1000.00 I have helped 🙂 Airtel to loose Rs. 1,20,000 and when things are quantified it becomes more interesting for me to build my score 🙂 that is add more and more people to the detracted list and enhance the loss to the target company.
The argument is vice versa as well wherein If I am delighted by the user experience and If I happen to bring 10 customers to Airtel I can see that I am contributing a healthy 0.12 Million to the company which that company can recognize and reward me also for my brand loyalty.
As we know that there are ‘influencers’, in our society and they command the trend setting and contribute to the process of ‘tipping’, as mentioned by Malcom Gladwell in his famous title ‘Tipping Point’, these influencers can take advantage of this platform and we can have a better informed system to make choices about choosing good customer friendly company.
Awaiting suggestions from Rodinhooders !!!!!
Amit Mishra
Hi Mandar,
I have worked on somethings around the same idea but dropped to implement it because of lack of team to support.
I would appreciate if you can reach out to me at 9873722503.Lets connect offline and see how we can take it to the next level if possible.
Thanks
Mandar Joshi
Thanks for your reply Amit I shall surely connect with you on this !!
Amit Mishra
Sure. Look forward to connect with you soon
Rupesh Patel
Good Idea
Amit Mishra
Hi Mandar,
Another case which makes the entire plan worth the pursuit.
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/durian-se-door-raho
Will connect soon with some ideas
Sabarish Sasidharan
I had wanted to do this for quite a while. The trigger was when i had really bad experiences with both BSNL and Airtel. I did some thinking and got a few use-cases ready, some technical design etc. But then the idea just sat there gathering dust. I believe there is quite a lot of value in this idea.
If you are interested, let’s connect and discuss it out.
Nameet Potnis
I think this is a fantastic idea.
Also just to keep you’ll updated, Akosha does consumer complaints and they are very very good at it 🙂 If I am not mistaken, they are rodinhooders! 😀
Himanshu Agarwal
Didn’t mouthshut.com used to do the same…
Sabarish Sasidharan
Sort of yes, I too had that feeling initially, but the intent and the outcome is going to be different (and of course, the implementation/packaging, has to be a lot more engaging instead of being dreary). Just like design patterns, the same pattern is called differently when the purpose and outcome is different.
Mandar Joshi
Thanks Sabarish !!! Looking forward to connect with you drop me a mail at me(at)mandarjoshi.com
Mandar Joshi
let me check that if they are also working on the similar lines then we shall give them inputs to add more features to their services 🙂
Amit Mishra
Hi Mandar/Nameet,
Ankur and Akosha team is doing a fantastic job with individual complaints but what may be needed is a platform is get consumers together against a particular vendor.
Mouthshut on the other hand is just a database of complaints where they dont do anything but collate the complaints against one product/service. There should be accountability and action taken for bad consumer service
Mandar Joshi
You are right !!!
Mandar Joshi
Yes Amit I agree with you the idea I have here is not compliant resolution but quantification of impact the bad/good service may have on the sales of that company. If the service is bad how many would be customers you have turned away from that company and vice versa. What these companies understand is loss/gain in the sales and nothing else.
Nameet Potnis
Thats fantastic! The reason I mentioned Akosha, is because I didnt want there to be a duplication of effort. But the idea that has evolved here looks much bigger. Let me know if I can help 🙂
Mandar Joshi
Yes Nameet the idea is definitely different may be this venture can work with Akosha and get their services to resolve consumer issues. The whole idea is not to resolve individual customer complaints but create nationwide data of disgruntled customers and quantify a loss to the company because of bad experience they have received moreover we will allow people registered here to update their score by giving details of how many more customers they turned away from that company. It is necessary to mention that in India we take buying decisions based on the feedback given by other users rather than believing in flashy advertisements so this model will definitely work.
Neelesh R Pednekar
Hi,
We had thought of this idea to convert into a video blog, however it has a lot of legal implication.
Would just like to give you a heads up on the legal front.
You would be defaming and defacing a brand or company or individual for which one can be pulled to court.
The monetary sum of defamation can range to any extent and the companies will not hold back taking this step as it gives them almost free PR.
Bharat Agrawal
i have also thought on this but due to lack of development skills was not able to develop on this. Connect me on agrawalb@ibibo(dot)com so that we can share some ideas.
Manish Malik
Side note: There is a lot of data available on the web in this context (sites like consumerforum.in , where consumers even post their complaints *assuming* it to be “The Consumer Forum” have HUGE trove of such posts).
The crucial ‘feature’ of such a platform would be to ensure it has credible posts – posting an invoice copy still doesn’t tell you anything about the fault / quality of service or the miscommunication that took place.
Mandar Joshi
Hi Neelesh, thanks for the warning and yes I am aware that such kind of initiative could get challenged in the court of law however it needs to be noted that there is no intention of any consumer here to defame the company or its product or service. Through this kind of initiative the user is trying to seek attention of the manufacturer. Unfortunately the present systems set to do so are inadequate or non responsive. What we intend to do is make aware the concerned company that if they don’t take cognisance of customer grievances it is going to cost real business. This system works in positive sense as well i.e. if one is happy about the product or a service he can add up count of customers influenced by him in the process.
Mandar Joshi
Hi Bharat, Surely I shall touch base with you.