Bonding Virtually
Customer Relationship Management and Platforms
NMDC Hyderabad Marathon 2022 Update
I am glad to be pacing the 5 hour Full Marathon bus at the NMDC Hyderabad Marathon 2022 powered by IDFC First Bank.
Join me at the start line on Sunday, 28th August.
I will also be available at the SportExpo at HITEX on the 27th August between 11am and 1pm. Looking forward to hearing all your stories and sharing ours too. Let's run with a smile on our face and spright in our stride, we've #milestorun together.
If you are planning different finishing times, feel free to join other remarkable runners who are part of the Pacing Squad.
*Links to join the pacing buses can be found here:* https://linktr.ee/nmdc_hyderabad_maratho
Run. Spread the Spirit.
DTW
During the Week, I was trying to reach out digitally to HDFC Bank to initiate an independent financial life for my daughter Aru as she was about to turn 18 years old. Well, my “well-meaning” financial partner for around two decades is still light years behind when it comes to building bonds virtually.
I tried website, messaging and even AI chat bot but returned empty handed. It is not that Digital Transformation has not reached the shores of Indian financial institutions in general and HDFC bank in particular. HDFC Bank is planning a holistic approach that will not only add new digital platform capabilities, but also strengthen and replace legacy systems thus bringing in new-age skill sets, and strengthening the overall security environment.
According to multiple filing as well as analyst reports, large private sector lenders such as HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank are spending 7-9% of total expenses on technology and for HDFC bank specifically which had technology spends as a % of opex is around 8-9% in 2021 was expected to double to 18-20% if management is going to significantly increase investments and is in line with some global peers. Much of this investment is expected to go into artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), moving applications to cloud servers, building new digital payment platforms, improving cyber security, and preferably changing the back-end architecture.
Unfortunately, what the non digital native brands fail to understand is that end users (like me in case of HDFC bank) rarely think about all of the technology required to provide or being leveraged by enterprises for a great customer experience BUT they are very aware of the way they are treated by agents (people) and how easy or cumbersome it is to accomplish what they want done (process).
Like many other financial services brands HDFC Life has also moved to cloud and leveraged the current tools available with Meta and Microsoft advertising platforms to drive , personalisation and remarketing .
“You always want to have as much customer information as possible and not be dependent on third party data or collect first party data. So because of our efforts, whether it's on the CRM front, on the personalisation front or remarketing, we've been able to collect a lot of data on our platforms and use it the right way to market to customers, individuals. This helped improve the click through rates and the purchase rates,”
HDFC Life’s Chief Marketing Officer and Head of E-commerce & Digital Business Vishal Subharwal
Platforms can help the CRM team through a better
insights dashboard about their customers and forecast outcomes for smarter decisions
conversation comprehension system with high accuracy and speed to automate email responses and routine request allocation tasks
prediction mechanism to analyse any piece of data either qualitative or quantitative or even from social platforms
recommendation engine for next best offering to individual customers whether it is product, content or offer.
In short, I would have loved to have received an update from my well-meaning bank about Aru’s independent account as well as other financial services she would need for her next phase of life. :(
An earlier report by E&Y points that gamification will revolutionize client experiences and relationships, leading to improved investor loyalty and better investment outcome. Latest trend is gamification of investing which is best exemplified by RobinHood App use of graffiti when you make a trade or running a leadership board on number of interactions on the app interface. This has led to promotion of gambling-like behavior and exploiting people's interest and greed to push them to adopt behaviors that are not in investors’ best interests but enrich the platforms.
You may want to read my earlier work on Shape of Money, Shaping Money and Show Me the Money, Honey!
To conclude, the CRM journey over digital platforms is long and arduous. Companies including many large enterprises in India are still approaching CRM in very fragmented manner and leading to massive gaps in covering customer lifecycle and customer interactions. Owing to these fragmented approach , customer data and hence insights are sitting at multiple places within and outside the companies leading to service delivery gaps. There is a huge need and thus an opportunity to build customer data platforms to help reduplicate and centralise customer data to gain better visibility thus creating profitable customers.
Anyways, loyalty is overrated. Give me an Amazon Bank Account!
OTW
Over the Weekend, we spent some quality time with friends and family at Delhi and Dehradun over a short visit. It was blissful to be around family after two years of pandemic and lockdown life to celebrate as Aru turned 18 and started her new phase of life.
This was after what looks like a long time of online virtual celebrations and felt so good to chat, laugh and have loads of food together.
Another highlight of the short visit was the road trip from Delhi to Dehradun which brought back multiple bouts of nostalgia over last four decades. The sights and sounds of smaller towns and villages along the highway (has now become the expressway BTW) brought back countess memories of road travel for work, leisure and career from Dehradun to Delhi and back.
बस दुआ में याद रखना. Hope to see you soon.
I Love You
Shailendra
OTM
Opportunities through MountainSpeak are available with Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation, where we are reaching out to experts who can contribute to Digital Street Regional Consultation scheduled at Icfai Business School, Kolkata on 29th August 2022.
Digital Street aims to develop a framework for facilitating digital transformation of street vendors. Do watch a short video.
Thanks for your response to the guest recommendation for Digital Street across the country. The likely participants may have experience in digital transformation, informal sector, travel technologies, tourism, street vendor issues amongst others. They may come from government, academics, consulting, corporate, policy making, start ups, non-profit and advocacy groups.
https://forms.gle/Lyz8nsx7Gehf1TR58
If you are in Kolkata on 29th August, do get in touch. I would be glad to send you an invite for the consultation and catch up in person.