PERSONAL /COMPETITOR SPECIAL............... WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY COMPETITOR(12)

 WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY COMPETITOR(12)

“We are Trying to Understand the Amazonian Way of Handling Customers“

Deep Kalra, Cofounder, MakeMyTrip

CLAIM TO FAME: After working with GE Capital, Kalra cofounded MakeMyTrip in 2000 in the US for overseas Indians; by 2005 they started the Indian operations and five years later listed on the NASDAQ

THE LESSON: I have been a great admirer of Amazon and their fetish for customer care. And I have learnt lessons around customer management from them.

I have been a serial Amazon buyer ordering a range of things and books. And their service is such that one rarely need to call Amazon. They have thought through every reason that a customer may need to call and it has been addressed so well on their website that you don't need to call. They have this five `Whys' rule to get to the root cause of a customer problem. For example, they ask why is the customer calling? Because the packet was not delivered on time. Then they ask why was the packet not delivered on time? It got delayed because of courier glitches. So then they ask why were there courier glitches? This goes on until they figure what the problem was. At the end what they are trying to find out is why Amazon failed to meet the promise it made to the customer. We are trying to understand this Amazonian way of handling customers and see if we can do it.

We are struggling with some of the same issues that Amazon has tackled so well. The question we are asking is why should our customer need to call us. I know buying a book is different than booking a holiday. A book not being delivered on time is not the same as traveling for a holiday and your reservation not showing up in the hotel. For the Amazon customer, a delay may not mean the end of the world but for our customers it will be so. So instant call center support will be critical in some of these cases. But there are many other cases where it may not be. Customer call centres are not only costly but it also means our service quality is more exposed to people's moods etc.

I find it very inspiring the way Amazon handles its customer.

(As told to Malini Goyal)

ETM27DEC15