Tax on Taste

Went for the monthly grocery shopping yesterday. Things you have to do when living alone. Just 2 points to make.

1. The VAT on Kurkure is 12.5% but on Lays is 4%. Both serve the same need and are from the same company. Similar case with Everest Sabji Masala(4%) and Chole Masala (12%). Government wants me to pay taxes according to my taste buds.

2. Aashirwad Salt is available for Rs.11 a KG and Tata Salt lite(low sodium) is for Rs.18.

The health proposition of marketing is worth so much!

Justified??

Science of choosing better brand names (Luxury/Rich brands)

Make it long.
Difficult to pronounce.
Must have silent letters.
Being able to pronounce the brand name correctly should itself become a mark of status and knowledge. 

Science of choosing better brand names (web)

Summary- 2 syllable or two word brand names are easier for conversations.

I have been studying the names of some of the top websites for past few months and one thing i noticed is mostly all of them are either 2 syllable or a 2 words combined as one. Some examples - FaceBook(2 words), Google(2 syllable). MSN is 3 syllable and could never beat Yahoo(2 syllable). Asklaila(2), Justdial(2), Onyomo is 3 syllabe and is still to make a mark.

Infact, according to what brand names i can think of, anything that is pronounced in 2 parts, it could be 2 known words combined as 1 or 1 word of 2 syllables, is easier to promote and people tend to remember and have an ease in mentioning in oral communication. For written communication people will use acronym rather, even if it is a 2 syllable name because most readers are aware of the context and hence can guess out the full name even if the acronym is not intelligent or popular. People like to mention wikipedia as wiki, just for the ease of communication. Infosys(3 sylable) becomes Infy but Wipro(2 syllable) is not changed.

I suppose this is only true for web and not for offline brands.

Not that a good name will make you a big hit but it helps in conversation.

Neutral vs Positive New Customer

In my last post i ended with the line "You get a positive customer to begin with, not at neutral or below."
I thought deep whether it is good or bad to have a new customer who already has heard so much good things about you and carries a positive mindset for you or your service. When a customer is positive towards you, he is expecting better than usual and now its a pressure upon you to stand upto his expectations. It depends whether you think like Sachin Tendulkar and believe pressure to be a privilege. But it is not your business to deliver better than usual at the same usual price. But than isn't this one of the differentiators.

One point where i can really think it to be a benefit is that suppose if you or your team/subordinates screw the service for him, there are good chances that you still have a 50% success rate for him. He will believe that this was the only time where you screwed up, otherwise you deliver better than usual as that is what the customer's recommendee had experienced. In this case, the customers opinion about you would really depend on where or whom the recommendation came from. If he has a positive outlook for the recommendee than probably he would leave with a neutral mindset.

Mathematically speaking:

((+ve mindset about recommendee) * (+ve experience of recommendee) )+ (-ve experience of self) = almost neutral mindset about the service

You can similarly try other mathematical expressions to see what will this referred customer think. Human brain doesn't comply with mathematics but this is the closest you can get.

Good vs. Sounding Good

Fruits in breakfast and lunch. Dessert in dinner. Unlimited milk and curd, paneer and ice-cream on Sundays.
This is the menu of my college mess. Sounds tempting! Above average for an Indian college mess. But nobody mentioned the bad quality of these stuff and basically the quality of chapati and rice(the essentials). So basically you have a lot of add-on or extra features but you missed to serve the basics good.

90% of my college campus is WiFi enabled. The remaining 10% is where the students need it, the hostels.

All these features help my college attract many new students but they don't realise that they are actually creating or graduating many unsatisfied customers who are only going to create a bad WoM for the college. My college made a bad choice in this case as they saw the short term gains only. The students do not have a choice because one can only talk about quality once they have experienced it. By then it is too late to change college or switch your service provider. As a result by the time student passes out he is so frustrated he is only going to talk bad about the service and even the good things will be over shadowed.

You must choose between giving your customers features that sound good and features that are good.No harm if you can give both but what if you have to make a choice.

Features that sound good help when you are seeking a one time customer like a tea vendor on a railway station. I remember one tea vendor on New Delhi station who gave 4 slices of fruit cake free with tea, served tea in cup and saucer that looked different from other vendors who served in a disposable glass(i would prefer this for hygiene) all for the same price of Rs. 5 but his tea tasted awful. Almost no milk, bad quality tea leaves, less sugar... basically awful. He doesn't need to worry because probably i wouldn't recognize him next time i visit the place and in this case any kind of WoM is hardly going to make much difference.

Some examples:
Telecom company - Bad network but allows mobile payment, ticket booking etc
Local search - outdated, unauthenticated data but allows forwarding of address through SMS
Free web to SMS - too delayed service but supports email to SMS.

If you are any of the above you probably know the reason why your business isn't picking up. Giving good service may mean a narrow operating margin and may be a less number of customers who come to you asking about your features but it surely help you gain a lot of positive WoM. The customer wont come to you asking whether you really offer certain feature but he would come to you expecting that you will offer it better than anyone else at the same price. You get a positive customer to begin with, not at neutral or below.