Give your customer a comprehensive solution and not just a product Part II

This is the second part of my earlier blog post on Customer Satisfaction. You can read the first blog post here.

It was 1999 and I had just ventured in to the Real Estate business then. Although I have come across many incidents and have learnt many lessons during my entrepreneurial journey, I can never forget my experience with my first real estate customer! I met my first customer, one Mr. Manhar Bhansali, through word of mouth. He was a big diamond trader and had come to Pune on a business trip from Mumbai and had heard about our project through his sources. On arriving in Pune he called me to request for a project site visit.

I still remember that feeling of excitement and thrill on having a potential client call you up and ask to see a property! Delighted, I agreed to take him on a tour of the sample house the same day.  I have always believed in the product speaking for itself, and hence had gone out-of-the-way to show the sample bungalow not just as a view of bricks and mortar but to make it an experience of luxurious living for our potential clients to consider.

Our sample house was a fully furnished bungalow complete with the latest gadgets and technology available in India in 1999. Apart from tastefully furnishing the house, I made sure there was Air-conditioning, washing machines, TV, crockery and cutlery, servants, cooks and even a doctor on call! I had made it a habit of posing myself as a customer to critique my product and services and set a benchmark. This habit had time and again proved its merit as it allowed me to arrive at insights which helped me to give my product an edge.

Due to this practice, I knew that a customer arriving from Mumbai would hate to open the house himself and then get it cleaned; or figure out if there was running water and that his fridge was stocked or whether the cook is available to prepare a fresh food for him or his family. I didn’t position these bungalows as a holiday home, instead I focused on making it feel like a second home where the customer could walk in anytime of the day or night and live there like he did in his normal circumstances. I wanted the transition from his first home to his second home to be smooth and perhaps even a better experience, something that he could even flaunt to his friends.

Our housekeeping team back then was headed by one of the most efficient couples I have met-a retired Colonel from the Indian Army and his wife who had worked with the Marriott Chain as the head of their housekeeping. She worked hard at training the local help and transformed them into proud, honest and hardworking helpers.

We even had an instance where a customer had left his watch worth Rs. 1 million, and it was found and returned to him by the staff. When the delighted customer tried to give him a gift for his honesty, he was suitably enraged. He said “Honesty cannot be bought, Sir. You can keep your money!” I have always believed that organizations are only as good as their lowest common denominator. If your helper has values and has been trained and takes pride in his job, you can rest assured that half your job is complete.

Getting back to Mr. Bhansali, he liked what he saw and he immediately asked me to get the papers ready and meet him at his office in Bombay. Since I had those papers ready in advance, I left for Bombay the next morning and met his lawyer and handed over the No Objection Certificate (NOC). And as promptly I had responded, Mr. Bhansali too was quick in closing the deal and handed over my first cheque of Rs 50 Lakhs, as an advance for purchase of the land, in the same afternoon.

Ecstatic and on cloud nine on making my first and a quick sale, I spent the next 48 hours in the happy high of my success. Two days later, I got a worried call from Mr. Bhansali in the late hours of the night. He was anxious and worried about his investment as he had burnt his fingers in the past with rogue builders who had swindled him out of his money.

As he narrated the above experience, I could see the money slipping out of my hands! I made a quick decision, and an emotional one at that, and decided to return his money. I told him I didn’t want my customer losing sleep over a deal and that I’d rather have his friendship and trust. Even though my voice was calm and confident while I said this, to be honest I was scared to death! Just the thought of giving that money back gave me heart palpitations and I could hear a little voice inside my head calling me foolish! But my big risk had paid off. On sensing my honesty and commitment, Mr. Bhansali immediately refused to take the money back. My risk had won me a client and a friend!

Mr. Bhansali had booked the deal in November of 1999 and he wanted the delivery of his 6,000 sq. ft. villa with all comforts and the décor he saw in our sample bungalow in 5 months! Even though I was committed in winning over his trust, I was still a realist and informed him that there was no way we could build it that fast! I didn’t want to make a promise that I couldn’t keep. After a lot of persuasion he reluctantly agreed to postpone delivery date for 9 months. The same day I met my engineering team and persuaded them that we had to do our best to get his house ready in 5 months!

Four months into the construction, he paid us a surprise site visit and informed me that his daughter was arriving from the US in a month’s time. She would not be returning to India for another two years, so he was very keen to get the house-warming ceremony while she was in India. He wanted to have just one room readied for ceremony. Pressed as I was with the existing delivery schedule, I told him that it was not possible. Instead, I could build him a temporary shed and that he could conduct the ceremony there. Sad but resigned to the fact that I was putting in more than my hundred percent he left feeling satisfied.

Mr Bhansali had scheduled the house-warming ceremony a month later at seven in the evening. I promised that I would take care of all the arrangements for the ceremony from my end, thus saving him the trouble. I had instructed my staff to switch off the lights in the house as soon as they see his car entering the project’s gate. I was standing at the entrance waiting to give him his surprise. As he stepped out of his car, all the lights were switched on all at once, inside and outside. I can still picture the look on his face when he saw his house decked and lit up. I had made sure everything was in place, right from his living room to his bedroom! I had the crockery and the cutlery laid out on the dining table, had made sure there were flowers in each bedroom and toiletries in each bathroom.

Sweet Success.

My first customer entered his house to the music of Bhimsen Joshi singing Raag Basanti in the drawing room and with eyes wide with wonder! Till this date I relish the sight of wonder, delight and appreciation on Mr. Bhansali and his family member’s faces! As soon as they had finished exploring their house, I called the Panditji and left them to perform their house-warming Pooja.

Even though I had said no, I had pushed my limit to provide my customer with a solution to his problem and not just a product! I had of course under promised and over delivered but let me warn you, friends that it’s a very fine balance to maintain! The toughest word to say is NO to a customer, but sometimes it’s the right word to say! In order to satisfy my customer I had pushed myself and my entire team to the brink. I never repeated this exercise again and reserved it only for my first customer!

Parag Shah

September 2012.

How to build bad-weather friends for your business!

Treat your supplier as you would treat your customer.

Sometimes, it’s amazing to see how small little uncalculated gestures towards people who you work with can actually become your business’s lifeline somewhere in the future!

One of the best lessons that I learnt very early on during my snap photos days was to always, always treat your suppliers with respect. I had learnt that if you treated your suppliers with respect, they will go out of their way to help you, when times are bad for you. In business only they can be your best bad weather friends! Let me narrate an anecdote to drive my point.

I don’t understand why most purchase department managers think that their suppliers have to wait long hours, be treated shabbily and should always be put to a fight with another supplier to get the better of them. Having been at the receiving end of such treatment when I was running around for my loan, one thing I was dead certain of was to never treat another human being like that ever again!

I was once travelling by car to Mumbai, in my second-hand  Maruti 800 that I had bought from someone who had worked with me for a several years.  It was a family trip for a relative’s marriage. Back then the old Bombay-Poona highway was a nightmare to drive upon and would take anything from 5 to 8 hours to commute between two cities that were barely  159 km from each other.

We had our customary halt at Khandala for the famous Sangam Batata wadas and as we were coming out, I saw a gentleman standing near the parking. Upon closer look I recognized him as I had met him a couple of times. He used to work with Agfa Germany India Ltd in their sales department. He looked pretty stressed out so I went up to him and asked him what was wrong? He pointed towards his bus which had a breakdown.

Although he didn’t tell me why he was stressed, I felt sorry for him and decided to ferry him to Bombay and informed my wife and children that he was joining us. Now, it was one of those trips where the family was going together after many days, and hence the children and my wife took this as an intrusion, but had no courage to argue with me. Judging the intrusion by their crestfallen faces, Jayant offered that he would manage on his own. In any case there wasn’t enough space to accommodate passenger number 5. But as usual I would have none of it and convinced him to join us.

The trip to Mumbai thereon was obviously a long stone cold silent one.  Just as Jayant was getting down from the car, he said “Thanks Parag. I will be ever grateful to you for this help.” He mentioned that this meant a lot to him since his son was unwell and that it was crucial that he reach home as soon as possible. We dropped him near his house and proceeded for our wedding. And for a long time I had forgotten about this episode until many years later.

Jayant would often visit Pune and we did go on to do business together for many years. He said he loved “Puneri” food and I would often take him out for a customary meal of “Puneri” food on Laxmi Road. He always appreciated the fact that I treated him with respect. I would never ask him questions about how my competitors were doing, what price they got their raw material, who was doing what expansion. Most suppliers are privy to very sensitive competitor information. But I realised that I would be putting him in an ethical dilemma if I did ask him. But whatever, information he would give during the course of a casual conversation, I would listen to intently but not respond to it. Besides, as a matter of principle I never ever criticised competition.

About 3 years later after the incident, the Indian economy went into a major financial crisis. Photographic paper for which India dependent on imports was not available anymore and you could only get to import the photographic paper if you deposited 250% of the value of the goods and that to 3 months in advance! There was no way anyone of us in the business at the time could raise that kind of capital overnight. Moreover that would be 750% more than the usual requirement.

Those days were equivalent to the Wall street collapse. As the months progressed most of my competitors had to shut shop. I too was on my wit’s end and that’s when I one day called up Jayant and said, “I am running out of stock. Can you help?” “Parag, there isn’t anything anyone can do for you. The whole Economy is in shambles and not much hope left.” He ended the conversation by saying he will try to do something for me.

Seven days later, I got a call from Jayant saying that their principals from Germany are here, and he has arranged a meeting for me with the Director of Bayer Germany. He suggested that I could request them to trust me and ask for credit for the purchase of photographic paper. And so I left for Mumbai the same day.

Before my meeting with Director, Jayant had done the groundwork and had pitched me as one of the most loyal and honest customers of Agfa Germany. He knew that the German’s appreciate honesty and loyalty as against volumes. I was a small player at that time and did not contribute much to their total sales. Agfa was a large conglomerate, but Jayant made sure that I got 15 minutes with the Director. I used all my persuasive powers and persuaded him to give me credit for the imports. He said, he would give me 180 day credit. The man liked me! So here was this little guy in Pune who was the only one who had access to imported paper. I was expecting, that business would double owing to the fact that many labs would close down. I placed my order for the 1^st month and had my stock and my lab was up and running!

Jayant the supplier, who was not treated well by other competitors, went out of his way to make sure that my business survived. Why?Probably because I helped him when he needed it and I have always respected him even as a supplier.

The lesson for me was to know that all human beings are equal, and they all deserve our help and respect. Don’t ever do it with an expectation of anything in return. And treat all your suppliers with warmth and respect. My wife would go to market yard every week to buy her vegetables from the largest vendor. I would fret over the fact that she was trying to save a few bucks! I soon realized that she looked at it as a great social event!

She would go to this particular vendor who is the largest wholesale supplier of vegetables in the market.  That man ignored her for months. But she persisted. She slowly got him on her side. She seized the opportunity when he said he wasn’t  getting an appointment with a leading heart specialist in Pune. She drove him to the heart specialist in her car. Got all is investigations done. Helped him with his surgery and made sure the family was at comfort. The old man today sends us his best vegetables every morning, at a real low cost, and picks and chooses the vegetables my family will have .

The next time I am going to talk on trust your employees.

Back them , when they need it most!

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