"Be smarter than your smartphones", Tata Teleservices tells its customers
Tata Teleservices is known to keep 'Customer Centricity' as one of the most crucial core values while developing products and services. Their initiative to educate customers at their retail stores aims at spreading basic know-how about smart-phones, their OS's, file management, battery management, anti-virus usage etc.
Retailer caught up with Sandeep Singal, Head - Branded Retail, Tata Teleservices Ltd. to talk about the 'Be Smarter than Your Phone' inkling that is spread. The plan, he says, is to be a buddy to every customer who walks in to the Tata Docomo retail stores, and addressing their needs.
 
Please elaborate on Tata Docomo's initiative of educating customers at retail stores?
Tata Docomo has been taking a lot of customer-friendly initiatives in order to educate users at our retail stores. Take smart-phone as an example, our first milestone campaign was in 2013 called Walk out Internet Ready, a solution-centric approach, ensuring all customers have their GPRS settings and data capability enabled on their devices.
The second campaign during the same year was I am Online, which was designed to synchronise the 'World of Apps' and the 'Consumer' through innovative visual merchandising tools. The first ever deployment of this kind in the telecom retail environment, our skilled staff educated customers on latest applications, their usage and tricks to increase its productivity or social quotient.
Our third campaign called Giga Geek was steered in early 2015 in which designated, well-read sales advisors assisted customers to appreciate the full potential of their smartphone through demonstrations. The principal focus of our initiatives is to be a buddy to the customers by simplifying the functions of a smartphone through front-end customer interaction.
 
Is it a weapon to compete against the significant push back from the eCommerce space? How/ how not?
No, our campaigns to educate retail customers at our stores are not a weapon to compete against anything.
We are part of the digital ecosystem and hence we are enabling our customers to drive more and more from their smartphones including eCommerce. Our retail stores not only cater to both corporate and individual customers by offering technologically advanced products and rich array of Value Added Services, but also offer a holistic experience by educating them about the devices they use. Our trained and dedicated staff makes sure that each customer has a refreshing experience at our brand store by engaging in face to face interaction.
 
Who is the target audience for such initiatives?
Our target audiences are smartphone users ranging from early adopters to millions who are now buying smartphones every month. When consumer buys smartphone, he is not aware of the full capabilities and how to use it optimally and we, as a responsible consumer buddy, take this responsibility to teach them about their smartphone so that they can maximise its performance.
 
Why do you think people will need this, especially those who have been using smartphones since their teenage?
India has the third largest base of smartphones, with users expected to amount to 213 million in June 2015 and growing rapidly. With such a penetration rate users need awareness as most of them lack elementary knowledge about smart devices.
Using a smartphone since teenage or not, every user has basic problems like a fast draining battery, slow system, virus attack and privacy issues. Smartphone brands promote their products, sell them and their role ends there. Instead of waiting for your phone to break down and then visiting their service centers, users should know how to keep the smartphone healthy from the very first day. It does not really matter since when you are using a smartphone, it is about using it the right way.
 
Smartphones are for dumb people, do you work around this perception? Will customers spend time in learning features at the store itself? Why?
We don't believe in such a connotation, after all, "Be Smarter than your Smartphone" was the inkling that was spread through the campaigns at our retail stores. Advanced technologies have made our lives easier and faster and smartphones have only made us smarter. When powered by efficient applications and Internet access, a lot of time is saved by our smartphones.
If customers learns the basics and the tricks of the trade at the store itself, they will save a lot of time and hassle for themselves. Instead of going back and forth, they can walk in, get expert advice and increase device efficiency. At the same time, there is nothing like having an experienced person examine your phone in hand and take you through its features instead of paying at a service center or looking up the Internet.
 
How does the initiative scale brand loyalty and relationship?
Initiatives like our campaigns are pivot to our client servicing and even their satisfaction. We ensure to connect with our customers and engage with them continuously to help them realise the experience of using a smartphone than just selling a connection to them. Customers know that our job does not end at selling a new connection or a Photon device but our support only starts there. Through customer centric initiatives we build brand loyalty and recall, by extending a friendly hand to not only our customers but also to those who do not use our network.
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