Marketers must see marketing through the eyes of the consumer and gain their trust to build a rapport.

The world of business resonates with buzzwords such as 'relationship marketing', 'one-on-one marketing' and 'direct marketing'. Sadly, most marketers seem to have forgotten the fundamentals of marketing and that may well end up killing direct marketing. The purpose of marketing is to attract and retain customers and marketers must understand the needs and motivations of customers and design products accordingly. But the reality on the ground is very different. We seem to have regressed to the outdated sales concept, i.e., sell as much of what you are producing as fast as possible, never mind the customer's needs or wants. The worst offenders are service companies.

The reasons are not hard to find. Services marketing in India is underdeveloped. For the first 50 years after independence, the service sector was dominated by government institutions. And the government is not known for its consumer-orientation or responsiveness. Indeed, some services such as legal services, primary healthcare, small hotels and a few others have been in the private sector, but are much too fragmented and unorganised to understand, codify or practice the theory of services management. The result is that, unlike in the developed countries, the services sector in India has lagged behind the manufactured products sector in management thinking and practices.

Here's a prompt card. One, relationship-building requires willing participation from both the sides. Two, it is reciprocal. If customers are only giving information and being interrogated and being caused inconvenience without their getting anything in return, not even basic courtesy, relationship marketing deteriorates into unwelcome manipulation. Marketers need to see marketing through the eyes of consumers, gain their trust and then hope to build true intimacy through a product-customer fit.

Rather than learning from the developed countries and leapfrogging into the future, we seem to have regressed. For example, people from banks, hotels and telecom companies call existing and potential customers indiscriminately. For instance, when I cancelled a credit card, I received half a dozen calls from the company asking me why I had opted out. To the first caller I explained the reasons in detail (I thought: "Wow, they noticed!"), with the second caller I shared my reasons in brief ("I have already told you all this!"). To the rest I threatened legal action if they called again ("Don't people talk to each other in that company? Isn't there a system of processing feedback?"). Their anxiety is understandable. But their recovery mechanism can well end up making sure that the customer never returns! They may be thinking global, but are acting terribly local!

When my classified ad did not appear in one of the largest English dailies on the appointed date, they explained it as a computer error, without so much as an apology. When it failed to appear on the next appointed date, they were unable to explain why that happened and started ducking my calls. When I asked for compensation, the person said he was not empowered to discuss that matter and suggested I call his manager. I said that the least that they could do is call me and apologise if not compensate me for the loss. Several weeks have passed but I am yet to hear from them.

Hotels call you with absurd offers. In used-car-salesman fashion, they try to sell you discount cards or other deals. All of us frequent travellers have filled up our date of birth hundreds of times on hotel registration cards. The desk clerk will not part with your room key until you have given her that vital bit of intelligence. But I have never received a birthday card for all the efforts I have wasted filling in my DoB on hotel registration cards.

Telesales persons are like mosquitoes. They will sting you any time of the day or night without prior warning and will draw blood even if you swat them. They will call you on a lazy Sunday afternoon or on your direct line in the office when you are in the middle of a meeting. They will launch forth into their mindless sales pitch, regurgitated in horrendous Hinglish. Even the basic courtesy of asking whether this is a convenient time to speak to you is ignored. Marketers need to revisit the basics of relationship management.

The core of relationship marketing is segmentation. As Theodore Levitt says: "If you are not thinking segments, you are not thinking." In this process, a marketer identifies the basis for segmentation, develops profiles of the segments, decides which segments are worth servicing, develops a product or service for it and ensures that true intimacy is achieved with that segment by building a rapport. We have poor databases, little understanding of consumer needs and no system of training sales people. The marketer's priority is to sell products or services, while the telesales person is intent on notching up statistics of calls made. The root of the problem is that telesales activity is usually outsourced and the company making the calls is paid on the basis of the number of calls made, not the revenue generated. Until the twain meet, the cash register will not ring.

Nripjit Singh (Noni) Chawla

This article originally appeared in Business World - 19 August 2002