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Wednesday, January 18, 2006 |
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Last Session - Digital Summit 2006 Moderator - Rohit Mull, Tata AIG
Foundation of naukri.com is based on the virtuous circle ---- we have the most jobs - so we get the most traffic - so we get the most response, so we get the most clients - so we get the most jobs. So first you have to have massive aggregation of content, unique content, need to know content and not nice to know, dynamic and updated content, and provide the best search of the content because there are 85,000 jobs on the site at any point in time. Promotion and awareness - bootstrapping was a strategy - get repeat visitors, get buzz and word of mouth thru user experience, PR, early mover advantage. Today it is a much larger business with funds and a focus on promotions both offline and online. Harsh Roongta - apnaloan.com Put all resources into the online medium, although it was an online-offline service at that point in time. The biggest learning is that it is a mix of 4 issues - better online experience, value proposition - wanted to harness the power of the interactive medium, where our offers could be tailored, delivery to consumer - customer delight programmes - eg. we would contact the customer within 10 minutes of his putting his application online (so huge process adherence and processes were required) - and this got a lot of salience and goodwill. And finally, the CRM track. Some things were learned as we went along -- that we could calibrate our exposure to customers depending on our process capabilities. To summarize - while user experience and value propositions are important, how you deliver, how quickly you deliver, and what tracking systems are in place are key. Satya Prabhakar, President & CEO Sulekha.com The most valuable commodity today is human attention. The number of offerings to us is exploding. So as the demand for human attention increases, but supply is constant, the value of attention will only decrease. The cost per unique visitor to site is about 30--35$ in the US. Sulekha - connects Indians worldwide - blogs, groups, networks, classifieds, events, yellow pages. The Internet can be a double-edged sword - while it is low cost to try and new service, it is also low cost to spread bad word of mouth. The 'mantra' - you get people, you get them to stay, you make them do new things. So acquisition is important, but retention the key. How can you get retention -- by providing value, a great user experience, caring for the customer at every turn. Many media companies have a conflict between advertiser value and user value. Focus on the user, and the advertising will come. Anup Bagchi COO, ICICI Web Trade Ltd Asks the audience, how many of you are in an online job -- i'd say over three-fourths of the audience had their hands raised. The point he makes is that businesses are businesses whether online or offline. The online world proposition must be strong. And is slightly ahead of its time - and thats good - examples - airline tickets, banking, naukri.com, apnaloan.com. In an online world service is key --- if you screw up, customer will go away and you cannot really track him. In an offline world, you can 'repair' the relationship - give him tea, suck up to him etc. Can't do that in an online world. Online can be cruel - it is completely transparent to the customer - you cannot fumble because he will not go to the next page. So the processes and policies have to be really well thought thru. Customer Activity Management must be really strong. There are no second chances, you don't have the nuances that talking to a customer can bring and that you can exploit to your advantage (IMO - Voice and even video may help here - more touch-feel definitely when servicing a customer!!!). And finally, there is a large offline portion to distribution -- eg. the supply chain has to be completed -- railway tickets must be ultimately delivered home the next day. Anaggh Desai, CEO, D'damas Jewellery (I) Pvt. Ltd What is customer acquisition --- boon or bane! Sells travel, and fine diamond jewellery. He uses the 3 I's model -- identify, invite, incentivize them to continue being with you. They provide a feel-good factor as opposed to the rest of the panelists who provide more functional offerings :). They kept advertising their travel portal on naukri.com -- naukri was doing the work and we were getting the customers ! Q&A Q - A part of the job is to make it convenient for the customer to find what they are looking for ... but it takes ages to download many sites -so what works? A - it is true - we need more usability testing (yayyy). This is very important in a country like ours where bandwidth can vary so much. The panel agrees it is one of the biggest factors in customer satisfaction and usability. It doesn't matter how good the site looks, if it doesn't load fast enough. Q - From a client perspective --- people invest in media in order to build the business for the future. Why is it they are not willing to invest now even in a cost-per-lead model - and support this medium so that it pays back in the future? A - no real answer Q - related qn --- have you killed the medium with the Cost Per Lead model ? The problem with an emerging medium, there are a large number of questions being asked by seniors about why you want to get into that space. And it is a medium that allows clear measurement and quantification. It really is the most measurable form of advertising. It is a process of evolution. It will happen. Another view --- Also, making marketing expenditure accountable is one of the key characteristics of this space. If you move away from that, you will kill the medium. If you can't deliver, you should not be there ! Q - How are cost per leads worked out by clients? What if their own processes or products don't get conversions? Or interfere with leads? A - the way forward is to start off with a figure of faith - both parties must believe and trust in the value they have worked out. Its a partnership of leads, quality and conversion. Also, are their parallel processes to identify what it the weak link if you under deliver? It was great meeting Rohit Mull and Harsh
Roongta after many many years. I had done some qual research for
apnaloan.com many years ago. 4:46:48 PM  comment [] trackback []
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Copyright 2006 Dina Mehta
