Beware of the Megaphone

Social Media Interaction

The “Internet is a great leveler “in more than one ways. While internet has provided the framework for a small-town store be a global business house, it also empowered every customer irrespective of their economic or social standings. Today everyone has a Megaphone.

Trust doesn’t come easy and it is particularly difficult when transaction is over the internet. We invariably fallback on experiences people like us had earlier. Today consumer does thorough research before they make a buying decision, they also leave online review and ratings to help others. Word-of-mouth has expanded beyond a customer’s immediate friends and family. As online transactions become increasingly common, consumer-generated feedback is hard to ignore these days.

During the pre-social media days, an out of town customer at any hotel, restaurant or shop had only so much importance – it was seller’s market then. Now every customer is important even if the likelihood of their return is low. If somebody’s had a negative experience, they now have a megaphone to go out and tell millions of people.  

Similar to online retail, hospitality sector too has got intertwined with the social media for conducting their businesses. Today they need to promote, communicate and stay relevant via all the available social media platforms.

Although 90% of hotels have their Facebook pages, there is a disconnect somewhere in the system. Whereas for 87% of potential customers an appropriate management response to bad review improves their impression of a hotel, a meagre 32% of hotels respond to guest reviews, negative or positive.

Ratings and feedback foster mutual respect between two parties. Sincere hotel management would typically invest time to monitor the social media (Facebook, Trip Advisor etc.) and respond to any review of their property – either to thank the reviewer or apologize.

This acts like insurance – it doesn’t guarantee new customer, but helps form losing one. Researchers claim that valuing feedback has positive effects on perceived quality.

My request to everyone is leave a verified feedback about your recent experience about a service or product and help others to make an informed decision. Please use your megaphone! 

Internet is a great leveler

Photo Reference

Would you agree that "Internet is a great leveler?" Probably you do not have much of a choice! The proliferation of the Internet has created an environment where anyone can reap the benefits of the opportunities provided by globalization.

There are no “barriers” anymore as anyone from anywhere can start with an online business without geographical considerations. The only requirement is expertise in the core area and a great business model. On the other hand everyone can refer to reviews and recommendation and make informed decision.

The internet unarguably is the game changer but limited to internet in many regions is a cause for concern.

Traditionally for a business, promoting the product or services to the world has been a challenge. Now “Digital Marketing” has opened up the horizon to everyone who had dreams of advertising. It’s affordable, it's easy and potential customers could be reached through targeted campaigns via social media.

Skeptics like me would refer to this particular dialogue from Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”.

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes' palaces."

However, this doesn't mean that one shouldn't try, but be cautions that it will not be easy. Potential customers will invariably head online for review and ratings. They will research and compare shops before they make any buying decision. A home business will therefore be compared and measured against the highest standard.

So the secret is to  do is to find ways to build great relationships with online customers and let them know they are appreciated and the relationship is valued.

an act of thinking

"Thinking is to man what flying is to birds. Don't follow the examples of the chicken when you could be a lark." - Albert Einstein

Dear Ms BOT

Google driven impression of Bot

As I sat with my hands folded engrossed in my thoughts, I detected mild symptoms of the illness known as “writer’s Block”. I told myself that it cannot be true because Seth Godin says that no such thing exist. Writer's block is a myth. Can I defy him? Probably not!

"Maybe it is a starting cue that I was looking for to start my next post."

I in fact had a few Ideas that could be converted to posts, like we always do most of the times. This "fingers off the keypad" phase ensued because it was difficult to find the right "balance between Benefit and Effort". Ones that could be put together with very little effort did not look worth the time spent while those which qualify wasn’t worth the effort involved. A “catch 22” moment!

Then I received an email from the desk of Ms. R of a blogging portal. It was quite similar in style to the memos that are often used in the corporate world. I was about to toss it into the bin but had second thoughts since it was addressed to me by my name. The content was generic with all the potential to be a spam but customized by addressing it to me by my name. A personal touch to penetrate my spam filter.

Then it struck to me that it’s quite possible that the Ms. R is actually a BOT and to confirm it I replied back and my assumption was confirmed soon. I am glad that I read it as this gave me the opportunity to communicate with a BOT… a new first for my book of records!

I agreed with myself to disagree with the opening statement of the mail which read “it is crazy most of us have not achieved the dream successes we always envisioned for ourselves”. It’s actually a bit weird to  disagree or even communicate with a BOT.

Keeping an eye on the future, I took the strategic decision to practice conversing with AI. This also provided me an opportunity to breakout from the catch 22.

If one is curious to know, why would I disagree with a statement that appears to be quite true, I would be tempted to question “how many of us can define what success means to one’s own self?”

Is your success comparative or is it absolute!

Sometime others perceive you as a successful person while you are uneasy where you stand and dream of going somewhere else. “I deserve to be there”, you keep telling yourself and your perception cannot be further off from them who consider you successful. Sometime the reverse of this is also true!

There are situations where people carry along a “kangaroo career aspiration” while doing well as a teacher/doctor/banker/engineer etc. They dream to be standing in another podium having reached the pinnacle as an artist or writer or someone else. They bask in that glory signing autographs, getting photographed, giving speeches … albeit “the MongeriLal” syndrome.

Human being could be different in thousands of mutually exclusive ways but “day dreaming is our common language as a species.” There is nothing wrong in such behavior therefore, as long as this dreams are not associated with “dream successes” as referred by Ms. BOT.

Success is the attitude towards continuous self- improvement and in my reality remaining happy during the journey is as important as the celebration at the destination.  

Success, therefore is a way of life.

Why Can't I Break Free

Break Free - Image source

A mighty elephant possessing the strength to large trees cannot gather the strength to free itself from a flimsy chain tied to a peg. It’s not the physical chain that ties the elephant but the invisible restraints that tells its brain that there is no point in trying to break free.

It is the perception of this elephant’s personal reality that makes it feel weak and feeble with respect to the binding chain because it was created through earlier failed attempts.

Unfortunately this is not limited to elephants.

We too find ourselves restrained with our beliefs embedded through earlier experiences or teachings and we created our own reality around those. We are so strongly programmed that we cannot even distinguish between possible and the impossible.

Human brain weighs only 3% of our body weight but it consumes 20% of our energy. This tells us something about its capability if we decide to put it to use, we can move mountains.

Many people continue to live with stressful relationship, a bullying mate, an unwelcome workplace, a difficult boss and the list can go on and on because our belief tells us that this is the only reality. But we do not have to do that and all we need is to free ourselves of those invisible chains.

Bob Marley said, “Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?”

We can all ask the same question today and refer to the beautiful words from Steve Jobs to find our honest answer.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma-which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”

I hope this will take us one step closer free ourselves.

And some adjusted their sails – episode two

Change has always triumphed. So did the realists who adjusted their sails acknowledging change as the only constant in our world. While the pessimists who was whining and the optimist who expected things to revert back both perished. Continuing with my mini-series about the “Ones who didn’t lose”, this is the inspiring story about PayPal that was developed by Confinity Inc. in 1998. Their story of embracing change and redirecting the sails to stay relevant is another inspiring story.

Jessica Livingston shared an interview with PayPal founder, Max Levchin, in her book “Founders at Work”  where it was revealed that the company was initially envisioned as a cryptography company. Later on they developed a service that would allow the transfer of funds between two palm pilots.

The vision was to enable the consumers to pay their bills and make purchases digitally via their PDAs and eventually eliminate the purpose for carrying a wallet. The transition wasn’t effortless, and the company, at various points in time, deliberated the merits of the staying the course or changing business models. Market maturity for such service did not exist then and frauds almost forced them out of business.

In 2000 they decided to enable eBay payments via PayPal and this was the game changer. Within a very short period of time the revenue streams from online transactions surpassed that from Palm Pilot transfers. By the end of the year, PayPal had discontinued its Palm Pilot service entirely.

By 2001, PayPal accumulated more than a million users. They went public on the NASDAQ. In 2002, the company was purchased by eBay for $1.5 billion and continue to operate as a trusted payment gateway for eBay and other online transactions.

The flexibility proved to be the ultimate strength and despite being founded in 1998, PayPal was swift enough to change course and ride the high and lows of the digital economy.

Recession and Job Interview

Stressful Job Interview 

Last time when I started with the cliché “one thing that is certain in life is death”, I forgot to mention “recession”.

The theory behind recession is complicated, although we all can figure out few of the events that makes it happen. I am told that the economists can bring in recession by repeatedly warning the population about the onset of one.  The possibility of losing income frightens the daylight out of the population's spending habit. Evaporation of liquidity from the market creates a dominoes effect on the greater economy and actual recession soon sets in. Some argue the phenomenon is visible in US economy as consumers are increasingly losing confidence despite economic KPIs looking good otherwise.

After the global economic crash of 2008, the world economy has remained largely uncertain, as social and political unpredictability added to their already troubled economic counterpart. The psychological impact of too many wars coupled with political turmoil, Brexit propaganda, trade wars, political sanctions etc. are creating havoc.

The job loses has been rampant forcing many face frequent  job interviews during the past decade. The reason could have been varied such as disruptive technologies, cost cutting, internal restructuring, and lack of projects among others but the impact on an individual's moral has been the same, nevertheless.

The most stressful subject to answer while sitting at the interview table is justifying frequent job losses. These are some of the expert advice that I put together for reference:

• It is important to establish that the reason was not your capability.
• The safest argument maybe due to the position being eliminated during a consolidation or downsizing.
• It could be due to change in higher management
• Falling out of bosses favor due to personal ego.
• A definite No-No is bad-mouthing the earlier bosses.
• Using same reason too many times will not be convincing.
• While it is safer to stay within the vicinity of the truth but do not feel compelled to tell the full truth.
• People tend to explain a lot but this seldom works favorably. In a situation like this the mantra is “less is more”.

The core job knowledge will remain a determining criteria and so will the attitude. Therefore the brain has to be programmed with a positive mindset well in advance. This will have positive impact on the nonverbal communication too.

Remember, the best interview can only be given with the "yes I can” mindset!