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Profile of Ashwin Merchant: A true entrepreneur and SME family member
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Born in an industrious SME family, Ashwin Merchant is an engineer from VJTI, University of Mumbai with post graduate studies in marketing management. After returning from USA, where he had gone to pursue higher studies, initially he joined family linked business in manufacturing of electrical equipment.
In the first quarter itself he designed and developed first of its kind of solid state battery charger (unique, advanced, not available in India) and demonstrated manufactured product at India International Trade Fair (IITF) in New Delhi under Government of Maharashtra pavilion for SSIs & SMEs. He put in lot of marketing into business of selling a hard core electrical product by designing catalogue which unlike rest, talked about benefits and not just features.
For a 15 day trade fair, to explain product he used tape recorder which played product information to visitors. A nice logo and business cards were designed as marketing tool. Received hundred of enquiries and back in Mumbai seniors were not ready to allocate company typist to reply enquiry.
Ashwin Merchant borrowed money and bought Apple computer than costing Rs.99,000/- a first generation of PC. Used low profiled word processing software and mail merged all enquiries with a single text in less than a week. Surprised by technology assistance and usage for commercial purpose, senior encouraged him to do a business in the area of providing similar services to all those who regularly participate in exhibitions.
And, this gave birth to India's first word processing bureau WORDPLUS Compu-Mark Assistance which was launched at a well known event at Hotel Ambassador in Mumbai. From thousands of square feet of space at the factory, Ashwin Merchant preferred to settle in 200 square feet office in South Mumbai, purchased on rent.
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Generate Magic - with great customer service
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Ashwin Merchant | 17 Nov, 2009
You have a good product but the business of marketing does not end with this. In fact, it begins. Good product when bundled with good customer service, the business becomes great. Today, service plays a critical role in overall packaging of the product to the customer. Pre sale service, order processing service, installation service, post sales service are key to make a customer your own customer for a long time brand association with your company.
Customer service aims to bring customer satisfaction. But that’s not enough. Today customer is looking for delight. A magic in service is all that makes a difference - he has not expected, he gets it and he is completely taken back with great customer service. Gone are the days when company takes only customer care and count on success. Take hospitals and medical services providers. A patient assumes that the service provider - a medical professional or hospital is supposed to take his care and it is their business - so what a great about it? But, when he gets an experience of relationship ‘marketing’ by each and every one associated, he is more than satisfied. You now experience in a need based industry also the selection of color of walls and curtains, uniform of staff, the room environment, hygiene standards, food quality, bathrooms’ cleanliness, promptness in dealing with any situation, any time availability of medial aid and alike. Access of 24 x 7 Helpline makes the customer/patient at ease.
In a summary, on a spectrum of 1-100, a good customer care can be anywhere in between 80-99, whereas the customer satisfaction falls around 100-105, but anything over 110 is customer delight.
Give great service to your customer, it improves your profits.
(To know more about the author please visit: www.ashwinmerchant.com The author can be contacted at ashwin.merchant@yahoo.com)
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