Paul Writer launches Innovative Marketer Dialogue , 
Video interview series with CMOs highlighting marketing best practices
Deepali Naair
Chief Marketing Officer
Mahindra Holiday Resorts (India) Ltd
On use Innovative technology and Marketing
There are two innovations that we would like to mention, one we needed to do and it may not have neccesarily brought a paradigm shift and second, which did bring a paradigm shift. The first and the bigger innovation here is the way we sell. Ours is a 25 year product therefore we need to make a presentation to prospects at the time of sale. This is done either at our premises or either at customer’s home or workplace. This presentation was earlier a pen and paper pitch or a power point presentation done traditionally but in November, we launched a tool called ‘sell smart’, this is an interactive audio visual system where testimonials from our chairman and our current customers are presented, there is an interactive tool that lets you decide what kind of holidays you’d like to engage in and therefore the kind of solutions Club Mahindra provides to you, there is an interactive tool that lets you calculate how much you normally spend on a holiday versus the advantage you would get with a Club Mahindra vacation ownership card therefore it is an opportunity for you to have a look at various resorts and videos all in one place.
More importantly, for us, the back end in terms of the analysis is crucial, how much time is the customer spending at each segment? How much time is the presentation taking? What is the correlation between other variables and us clinching the sales is an opportunity. The reason why I call it a paradigm shift is because, from the point of appointment to the point of sales, the conversion ratio has gone up. This is increased efficiency through innovation that we have managed to accomplish. The tool is well accepted and its in the process of roll out and the customer feedback is also great.
“Social media has become part of a normal channel of raising issues with the duty manager and within about few minutes, the duty manager actually takes care of customer request/ complaint and this has given us phenomenal service recovery opportunity in the space of social media”
The second innovation that I wanted to mention is in the space of social media. While it is manual, it is ‘here and now’ response, therefore its greatly appreciated. Today, people talk about complaint registration inside the hotels or resorts, what we’ve managed to do is, if ever there is a customer who needs the attention of the employees of the resort, within minutes the message goes to our duty manager at our resorts. This has become part of a normal channel of raising issues with the duty manager and within about few minutes, the duty manager actually takes care of customer request/ complaint and this has given us phenomenal service recovery opportunity in the space of social media therefore its pretty much real time although its effective during week days and working hours, the opportunity for doing this and to be able to demonstrate this within minutes is a great thing from the social media perspective that we’ve managed to do.
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