Last Sunday, I watched on bemused as three executives from Club Mahindra (a holiday timeshare brand) staged a funny pitch (they call it "presentation"). Will spare you the details, but in case you're interested, it was quite similar to this.
Curious about what people felt about Club Mahindra, I turned to Google and was hit with scores of pages that painted Club Mahindra in the brightest shades (examples here, here & here). However, most of these sites/blogs seemed to have been created by the company/employees.
I scratched the surface and came across a lot of outbursts against Club Mahindra: tales of anger, disgruntlement, disenchantment and frustration, to name a few.
I scratched some more and discovered that Club Mahindra has been sponsoring blogger meets at their resorts. It looks like the initiative has paid off. The invited bloggers have sung praises in Club Mahindra's favour (examples here, here & here).
It looks like Club Mahindra has focussed heavily on acquiring a clean online reputation, especially since their IPO is due. The favourable blogs have actually managed to push down the complaints, as far as search engine pageranks are concerned. However, I still maintain (as I had written in an earlier post) that in today's connected world, people will eventually find out the what other customers feel about your brand. It would help to dedicate time and energy to become more customer-centric than trying to manufacture online reputation. Perhaps it could have saved Club Mahindra this unenviable distinction.
Thoughts are welcome in the Comments section.
Friday 7 November 2008
Online Reputation Management or Customer Satisfaction?
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4 comments:
These negative blogs, complains board are not great threat to ClubMahindra yet. They are still growing quite fast.
There thinking is like: "unhappy customer blow problems out of proportion and their happy customers are quite busy to consider sharing their good experience".
I run one of the blogs you've mentioned... While their resorts and service at the resorts are good, I still maintain my apprehensions about their life membership.
www.enidhi.net/2007/02/never-go-for-club-mahindra-membership.html
Prime reason for disappointment is that they seem to have more members than their resorts can accommodate-they are trying to increase the inventory-we have to see if that helps. Also certain resorts at certain season will have unusually high demand, resulting in disappointment for many.
Unrealistic promised made by few desperate sales staff is another cause of concern- as it increases expectations which they can't meet...
Dear anon: If an organisation waits till "negative blogs" become "great threat" to their business, they would've lost the game anyway. The question is whether an organisation pays sufficient heed when they sense a simmering discontent. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Dear Shrinidhi: I have read all your posts on Club Mahindra and I must say you have presented both sides of the story in a commendable manner. My blog is about Marketing Communications and I do not wish to comment on service levels of CM, although I have experienced first-hand how pushy and ridiculous their sales blokes can get. My objective is to analyse the communication strategy that CM seems to be following. I get a feeling that too much effort is focussed on manufacturing online reputation without a robust service delivery system. Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. Hope to see you here again.
I am here again :)
Well, having a good online presence is equally important these days, as everyone uses net. CM is also focusing on this. But still, nothing can beat word of mouth advertising-to have a happy customer and use him as your brand ambassador
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