 Ladies and gentlemen moving forward to our next session. The topic for the session is going to be listening to your customer and art or science. In this the speaker for the session is going to be Mr. Ajay Kakkar. He is the CMO Aditya Birla Capital. In his role as CMO Ajay provides strategic direction and leadership for marketing at Aditya Birla Capital and its subsidiaries. Aditya Birla Capital is the holding company for all the financial services offered by Aditya Birla Group. Its 12 companies have a strong presence across financial services like life insurance, health insurance, mutual funds, stock and securities and home, personal and corporate finance. As a part of his mandate Ajay has carved new milestones across his portfolio of brand, customer data and analytics, customer lifetime value, customer experience, corporate communication, and corporate social responsibility. So ladies and gentlemen kindly please put your hands together and welcome Mr. Ajay Kakkar on stage for this session. Hi good evening to everyone and I am from Bombay but very nice to be here in Delhi to meet a totally different crowd to what we normally meet in Bombay. So thank you for being here this evening and late this evening. I've been given a topic to speak about listening to your customer and not only listening to your customer but is it an art or a science and the fact is isn't that what you've been hearing the whole afternoon. The panel discussion has told you that and what is it that you don't know. As far as I look at this audience I'm saying all of you are the if I may call you the suited, booted senior people of marketing and if somebody stands here and tells you you'll say, go back to Bombay and sit here, why are you telling me sir. So I don't think I can tell you something which you don't know but what I thought I can tell you something which you don't know which is my own life, my observations and my learnings. Maybe some of that will resound with you, maybe some of that will strike a chord and that's what I'll try to do. A quick recap to my life beyond the very kind words the ladies said I started my career and did six years in auditing with Ernst and Young firm but I shifted track totally and I moved to Gilvi and Mehta which was about 15 years of which I spent in advertising I spent in direct marketing and I spent in public relations. And then like all people do I moved to the client side with reliance. So six years in auditing 15 years in ONM and now about 13 years as a client starting with reliance and now with Aditya Birla capital. So as I said it's not about me but it's my life and my observations and my learnings. The phase one of my career as you know when you're in Ogilvi and Mehta it's an advertising agency when you're in an advertising agency there's only one word they talk about is creativity. And creativity is an art they can look at one piece on ad and they can talk about it for half an hour. While a customer take a fatac remote Marta fatac flip cut that page will be in Mehta and advertising keep staring at their ads because for them their ad is a piece of art and if it is a piece of art I think it should be in an art gallery it should not be in advertising but that's why I'm no longer in Ogilvi and Mehta and I'm out here. So for them creativity was important customer was not even part of the equation and I heard I won't say who is but you can guess a very famous creative genius luminary of the industry who said planner should be shot dead. So when you say planners these are the people who actually keep their ears on the ground and with the customer right. So if you say shoot the planner you're basically saying shoot the customer. That was advertising for you. And therefore in advertising if some of you recognizes this is called an Abbey Award which is the Oscars of advertising. Yeah, Mila to not really put me in a lot of promotion put me in a lot of future but first phase of my career. Second phase of my career I realized that there's much more to advertising and advertising is a means at the end it is brand but more important business. And if you stand here talking about brand and advertising. Well your CEO will tell you for what he ran out of here. And therefore I remember a very famous quote of David Ogilvi who is the founder of Ogilvi and Mether where he said we sell or else. So many years back he said that we are in the business of selling and if we don't sell what are we here for. Unfortunately I feel a lot of us have forgotten that. But my second phase taught me that and therefore it made me realize it's not about the work you do. But the work that works in the marketplace and that's why the customer is not only the start but he's also the end. And therefore we are in an industry where awards are important. Therefore the award FEs came into my life which was all about effectiveness and not only about creativity. But I've been asked in my phase three because I have chaired the FE committee for five years. I have just chaired the Abbey committee last year or this year. And now some people friends ask you Abbey versus FE what do you think which is creativity versus effectiveness. What do you think. And I think both work because when you want to reach to the customer's wallet his heart is a great way to reach the wallet. They say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That's meant for women. But when it's for marketing and marketers and advertising and advertisers I think the best way to the wallet is through the heart. And therefore if you ask me whose heart are we talking about and whose wallet are we talking about. And very often we forget that it is this man. Now this is a scene from Bombay church gate station. You all have never been there and hopefully you never have to go there because you can't even move you stand people just push you and you get out of the station automatically. Those are the people we are talking about you and I don't know you and I don't recognize and you and I may never know them. So whose job is it to understand the customer and when I saying whose job it is then let's look at Steve job. Steve job says it is the job of the customer to know what he wants not at all. Then whose job is it. It's the job of people in this room and very often we forget. We say customer joke I got I'm also doing a customer give us some care I'm product but I'm gay I'm still just but I'm gay I'm saying customer does not always have a voice. He may not have an ear. He may not have your ear. And I may not have technology. So I believe listening is of course a science and I don't want to talk about this because everyone has talked to you about and we'll talk to you and you know about it. There is desk research the social listening the grand track the mystery shopping. You can barge into call centers. We also have a command center at Aditya Villa capital it looks like a war room. No businessman ever wants to go there because he thinks it's for those people but we listen to social chatter all the time and of course there's net promoter score. The new buzzword not so new now is analytics. On the other hand I also feel listening is and will always remain an art and I can give you enough reasons for that because when you go to the field you hear people. And we call it at Aditya Villa capital we call it deep conversations. We go and speak to people for an hour two hours and three hours. We have no checklist. Amit is not here. We don't have a passport. But we go there because we say that we want to listen and we don't start by talking about our product. We just ask them how is your life. And some of the other because you heard I represent the category money. Fact is that if you talk about your life the money will come. My category came and I haven't prompted him and therefore for us deep conversations are way of life but that may not be everyone in financial service and if any of you are here from HDFC or know anyone in HDFC lock the door you haven't heard me forget what I said. This was going viral recently when the MD of a bank and of course I don't know the name of the bank went to the market went to a outlet and started telling him by to my product you need Karita by and you had a Punjabi accent so you know who I'm talking about. I don't know who I'm talking about. Acha bhai tu mera product lele MD aaya hai meri baap to sun le. And that shopkeeper is busy on the phone hanji hanji hanji he doesn't know MD con bank con but ho gaya tick mark passport ho gaya. Meh to gaya tha market mein dekh ho viral ho gaya. Mere bache logon ne mera photo liya viral daal liya beti bhi bache family sab khush ho gaya sir market gaya tha hai. I think it's not going to the market. It's about caring to go to the market caring to listen and that I believe is an art but there are many ways of doing art. I want to leave you with some pointers and these pointers are no typical order no particular order but this is what I've learned. I don't need to go to the market especially when it comes to my category or many categories which all of you represent because very very very often we forget that we too are the customer and I know Amit for many years and he's not in the room so I'm using his product again. Pankha hai. Meh customer ke paas kyon jaon. Mere ghar mein bhi pankha hai. Meh bhi rath ko doh baya uttaon aur boltaon ye remote kyuni diya me know ye salon hai. And I'm a customer and money also meh galiya dehton bank ho meh galiye dehton life insurance company go. Meh customer ke baare mein sununga ho sununga ho peh liya apni to sunno. And who are my friends? Who are my relatives? Everyone talks about money and they are my customers so listen to yourself first. You are the customer you've heard what 90% of the customers will say. There was a song by the Beatles and I don't know how many of you remember the Beatles or enjoy the Beatles because my generation was different. Hamare zamanin meh group hota tha Beatles aur ne meh sikhaya tha there is a difference between listening and hearing. And I won't go into the English dictionary. You're all listening to me. I know that. But how many of you are hearing me? I don't even want to ask. I'm scared to ask because mobile phone to hain mobile phone ap dekhro kaun sunra kaun samaj rahe. So therefore please remember listening is not hearing and hearing is what we want not listening. And like I said learnings are all around us. So therefore it's not about me. It's not about my friends. It's not about my relatives. But in the financial services industry some of you know who he is because again it's my generation. Kamath used to be the chairman and MD of ICSF bank before one lady took over whose name I don't remember. But the fact is that this man sitting close to him what I learned I would never learn by going to any market because he's not a customer but he's a guru and you have to listen to the customer and you have to live learn and listen to the gurus. You saw from my slides I did work with reliance. You may have any view about this man. I don't want to get into that but I'll tell you any time I walked out of his room I used to kick my backside. I used to kick my backside because he's M.A. M.B.A. He's a big man. He's a very big man and he talks so much why the hell did I not think of it. He used to talk such maybe he does I'm sure he does but he talks such simple truths long long back when I was working with him he talked about ABCD of telecom. He said I am by cook driver. Sub mobile use current. Or was that mobile or the visa or if I got the corner I a corn bite corn cook listen to people around you and these two are young people don't know who they are but they are my children and they tell me how to work my mobile they tell me how to work my laptop and therefore they tell me what I don't know as a customer and I should know. So you look and hear people around you and it's not about what you hear. I keep telling my team so while you heard about things which are going very well for brands I can tell you things which are not going very well for my brand. My people do a lot of listening. I remember in ICICI they used to get brand track. Yeah. Listening is not important. Hearing is not important but can you clean out actionable insights. What do I do with what I'm hearing. Very often we forget that close the loop with the customer the customer to our time we We have done something and we don't go back and tell the customer that I have heard you and I have done something about it. He keeps cursing. As against you get him on social media, you get him as a champion saying this is what that guy did. So for example in Idea which is Aditya Birla group company, we once heard about, they add that our shop is near your house, our shop is near your house, wherever you go you will find a shop. They hired a big van, branded it Idea, made everything that you can do in a shop inside that van and took it to the customer's house. That customer got so shocked, so excited, he spoke to 10 people, 10 spoke to 100, 100 spoke to millions and you know such examples. That's called viral and that happens because you close the loop with the customer. And you can give me 100 examples, I can give you 50 examples. Close the loop with the customer but today who is this customer? Watch out. This customer is not always the genuine customer, right? You heard about technology and you heard about some robo somewhere who is pressing and answering things for you. It's not true. You know that there's something called fake news. And some of you have recently heard seen where Obama says bad things about Trump. Now everyone is saying bad things about Trump so Obama also said bad things about Trump. No, that's not true. They use technology to move his mouth. So you're seeing a video, you're seeing Obama assuming, abusing Trump. But it was done by a producer to show you that this can actually happen. Fake, fake, fake. So when you listen to the customer, watch out for fake. Don't take it as very important thing I've learned in my life. It is not what the customer has said. Very often the customer does not know how to voice something. So for example, we are in Gurgaon. How old is Gurgaon? I don't know. Now it's Gurugram. 50 years ago who the hell knew what is Gurgaon will happen someday, right? How do you describe Gurgaon? Nobody would have described Gurgaon. But today there is a Gurgaon. Better example, tell me which customer ever told some research person or a brand, I want an ATM machine. And then State Bank of India made an ATM machine. A customer did not even know what is the A of a T of an M before an ATM. Somebody thought it, somebody heard it even if the customer did not ask for it and made an ATM and today it's a Gharghar Ki Kani. You will hear a lot of people talking about machine hearing, analytics. I think it's fantastic. But when you listen to a machine, how many will want to speak to a machine? How many of us when we do a call center like that god damn stupid IVR? Press one, press two, press three. I feel like pressing disconnect. At the end of the day we are all humans and in India at least we prefer a human being to a machine. Machine learning is good. Machine learning is excellent. Machine learning is predictive. Machine learning is whatever. But humans will never be replaced. I told you it's about my learning so I have a dear old friend and colleague. Some of you may have heard of him. Prasoon Joshi. How many of you have heard of Prasoon Joshi? There is only one Prasoon Joshi in the world. But it's the same one you are talking about. At Goa Fest, which is the advertising Oscar this year, a journalist asked him about machine learning. And he gave a beautiful example. So I am borrowing from him but I am giving him credit also. He said machine will tell you that this man uses certain products, he goes to restaurants, he stays in the city. That's why this product will be very good with him. But where will the sad man's tears come from? You may know that he is a man like Devdas, a man like Majnu, a man like Dilfeng. But where will his tears come from? Where will the words come from? Where will the tears come from? And he said that is my job. That machine cannot write poetry. That garland cannot become a machine. And machine cannot become a garland. And therefore again I am telling you, machine learning is machine learning. Who will shed tears? Only Prasoon Joshi will shed tears. I am from the financial service industry. In the financial service industry, we put a risk factor in risk factor. We write this in large numbers. Past performance is no indication of future performance. But if we are talking about listening, I will give you the context of listening. I am a foodie. I love vegetarian food. I love paneer. I love black dal. I love channa. I love kulfi. I love everything that Delhi offers me. So machine will tell you everything. So when I go to the restaurant, they will give me all of this and offer. But guess what? Since last one month I am dieting. Machine does not know that. So machine knows my past. Machine does not know my future. Therefore listening to the past has no relevance. Also try and anticipate the future. And that will differentiate a good market here from another market here. I want to give you an example. I am also a marketer. So I have also to plug my product. Everyone allows to plug their product. I am also allowed to plug my product. So I am going to plug my product. How many marketers have the guts to listen to their gut rather than only the customer said or unsaid? Because the customer said and you did it. Then what did you do? The customer told you. So what kind of market are you? If you can do something where the customer is not even asked or said and you have a gut feel and you back that gut. So I am going to give you an example of an industry which I represent, financial service industry. All customers of it. ICICI, HDFC, SBI, blah, blah, blah. Their reality is this. You know and I know. We have all heard of a company called HDFC. A brand called HDFC. Now we have a lot of children. HDX, HDFCY, HDFCZ, HDFC. But wherever you go in the market, they say HDFC. If there is a lot, then HDFC's mutual fund, HDFC. And ICICI, SBI, whatever name you take, it's the same story. You and I know for years that financial service is complicated. You and I know that financial services, we are hesitant. Research shows that there is only 5% penetration of financial products in this country. I have been told from the day I was in advertising which is 20 years ago that financial services should do literacy campaign. Educate customer. We did the same. We had so many brands. Which brand do you take? People remember Aditya Birla. No one remembers. But we had so many bachas and we were feeding so many bachas with budget, advertising, brand. Wasting it because nobody remembered the second line there. Everyone just remembered Aditya Birla. Listen, listen. 10 years, 15 years, 20 years I've heard this since I was in advertising. Customer wants simplicity. So we said, come on, I heard it. Let's do research because I have to prove it to my boss also, right? Boss appraises me, customer does not appraise me. We learned that 100% of the people need money. Now, I didn't need research. The problem of roti becomes money. But only 5% of people use financial products. 5 reasons why they do not use products. 5 reasons why 95% people don't use financial products. And I'll go fast on this. They don't know anyone who can trust them with their hard-earned money. Simple what we did. People said you are old and established, trustworthy, financially strong. We flew nine brands. We are the first financial services brand in the country who has killed all those logos I showed you, which we spent so much money to build over decades. We killed all of them. We've launched one brand. People said no one speaks my language. They talk complicated. You speak financial services. I speak only money. From today, our language is money. And we have created what we call Pifa. We protect, invest, finance, and advise you on money matters. I'll go a little fast because you have one more presentation after. No one understands my life's money. They start saying take the product, it's very good. Didn't you like it? Second product, third product, fourth. If someone buys a product, it's like a saree shop. Should I show you another saree? Ma'am, look, it's better. It's very good. We said no, we will give you a tool. You should understand who you are because nobody knows you better than yourself. What do you want? If you want something, good chance we'll have it. We'll give it to you. Fourth reason. The more I buy products from you, I have to deal with the people. I have to go to HDFCX, HDFCY, call center Y, website Z, branch A. We said no, you won't have to do it. All our businesses, 12 businesses, one website. 12 businesses, one call center. First time again in the financial services country, industry in the world. All our branches are now Aditya Birla Capital. All have the same infrastructure. The fifth and the last reason why people said we don't come to your industry. If you have a relationship, you will keep looking for it. I don't know how to find my details. So what we said is simple. We will give you an ID. We will give you one view. In one view, you will see all your relationships with us or with any other financial services player. So what we did, we had a gut for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. We listened to the customer, but we had the guts to make the gut for the reality. First time in 2017, we launched Aditya Birla Capital. God willing, it will do well. Customer willing, it will do well. Two more points, and then I think I'm done. Very important question. The customer is always speaking. Whether he's our friend, he's our family, or he's our relative. Are we hearing? So I want to give you two examples as marketeers, not to do with any of our categories. But to give you an example, does our industry hear? How many of you see Netflix? Wow, I never dreamt. How many of you see Amazon Prime? Therefore, how many of you have reduced the amount of TV you're watching? Whoa. My team will be very happy, but I have a big agency called Group M. Dukhi Atma. But the fact is, I've gone to Group M and told them I am watching Netflix, which I never used to do yesterday. I am watching Amazon. I only watch TV for news. So what should I do? Where should I catch customers? Where should I catch them? They have no answer. They say, this is not good. Take another channel. But people are advertising in Netflix. What do I do? Second example. How many of you have travelled by Uber Stroke Ola? Allahu Akbar. That's the problem. I used to travel by my car. People have stopped using cars. I used to have my radio. I used to play the station I want. So you can't catch me on TV. You can't catch me on the radio. Because the radio runs on Uber. Or it doesn't. You don't want to hear those songs. You don't want to hear that station. What are we doing? And therefore I said, I want to leave you with these two examples to say that that bloody train is coming straight at me. And as marketers, as brands, as media agencies, we haven't dared to care to find the solution. Science is good. Art is good. So therefore I'm summing it up by saying it's not about listening to your customer. Is it an art or science? I think it's about hearing your customer. And that is an art and a science. And it is hearing what he has said and what he's not said. I want to leave you with the last slide. Listening is important. Hearing is important. But please don't listen the way Facebook listens to its people without telling them. Thank you so much.