Dell focusses its efforts on the quality of customer experience: Raj Kumar Rishi

There has been a fundamental shift over the past couple of years, especially after the pandemic hit the world.  The needs and expectations of the end customers have changed, which has resulted in companies to rethink their strategies and introduce stronger and more customer friendly product offerings and services. According to the recent research conducted by Salesforce, businesses across the globe consider customer experience ranked amongst the top five priorities.

When it comes to product development, delivering better customer experience, or providing a seamless PC experience, Dell has always had a customer-first approach. This focussed approach has helped Dell to win for three years in row the TRA’s Most Trusted Brand.

The ‘Most Trusted Brand’ Awards by Trust Research Advisory (TRA) is conducted through a survey with 1,617 consumer-influencers across 16 Indian cities.

The target groups include working men, working women, and home influencers. Given how the consumer landscape has changed in the past couple of years, the selection criteria focused on three key aspects - Brand Trust Attributes, Brand Trust Behaviours, and Brand Trust Archetypes.

Speaking exclusively to Adgully, Raj Kumar Rishi, Vice President and Managing Director, Consumer and Small Business, Dell Technologies, India, elaborated on how they assist in providing simple, intelligent and integrated solutions for customer needs. This focussed approach has resulted in Dell being among the world’s leading technology companies helping transform people’s lives.

Customer centricity is the backbone of every business. TRA has judged you as the most trusted brand for 3 years in succession. What are the criteria followed by TRA for the award and what has been your secret sauce to continuously win this award?

At Dell Technologies, we are obsessed with providing the best-in-class experience for our customers. We truly believe that customers are the ones who drive us to bring innovations to our product lines, every year. Being bestowed with this kind of industry honour for the third time in a row is a testimony to our efforts toward product innovation, quality, and customer support. The ‘Most Trusted Brand’ Awards by Trust Research Advisory (TRA) is conducted through a survey with 1,617 consumer-influencers across 16 Indian cities. The target groups include working men, working women, and home influencers. Given how the consumer landscape has changed in the past couple of years, the selection criteria focused on three key aspects – Brand Trust Attributes, Brand Trust Behaviours, and Brand Trust Archetypes.

In recent times, we have increased our focus on evolving CX/ HX (customer/ human experience) design, digitally-enabled structural/ operating models, and our business metrics scorecard inputs and governance. They assist us in providing simple, intelligent, and integrated solutions for customer needs. This focused approach has resulted in Dell being among the world’s leading technology companies helping transform people’s lives.

How much research from time to time has helped you in addressing customer pain points and how have you leveraged technology to strengthen and boost customer service experience?

At Dell, customer data and insights sit at the core of all our strategies. Every decision is influenced by these insights and backed by technology adoption to create effective solutions. The research inputs are further classified into the below principles:

  • Standardising processes for predictable & repeatable results
  • Structuring similar functions together to enable global scalability with regional relevance
  • Combining & simplifying workflows for seamless integration and rapid implementation
  • Fostering a culture of excellence, accountability, agility, inclusiveness, andcollaboration
  • Developing & empowering talent to drive innovation

How much training and development contributes and helps in formulating a robust customer service strategy? What kind of training do you provide your customer service team to adapt to the changing customer behaviour?

Training and development are unquestionably critical in framing a strong customer experience (CX) strategy. Dell has made significant investments in designing a robust training process for our Inside Sales Promoters (ISPs) that focuses on shifting and cultivating mindsets, behaviours, and skillsets. We hold weekly training for our 1,200+ ISPs, to equip them with the necessary soft skills, upselling and cross-selling techniques, and role-playing. Furthermore, we provide them with all the knowledge necessary for effective pitchingwhich results in them acting as trusted advisors. Furthermore, we place a strong emphasis on research and development (R&D), which allows us to better understand and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting newer technologies such as AI, ML, and so on.

Dell is a global brand with a good presence in many countries. What are some of the learnings and best practices you follow in India from your global offices?

One of the key learnings has been to move beyond traditional product and market-centric strategies and focus efforts on the quality of customer experience with capabilities such as real-time engagement, actionable insights, and personalization. Additionally, driving a consistent, proactive, predictive, and data-driven support mechanism has helped us in identifying and resolving issues much faster.

You have to keep your customers happy, across online and offline. How do you synergize your customer strategy so that the level of customer satisfaction is maintained consistently to deliver the desired results?

Increasing reliance on PCs to connect to the outside world, and our current environment demonstrates the various roles that a PC can play in our lives. Amidst these changing dynamics, we are supporting customers with their purchase decisionby taking into consideration their persona, offers, and issues. By leveraging augmented intelligence, we have been able to intervene at the right time and find faster resolutions.

Dell has created multiple touchpoints for consumers to choose from – Dell.com, Dell Exclusive Stores (DES), Multi Brand Outlets (MBOs)/ Large Format Retail (LFR), and e-tail. We have established an expansive network of 632 DES, 852 LFRs, and over 5,000 MBOs spread across 348 cities in India. To further enhance customer experience, we have a bouquet of payment and financing options for them to choose from. Finally, to promote our annual ‘Back to School’ and ‘Back to College’ initiatives, we recently released a campaign titled ‘Yeh Hai Padhai 2.0’. The TVC showcases how learning has changed, and so has the way we learn. This is being supported by an influencer outreach featuring Harsha Bhogle, Tisca Chopra, Mandira Bedi, and Amrita Raichand.

Internally, what kind of yardsticks and measurement techniques do you use to evaluate customer satisfaction for you to keep raising the bar every year?

We have built a feedback loop with our customers online and offline. At Dell’s India website, we consolidate all the customer data in the form of product reviews, satisfaction scores, time taken to resolve issues, and repeats in the system thathelps us improve the website experience and product quality. On the offline front, we regularly incorporate feedback received on the prices, offers, and financing options, from stores across the country. These strategies and outreach have worked to our advantage allowing us to come up with breakthrough products and keep our customers satisfied.

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment