Constant Beta

I had a terrible and almost terrifying experience at The Body Shop store today. I love their products but after this incident, I am probably never stepping foot in their stores ever again.

Taking advantage of their annual sale, I shopped for a bunch of products. A few hours later, back in the car, I realized that I had paid for 5 products but received only 4. I assumed that the employee who rang me must have forgotten to give me my 5th item. I went back to the store and told the manager what had happened.
The manager rudely replied back saying he cannot give me a free product and that I would have to come back the next day to talk to the employee who rang my sale.

I politely explained I wasn’t asking for a free product but just the product that I had paid for and not received. I also told him how I don’t live in the vicinity and it is going to cost me more to return to the shop the next day than the price of the product.

At this point, the manager should have simply told me that he is sorry for my inconvenience but he would be glad to give me a call tomorrow when the employee gets in and have me come in and take my product. Instead of executing his customer service duties, he said to me, are you sure you didn’t just drop it or leave the product somewhere? This enraged me. I asked the manager directly if he was insinuating me of trying to cheat the store.
I have worked in retail before. Usually, when an employee forgets to give the customer all the products, they always account for it and let their managers know. This particular employee had not done that.

I further asked the manager, what if this employee quits tomorrow? Does that mean I am going to be stiffed of my money? And the manager said, yes. It is his word against yours.

I told the manager that I had worked in retail before and I know they keep employee phone numbers on file. I asked him if he’d mind calling the said employee and asking him about it. The manager again, in a very uncooperative manner said that he would do no such thing. And then, he asked me to leave his store. He threatened to call the security on me.

So I asked him to ahead and call the security. I said I needed to speak to someone higher than him anyways. He made the call. While I waited at the counter for the security to arrive, the manager disappeared in the Body Shop store room. He emerged two minutes later, came up to me, picked up a product and threw it in my bag. For a second I didn’t understand what just happened. And I asked him that. He said that he had called the said employee who was responsible for my sale and the employee confirmed that he had indeed forgotten to give me my product. And so the manager, THREW the product in my bag.

I just didn’t know how to respond. I was so taken aback by this manager’s behavior that I walked out of the store without glancing back at him. But then I remembered that the security was on their way. So I returned back to the store to meet the security. I lodged a complain with them and I intend to take this matter up with The Body Shop.

First, the manager accuses me of lying. Then, instead of calling the said employee when I requested him to, he absolutely refused to help me out. Lastly, when he realized that I was right and was indeed stiffed of a product I had paid for, he THREW the product in my bag and didn’t even apologize!

I’m not stupid. I understand retail. I understand he had to confirm with his employee but shouldn’t a retail chain like The Body Shop have a better system in place? What if the employee had forgotten or denied having forgotten to give me my product? It would be his word against mine and ultimately, I’d be stiffed of my money.

This entire ordeal cost me 45 minutes of my time and not to mention, the distress ever since. I keep playing the scene again and again in my head. How could he threaten to call security on me?! On a customer that his store had cheated by not giving all the products in first place?

I have always loved The Body Shop but this experience had left just such a bad taste in my mouth. It’s 3am and I am still so upset. I am writing it here because I don’t know how else The Body Shop will hear about this. Oh btw, when I returned to ask the store manager his name so that I could lodge my complain, he asked me to get out of his store and he refused to give me his name.

Companies that don’t understand customer service shouldn’t be in the business of retail at all. I used to work for Bath & Body Works and their products may not be of the same quality as The Body Shop, but atleast they understand how to treat customers.

FYI – The value of the product I had returned to collect was $5. And the only reason I had returned to collect the product was because they don’t make it anymore and I was lucky to have found it in a sale.

**Update:  The Body Shop got back to me immediately this morning. They tweeted me and asked for my phone number. An hour late, Director of Customer Service called me and spoke to me for 20 minutes. She listened to my ordeal patiently and was just as surprised and shocked by my experience. I told her that I love The Body Shop and I understand that this experience was probably an anamoly but nonetheless, I had to inform The Body Shop because I don’t want anyone else being treated this way. She was amazing about the whole thing – she took down the location, date and time of the incident and told me as next steps, she will be getting in touch with the District Manager and through him to the Manager who treated me this way. She said, this will absolutely be addressed.

I didn’t and will not reveal the store location here. My intention is not to get the Manager fired or have him lose his job. But my intention is for him to acknowledge and realize that he was very unprofessional and disturbingly unpleasant with me. This is a tough ecoonomy and we are all doing our best to hang on to our jobs. I work in the client-servicing business too and I know that now, more than ever is the time to notch up on customer service. I just don’t want any other customer to be treated this way by that Manager.

Anyways, I am glad that The Body Shop listened and took the time to call me and placate my distress. I love the company and will continue to support their products. So Body Shop  – thank you once again, for listening.

I had a very Enid Blyton-esque weekend trip to Storm King over the long weekend. It’s a five-hundred acre open-air art museum just outside of New York. We picked a good day to visit because it wasn’t very crowded. At one point, we even wondered if we were the only ones there. The entire landscape is punctuated by modern sculptures that I really struggled to understand. Art is subjective – and I don’t yet have a very refined sense of it.

But we did have a wonderful picnic of fresh mangoes, Comte cheese, bread and plum tomatoes! Also, we walked right through Maya Lin’s Bodies of Water exhibit which was, simply put, brilliant. Lin’s exhibit reminded me of the pastoral, flowing hills of Tuscany. This might as well be a tiny Tuscan replica. Although it did look better from a distance.

Sculptures make me think. Most of time, I wonder about what was going through the artists mind and what this piece signifies. It is important to me that art stands for something – that it makes a statement. I suppose, it is also important to me that ordinary folks should be able to understand it and the metaphor it represents. It doesn’t have to be world-changing, but at the very least – its gotta have substance and make me think or feel something intense. And Maya Lin’s Bodies of Work was intense, for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot of about art and especially the phrase, “A picture paints a thousand words.” – or however it is that the saying goes. I attended a Pecha Kucha a few months ago where my favorite-st artist, Jonathan Harris, presented his work, “Whale Hunt” I had seen this project before online and it’s been passed around and written about quite a lot. But I’d never heard him actually present it, explain it or tell the story around it.
I listened with rapt attention as he narrated his experience with the aid of the photographs. As he spoke about the cold, as he told us how it takes the entire village to pull out the whale and how the certain parts of the whale are more prized than the rest. His words, his storytelling actually gave the project a lot more perspective and depth than simply exploring the photographs. Not sure if anyone else felt that way, but I did.

Anyways, back to StormKing – it was comforting to be away fro the city and surrounded by a carpet of green. I’m also sharing a few pictures – with people in them. (I don’t know how many people actually enjoy photos of scenery without people in them – I don’t!) Be kind though. I’d be very upset if these photos turned up photo-shopped somewhere else on the net. Jk.

Last night, before falling asleep I asked myself, when did writing become a chore? These days, I’ve been spending my evenings and down-time just consuming. Consuming content, ideas, thoughts, words, images – without processing, sharing or even commenting about them. Working in the digital industry sometimes robs me of my appreciation of it. So many voices, so many ideas – why bother sharing mine only to have it drown out? Thus, I become a victim of my own creation.

Let me share with you what I’ve been doing the last few weeks. On a recent visit to Target, I stumbled upon a book called, “The Mysterious Benedict Society,” in the Young Adults section. Over the next five nights, I lost myself in Trenton Lee Stewart world.

The story is of four unusually talented children who embark upon mysterious and super-secretive adventures. The storytelling, aided with the help of puzzles, is different and unlike something I’ve read in a long time. When I’m so entrenched in a world created by a book, it disappoints me when it ends. I find myself continuing to savor the moods, colors and the feel of that world for a few days after. As a marketer, I wonder why content producers and publishers don’t make an effort to cash in on this afterglow. The Mysterious Benedict Society though, did create a lovely website.

Another YA book that reminiscent of Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) is ‘The Diary of A Wimpy Kid.” It’s a quick, wholesome read and I laughed through most of the book. The book is written in the voice of a over-exuberant 11 year old kid (who knows exactly what his strengths and weaknesses are!) His pithy comments and observations about his family, school and friends are remarkably and brutally honest. It doesn’t matter if you are a kid or an adult, I promise you will enjoy this book series.

Why my interest in YA books, you may ask. Well, for one, its summer and my brain takes a vacation. So right now, while my physical self is on a loft on Bond Street furiously typing away and doing some very important life-changing work, my brain, is actually happily romping through the tulip fields of Amsterdam and gorging on brownies. And I really, should not disturb it.

On a more serious note, I prefer YA books because I admire authors who can create interesting worlds, characters and stories for children. Children’s books are so blessedly free of complex emotions. They are simple, often innocent, make you laugh and how can you not like that?

If my choices in books and movies finds you questioning my IQ, let me assure that I also watched the Oscar-nominated ‘In Bruges’ with the delicious Colin Farrel. (who plays a dumb hit-man in the movie!) Loved it. I’m quite fond of movies that mock morality and fate. I swear, I’ve laughed, cried, been amused and even cringed while watching this movie. When a movie can make you feel all those emotions – it bloody well be nominated for an Oscar.

I promise to now update more regularly. Not just my musings about the digital cultures, branding and marketing. My life, I guess, is more interesting that I give myself credit

Another terrific discussion on BBH Labs blog about the digital narrative:
And here’s my comment.

I don’t think that digital storytelling and the brand storytelling are necessarily divorced from one another. Infact, I’m not sure if a narrative-based digital campaign will be successful on its own. Narrative and a story builds over time. To think that digital can manage that with one campaign, one microsite, one widget is to basically apply the same, tired old advertising-thinking to new behavioral models.

I should share the story of Amul Butter. Amul is one of India’s leading dairy companies. Since the 70’s (probably even before) Amul Butter advertisements (print, billboards etc) have been satirical observations of culture, politics, cricket and bollywood. Yet – tied effortlessly to the brand. This three-decade old archive of advertisements might as well be the best interpretation and elucidation of the country’s pop culture. The consistency, the witty-writing/ creative and the dogged dedication to the narrative have made these advertisements and Amul Butter one of India’s most loved brands. The brand inspires passion, loyalty and patriotism as the new entrants try to bite off Amul’s share of the market.

Amul is not a ‘digital brand’ yet – but it operates in very different markets where billboards are more relevant and pervasive than the internet. But the larger lesson I hoped to highlight by sharing this story is that: the point of storytelling is to evoke passion. And that happens over long-term.

Sharing examples of Charlie-bit-me videos is fine – but thats a one-time hit. When was the time we spoke about the Numa song or the Chinese backstreet boys ? One-time hits fizzle out eventually – everything on the web fizzles out eventually as newwer, shiner, funnier stories emerge. I don’t argue the value of a one-time growth spurt for a brand, but if we are talking about storytelling, lets not look at the web as a as a very in-the-moment/ instant-gratification medium. Investment in new media and its planning should be a strategic long term plan, not a short-term hit. Only then, will we be adding any tangible value. AND creating stories that will be conversed about for years to come.

(Img via Flickr)

Because of the instant-nature of my job, I often don’t find time to sit down, reflect and compute the bytes of information that I feed into my head daily via Twitter, Facebook and a number of other networks. I try not to lose focus of my personal goals as I gain more work experience and become more confident and self-assured daily.

I consider my current phase of life as a “training” period for my next phase of life, which is running my own business. I think a lot about how I want my life to make a difference, the impact I want to make. I will be honest – my primary goal is to build a highly profitable and financially successful business and I don’t harbor false notions about my capitalistic desires. However, I also want to be a strong leader and I want to create a business that will impact more than a handful of lives. An honorable business that will create jobs and hopefully, contribute to the general well-being of society. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but for now I am also sub-consciously training myself to be a leader, to understand how to run a business and to learn from both the good habits and the bad habits of entrepreneurs. I’ve picked up a few ideas and values that I want to build my business around. I just wanted to put them down on paper, so here:

1) Execute quickly and efficiently: This is the most important thing I have learned and it is the single most common factor all entrepreneurial minded have in common. I must have heard, ‘better to ask for forgiveness than permission’ about 10 times from all different people. It is branded in my head now. It is important to think things through and be doggedly focused on the end goal. It is equally important to not gloss over the details in the beginning, because it is not a pleasant situation to deal with midway down the road. But the point is – do your homework fast and just execute. Start making, building, selling – whatever it is your idea is. But just start it.

2) Cut a good deal, but provide equal value: I don’t like asking for or doing free work unless it is a fair barter. When doing a free project for an author, he asked me “How can I make this worth your while?” I had never been asked that question before. It showed me integrity. It showed me that I was dealing with a fair businessman who was also looking out for my best interests. Not everyone in the business world is going to look out for my best interests, but those who do – I know I want to hang on to them.
This is a principle I want to live by and do business by. So when the time comes for me to start pulling in favors, I want to know that I have earned those favors or that I will pay for them. Yes – there are no free lunches.

3) Brilliance shines effortlessly: Some entrepreneurs or wanna-be entrepreneurs feel a strong need to constantly talk about how smart they are, how connected they are and how cool they are. And it gets frankly annoying after a while. The leaders I admire are the ones who know when to talk, when to namedrop and when to shut up. And that is the kind of leader I aspire to be everyday.

4) Inspire loyalty: The founder/ public face of a huge non-profit never thanked his volunteers or even bothered to find out their names when he flew into Philly for a conference organized and managed by the volunteers. Three months later, every single volunteer had quit or moved on. A small gesture of appreciation would have avoided this situation and kept the volunteer roster loyal and motivated. Instead, the non-profit had to struggle for another few months before they could build a sound volunteer board again. Lesson: No employee is too lowly. Don’t gush, but certainly don’t ignore anyone’s contribution. I admire companies and entrepreneurs who are able to retain employees long-term. To me, it says a lot about the company.

5) Give control: I read these stories about how once you are an entrepreneur you cease having a life. No vacations, no time-off. But I have met an equal number of amazing entrepreneurs who build their business around the idea that it will survive and run smoothly without their continued presence. And that happens upon relinquishing control and trusting the right person to take care of the business in your absence.

So that’s what has been on my mind so far. Would love to hear your thoughts and your ideas on what you think makes a good entrepreneur/ leader.

Ben Malbon and team of BBH Labs has an amazing, thought-provoking discussion on Twitter and the future of it.

Here is the comment I posted on the blog: (Read the main post first!)

I think there are two lenses to have this conversation from: a personal lens and a business lens.

On the personal front, I think Maria phrased it the best. Curiosity and Credibility -also lets not forget instant gratification that this medium allows us. From a theoretical POV, I can also argue, vanity and a kind of cultural megalomania (look how funny my tweets are, or how cool the links I share are)
Whatever the reasons, they pander to the very basic human instinct and we respond to them. I think these responses are also quite evident on Facebook (rememeber how everyone had the ‘Places I have visited’ and the ‘Books I have read’ applications installed when the aps first premiered? ) However, on Twitter – the gratification is on steroids! The speed, the quickness, the instant-ness…
I think what Twitter has done, is made us as human beings incredibly self-aware. We have come to realize the power of our words, our curatorial abilities and our personalities – and because it is so easily manifested on Twitter, I think this is just the beginning. As Twitter evolves, we too, will evolve how we use it.

On the business front, I personally think the answer has never been clearer or simpler. I believe that brands and entrepreneurs are coming to accept that perhaps, the only value with investing time and resources on Twitter is that of a direct connection with the customers. Cliched, but I cannot think of a single social technology that has made customer service so incredibly simple or relevant.

As a collective Twitter community, we have also evolved from the obsessive need to gain ‘followers’ and ‘follow’ people back. Infact, now if I see someone following everyone that follows them – they lose a little bit of credibility with me. It goes to show that they are not curating the information they receive – only paying attention to the information they send out.

It is OK for brands to follow / harness only their audiences. They don’t and shouldn’t feel obligated anymore to follow everyone back. The barriers to entry on Twitter are only diminishing – So in that respect – I believe for brands and businesses, this is just the beginning.

No. I don’t think this is the end of the beginning. Early-adopters such as ourselves may move on to some other technology, but that does not mean Twitter has peaked. We early adopters moved on from Hi5 and Friendster – but those networks continue to thrive. Albeit, with a different audience, but they are successful.

Early adopters like us are never the sole/ target audience of any new technology. Also, any new technology takes atleast a few years before it finds who the ‘monetiziable’ audience is and eventually, it evolves into pandering to that audience. More often than not, early adopters are not that audience.

About monetizing Twitter itself – that’s a question I think everyone is interested in watching how and when that will happen.

Brilliant!

This is where the recession has its upside. Its pushing everyone out of their comfort zones.
DDB West created a snazzy, clever website for a new project “The Rebound Project” positioning themselves as an agency ready for a gaming project. In another instance, this months’ Fast Company issue carries a full-page advertisement (yes print!) by innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212 making an open bid for interesting projects to work on for free*.

I don’t know if its working for either of them, but I have to applaud their efforts

I am a few days late but I wanted to compute and think through what I learned at the conference. Once again, thank you to Anjali Ramchandran who very graciously donated me her PSFK Conference ticket. I couldn’t believe my luck and her kindness. Anjali – thank you very much again!

The day kicked off with an amazing panel on Rethinking healthcare. My most important learning from this panel? Simplify complex problems using design and information. I wrote in more detail about this particular panel here.

The next talk, Ghosts in the Darkness, by Celestine Arnold, was perhaps my favorite and the most illuminating talk of the day. Celestine chose a very interesting topic – the representation of minorities in video games, social networks and virtual worlds. Throughout her talk, I wished I had a tape-recorder because I wanted to remember everything she was saying. Her talk centered around how most video-games are created for and cater to a very white market and about the stereotypical representation of minorities in the games. Her deck is not yet online but I’ll be sure to share it.

Next up was Kevin Slavin of Area/Code: Best quote of the day came from him, “Mobile is an ecosystem that cell phones happen to be a part of”
Slavin made some incredibly thought provoking comments about the relationship we have with inanimate objects. ‘All objects are living things and have a sou. We are headed into a world where entities have a physical presence and a digital presence.”

The panel on sustainability with Sarah Beatty (Green Depot) Simon Collins (Parsons) Ryan Jacoby (IDEO) and Matthew Lusk (Hecho Inc) highlighted how the conversation around sustainability has evolved. Collins summed it up in the very beginning of the discussion, Sustainability is not a destination, it is a journey. What I took away from this panel was that sustainability comes down to intelligent design (designers) and intelligent choices (consumers)

The most fun I had was at the Open to Change panel with panelists John Geraci (outside.in) Scott Heiferman (Meetup.com) Avner Ronen (boxee.tv) and Domenico Vitale (www.pic-nyc.com)
This panel focused on how creators and the community come together to develop new thinking and make ideas happen. Nothing new learned, but just re-affirmed my own believes and faith in the power of the community. It’s fantastic to see entrepreneurs like Avner Ronen spending much of his time building the community around Boxee. I particularly enjoyed an anecdote he shared: Boxee has a wiki set up and Avner made a note on the wiki about an upcoming pitch with Hulu and its content partners. In no time, Boxee fans and its community had written and provided insights into the pitch document that Avner later took to Hulu. Hail the community!!

The only drawback of this panel was that instead of allowing the panelists to speak, the moderator answered the audience questions! Also, he talked more than any of the panelists. :S

And as a delicious finish – Wooster Collective’s, Marc (also my boss!) and Sara Schiller, talked about street art and basically, why tweaking the public space is so infectious. They shared a terrific compendium of public art photographs from their own archives. “We used the internet to celebrate an art form that was only being discussed as vandalism by traditional media.”
So why is tweaking the public space so infections? Marc says, “It is site-specific, allows the city to become a collaborator, adds context and meaning and most importantly – becomes personal and intimate.” The ephemeral quality of street art is what makes its impact so profound.

Piers and team – congratulations on an amazing job with the conference!