PGDM 2018-20

TEAM: 04 SECTION: A
PROJECT REPORT
SUBJECT: - INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATION
TOPIC: - How retailing websites are trying to influence the
consumers keeping in mind their motivation, belief and
attitude.

SUBMITTED BY:

SUBMITTED TO: ASHISH CHANDRA - GM18058

ADIL SIDDIQUI - GM18009
DR. ARPITA SRIVASTAV
ADITI AGRAWAL - GM18010
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ABHISHEK KUKRETI- GM18006
ANSHIKA TRIPATHI - GM18046
FLIPKART
BREAKING COMMUNICATION BARRIERS THROUGH LANGUAGE CONNECTIVITY
“Flipkart’s focus is customer experience,” reflects Valli. “Consumers are the backbone of any e-
commerce company. Communication strengthens our rapport with customers. Our customer
support team is very dedicated. We constantly and consistently strive to be open to communicating
with our customers through as many channels as possible. These include live chat, social media,
tele-calling, and others.”
These channels function in different ways but all aim to fulfill the motto of ‘customer first’. Live
Chat services are available through the Flipkart mobile app only. It was initiated a year ago.
Instead of calling or drafting an email to the Flipkart Customer Support team, one can chat with
the team live to seek a resolution. Social media platform is used to cater to customers’ needs
through social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs. Tele calling is operational
24/7 to address customer queries, complaints and receive feedback.
Language plays a crucial role in successful communication, and Flipkart provides ease of
communication to its customers by providing the regional language option for conversations with
customer support personnel,” Paramjith informs.
Why does Flipkart use kids voiced by adults for their television adverts?
Flipkart’s ads with kids speaking in adult voices are memorable. I believe that’s done for primarily
2 reasons:

1. To make ads more memorable (which I already admitted to above). It is a novel concept,
and thus, the brand recall is high when thinking about Flipkart. Who does not like
adorable kids acting like adults anyway ?;
2. The ads wouldn’t have been as pricey when compared to those that have celebrities or
popular actors in them. Having kids in those ads would have helped reduce costs
substantially and keep expenses in check.

Here’s how Flipkart is innovating to redefine customer experience

Ranjith Boyanapalli, Vice President of Product at Flipkart proclaims that it’s been an unwritten
rule of business for India’s largest e-commerce company that economics comes only second to
customer experience.

“At Flipkart, we’re obsessed with innovating to ensure the best in class customer experience which
is the key differentiator that helps Flipkart stay on top. We sift through vast amounts of data and
research every day to learn about our customers, listen to them, understand their pain points and
alleviate them. Besides, customer focussed group discussions keep happening at Flipkart,” states
Ranjith Boyanapalli, Vice President of Product at Flipkart

Flipkart has introduced several industry-first initiatives for its customers. It was the first online
retailer to come up with Cash on Delivery (COD), an innovation in payments that ushered e-
commerce and helped build trust among customers for shopping online.
Product Exchange Program

Marking another industry first, Flipkart offered PREXO (Product Exchange)Program where the
customer is able to get a good price for his old mobile phone, large appliance or laptops against
the purchase or a new device in the same category. This reduces the average price of purchase
for the customer by 10 to 30% based on the condition and life of the old device and demand for
the same allowing for customers to buy phones with better specifications at a higher price point
than it would have been possible in the past. “Phones were getting updated in about 12 months,
so we realized that we should offer an exchange program because consumers are willing to sell
their phones in 12 months at most. We used our technology capabilities and launched easy
product exchange, wherein customers are given full value for their old goods which are
immediately exchanged with a new product,” he says.

The valuation of the product is done online and then it is exchanged when the new product is
delivered, making the process seamless. Easy product exchange has not only fulfilled a unique
Indian need but also made new products more affordable for Indians.

No Cost EMI

Another novel offering to the customer is the No Cost EMI where there is no interest cost for an
EMI charged to the customer ensuring the customer can have a longer repayment tenure and also
be able to make more purchases.

The No Cost EMI entails zero processing fee, zero down payment and zero interest for
customers. Unlike offline offerings, where customers have to make a down payment and pay a
processing fee to avail interest-free schemes, Flipkart’s offering has no such hidden costs. This
move by Flipkart goes a long way in making high-value products like smartphones, TVs,
refrigerators affordable to a large section of Indians.

Assured Buy Back Program

On May 10, 2017, Flipkart launched the Assured Buy Back Program. This is a first in the online
market in India where on the purchase of this policy with the mobile phone the consumer is
guaranteed an exchange price for the phone at the end of fixed tenures. At the end of the policy
tenure, the customer gets a guaranteed price by exchange the device on the purchase of the new
device on Flipkart.

Flipkart is a preferred destination for mobile customers. Over the last few years, the number of
customers who upgrade their phones more frequently on Flipkart has gone up due to the lower
cost of ownership. A Buy Back Guarantee offering on the phone re-enforces the reliability and
quality of the brand for the customer and also ensures that the customer is able to upgrade his
phone at the end of his policy tenure.

The Assured Buy Back Program reduces the long-term cost of ownership of the mobile phone by
protecting the customer against technology disruptions as the customer is guaranteed an
exchange price at the end of his tenure on the purchase or new phone irrespective of the demand
of that brand or specifications at the time of upgrade.

The lower cost of ownership allows the customer to upgrade to better specification phones and a
higher frequency. The buyback guarantee also ensures that the customer can experiment with
newer brands in the market that he has not used before

“In our most recent Big 10 sale, we saw 70 percent of all smartphone buyers opt for at least one
of the three offerings (No Cost EMI, Guaranteed buyback and product exchange), helping
increase the average selling price of smartphones by as much as 25 per cent to Rs 12,000 from
Rs 8,000-9,000 during the five-day long sale that ended on May 18,”he reveals.

“For the recently launched Buy Back Guarantee Offering we saw as high as 10% adoption for
some of the models on which this offer was made. For washing machines and refrigerators, we
saw two out of ten customers opting for exchange which reduced the price of their purchases
between 12-15 percent,” he adds

Correct Categorization of Products

For all the products without warranty, they provided us the very easy return policies and for
products with warranty they provided us the door to door service of the product. No more hassle
of connecting with manufacturer to repair product.

No complex rules for us to understand —

 30 day replacement replacement depending on the products.

 Flipkart Warranty Services — Door to Door Service for years

 No returns / replacement for few products

Now every product on Flipkart carries a symbol which is easy for us to understand.

This strategy not only helped in faster checkout but also reduced the number of cancellation and
customer care calls because of lack of readability of product return policies.

Now we can transact with Flipkart very easily, as while buying large appliances after sales service
is always a concern but after this step load was shared by Flipkart.

Large Appliances / Electronics:

Flipkart now picks up the appliances at our door steps. Because of its excellent delivery network
they delivery it to authorized service center on time. Provide us with contact details of the service
center to followup on the progress. Once the appliance is fixed, Flipkart brings product back to us.
Though we can easily guess that the delivery charges are the part of our warranty fee but we don’t
mind paying a little extra for this convenience. We didn’t even question Flipkart for extra fee on
the same.

The only problem with this inclusion of service for Flipkart would be — sometimes we return
products after bad service. In that case Flipkart has to do multiple round of deliveries. From my
internal sources I came to know that, Flipkart charges service center for extra deliveries because
of bad service quality.

In all cases every service center has to declare the list of task that needs to be done to fix the
product. We are asked to agree to the fixes before the service begins. We can also add things to be
fixed in that list. If all the task has been complete, the product is ready to be shipped back to us.

After this world class after sales service by Flipkart, the only decision that we have to take is to
decide which product to buy without worrying about anything else.
Easy Product Return

Returns are painful for both us and Flipkart. Returns kills the excitement of owning the product
and for Flipkart return logistics is very costly. In early days 25–30% products were getting return
but now as per the data published this year — Flipkart has just 1% return. How it happened?

Flipkart collected data from us related to reason of return. They massaged data of last 10 years
and figured out that most of the returns are because of cheap quality products listed on Flipkart.
Rest of the returns are something they can’t avoid — it constitutes only 5% of the returns.

The first step taken by Flipkart was having high quality check but truly however strong quality
checks you have, it never works. You will always have a lot of issues.
Value and experience

Consumers trust Flipkart over Amazon despite the fact they have a better buying experience on
the latter’s website, the survey showed. This includes ease of exploring and ordering products,
delivery predictability, delivery experience, and post-delivery experience.