Marketing - Royal Resorts Style
There are classical examples of great and innovate marketing campaigns failed to adjudge the key factor of marketing, consumer behavior. It is good to pause as a consumer and think for a moment before trumpeting about the aggressive marketing techniques. I had a chance to experience as a consumer two different styles of marketing and a real eye opener of how simple things a make big difference in life.
It was my first holiday to Goa with my family, the land of sea, sun, fun and freedom. While looking for the food outlets at Mapsua , a biker stopped us introducing him as the representative of Royal Resorts and he had some gifts for us. He made my husband and my daughter open 2 gift coupons and said, “Your daughter has proven very lucky by winning a gift coupon of a holiday package from 5 star Royal Resorts”. He said he would like to take us to the resort at his expense and insisted us to join him. Although we had reservations to go with a stranger, my marketing curiosity took the lead. He took us to the resort and after a very warm greeting, one of their sales people took over the show. She took us a for a tour, then said there were some promotional offers which had to be closed on that day and keep an open mind to what they had to offer. We started the conversation and at one stage I felt this was a stereotype same as their competitors and expressed my opinion.
There you go, suddenly her smile vanished, she put an abrupt end to the talk and said not interested in wasting her and our time. Incidentally, she realized the value of time after we wasted two hours of our time and skipped the lunch for their marketing stunt. We were directed to another area where they quietly gave us a coupon to spent two nights holiday at their resort for two people. Generally, I am a customer who shows lot of patience to understand the client and love to learn from their marketing talks. For me that was unnecessary insult and a real waste of time to deal with overtly aggressive sales person.
If we are not their target customers, they shouldn’t have taken me and my family to their resorts.
If their purpose was to create awareness, the team should have the patience to explain and be polite till the end. A customer is customer. If not today, tomorrow he can become your target customer.
Finally, Sales should be always a team work starting from the person who brings the lead to the person who actually closes the deal.
It was a pleasant experience turned to unpleasant and I said a permanent adieu to Royal resorts.
Marketing - 21 coconut style.
Some people make real difference in life that was what Alex taught me, an ordinary Goan with extra ordinary warmth.
Once our stop by at the Candolim beach, I happened to occupy one of the beach chairs watching my children and husband playing, After half an hour a shy guy emerged “Mam , I own the beach restaurant 21- coconut and this chair belongs to me. If you use the chairs for long time you got to pay 100 rupees / hour or else you need to buy something from my restaurant “ . For me the better option was to get something from them. Although I was little hesitant about hygiene part of the beach side make shift restaurant, myself and children settled on tea. Then I noticed that he had an extra friendly demeanor with all his customers. While we were sipping my coffee he came with an additional plate of cake and told us that it was his birthday. Alex demonstrated about the specialty of his restaurant is the typical goan meal with fish curry and showed my kids the pictures he had clicked with the customers at his restaurant. Before we could leave the place, he gave us a 20 % discount on the bill. Although we could not make it for the fish fry and rice on that day, if ever I pass by Candolim, I would definitely make it to 21 coconuts for a fish masala lunch.
Probably, Alex would have had a birthday every day or one of his brothers.
Probably, the discount he gave us was little less than what he charged to the foreigners.
Regardless, he taught me the biggest lessons of marketing, the practical methods of customer attraction and retention.
