One Size Doesn't Fit All

Naveen Munjal Jan 04, 2022

The tumultuous nature of the past two years has seen a dramatic shift in the marketing landscape globally. The outbreak of Covid-19 has forced us into a rethink mode and further helped us become far more efficient in the way we conduct ourselves.

Perhaps, the biggest takeaway for us at Hero Electric, from a marketing standpoint, is the monumental rise of hyper-personalisation being imbibed as a key resource to continue growing. It’s not hard to see why, either. The new-age digital consumer is inundated with information being dished out, and as a result, user engagement with content has gone down considerably. Customers are now far more aware and demand a more personalised digital experience, including offers and recommendations. In fact, according to a Google/Greenberg study, 61% of consumers expect brands to deliver tailor-made experiences to them at an individual level.

It has become increasingly evident that consumers will be more likely to purchase from someone whose offerings are personalised. Gone are the days of cookie-cutter campaigns and a one-size-fits-all digital strategy. So-called ‘Spray-And-Pray’ campaigns simply don’t cut it anymore!

This is where hyper-personalisation comes in. The goal is to create a loyal user base, a highly sticky product, low customer churn, and have plenty of evangelists, and this is done by way of combing through behavioural data, browsing behaviour, purchase data, and personal information to create one-to-one communication campaigns with each customer, even at large scale. The scene is set all the more considering the average digital consumer owns in excess of 3 digital devices, which all combine to generate a large amount of real-time behavioural data. The research backs it up, too: according to a recent report by Deloitte, a successful hyper-personalisation campaign can boost marketing ROI by 800 times.

Hyper-Personalisation For Deeper Penetration

Hero Electric understands the pivotal role that hyper-personalisation plays in the growth and development of any product and have invested heavily in tier 2 and 3 cities owing primarily to the increasing penetration of the internet. Logically, social media platforms play a very crucial role. Consumers spend in excess of 4 hours a day, on average, on various social media platforms, and prefer interacting with their brands there. Ditching automated responses and creating a more personalised campaign is one of the many layers of our hyper-personalisation drive. There is, of course, no doubt that consumers form the backbone of a company, and that their convenience must be put to the fore of any initiative. Our aim has been to create a seamless offline to online transition and give them the feel of an offline store online.

And while the concept of electric vehicles may be a fairly new one across our country, its benefits cannot be ignored, and the task at hand has been to reach out to consumers, make them aware of the growing benefits of owning an electric vehicle over a regular internal combustion engine-based two-wheelers, and consequently drive them towards investing in a greener, more sustainable and a more economically viable future.

Hero Electric is handling this is by harnessing the power of social media platforms and creating targeted campaigns to create a unique one-to-one relationship with its customers. We are using technology and platforms like ‘Sales Force’ to aid and assist our dealerships to strengthen our customer relationships, and thereby give them the appropriate tools to convert inquiries into sales.

Listening to our customers is key, and a large portion of that is achieved thanks to our contact centres that log our consumers’ preferences and allow us to provide the most competent product experience. A byproduct of this is that there are far more inbound queries than outbound, giving us a better understanding of customer needs and preferences giving us a leg up on effective lead generation.

Adding ever greater convenience to our customers is a big priority for us, too, and our hybrid sales model introduced post-2020 furthered that sentiment. It allowed customers to browse our website, select their desired vehicle and book it directly from there instead of making the trip to a local dealership. The orders were subsequently fulfilled by local dealers closest to the customers’ vicinity. As a direct consequence, our dealers, partners and employees have also been trained and upskilled in order to ensure that they are able to service the customer far better using this hybrid method.

The results of our push towards a hybrid model with a high level of personalisation were remarkable, our online sales went up from a mere 1,000 odd vehicles just a few years back to over 12,000 last year. To push online sales, we have held numerous webinars and customer sessions to address their queries and doubts re electric vehicles and even came up with a three-day return policy, which was the first of their kind of initiatives in the automotive industry.

As we delve deeper into hyper-personalisation to better our interaction with our customers, banking on data derived from our investments in artificial intelligence will be key. This, of course, involves a deep dive into user behaviour on the internet, but while doing so, we keep a very conscious eye out for not breaching any privacy laws that every customer is entitled to.

Its Power To Continue

The curtain is dropping on the year 2021, and it’s becoming even more evident now that, however much hyper-personalisation dominated the year gone by, it will only serve to be a continuous ally to companies like Hero Electric in the year 2022, as the world grapples to get back on its feet and customers become ever more aware, ever more demanding, and even more deserving of an experience that’s bespoke for them.

In a sense, 2022 will bring even new learnings and a far more personalised and interaction and stronger engagement with our customers this coming year, with plenty of new learnings thrown in along the way, of course.