Scaling Up Customer Loyalty
Perhaps the most critical factor in our
growth (and maybe one not so obvious to most companies that want to do
business at the base of the pyramid) has
been our extreme focus on the customer.
In everything we do, we ask, “Does this
work for the borrower?”–even if it
means operating against our own short-term interests.
It’s hard to identify what’s best for
the Indian customer without immersing yourself in the rhythms of her village. We’ve succeeded by engaging poor
communities in culturally appropriate
ways. When we were first scouting mar-
kets and collecting information about
potential borrowers, for instance, we relied on some of the visual exercises from
my days as a DDS field agent. Instead of
asking villagers, who are often illiterate,
to describe the seasonal pattern of their
cash-flow needs, we had them diagram it
with sticks, seeds, and coins. We encouraged them to use colored chalk powder and flowers to map out the village
on the ground–indirectly telling us
where the poorest people lived, what
kind of financial products they needed,
which areas were lorded over by which
loan sharks, and so on. I personally sat in
tea stalls and lunched in roadside diners,
talking informally and forging bonds
with potential borrowers.
Using this local knowledge, we designed a set of products and a delivery
mechanism specifically for our customers. For example, based on what we
learned from the visual exercises about
how money ebbed and flowed from
households – when pay day was, when
bills came due, what financial crises families faced – we set people’s tiny weekly
repayments as low as $1 per week. In
the same vein, our health insurance and
whole-life insurance premiums are only
$10 a year and 25 cents a week, respectively. We also offer interest-free emer-
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your aspirations. And with a global network of programs in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas, you can fulfill
them almost anywhere. Visit www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/emba or call 847-491-3100
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