Leveraging Customer Service as Competitive Advantage

With the globalization of the business world, competition is more fierce than ever before. Companies lose deals to competitors located half way around the world and are always looking for ways to win new business. One of the ways companies are looking to one-up their competition is by highlighting their excellent customer service. In fact, the customer service as a whole is not something many companies excel at, which makes companies that truly shine at the very end of the experience process more appealing to prospects or customers.

Discussion Points

  • Since the time Covid has hit the world, we hear from the Industry leaders that Customer Service is a big differentiator. How is Customer Service an integral part of your business strategy? Could you please share your thoughts.
  • When it comes to Customer Service, it’s important to be agile & innovative as the Competition is also evolving it’s own strategy. How does technology play a role in this process and what are your expectations from platform providers like ServiceNow?
  • Philip Kotler – widely regarded as the Father of Modern Marketing – popularized the idea of 4Ps – Product, Price, Place & Promotion. In this modern times, how does Customer Service compliment these 4Ps and bring in that “Wow” factor for your Customers. What are your views?
  • “Voice of the customer” or “Customer Feedback” is what the Industry leaders clearly call out as an effective tool to include the Customer in the entire Customer experience journey. What are some of the ways, you incorporate the Customer feedback in your product & solutions offering and how critical it is to the success of your organization.
  • Last question / Rapid fire – : Which company or brand according to you is the epitome of “Leveraging Customer Service as a competitive advantage” and why?

Speakers

A Balakrishnan
Managing Director
Geojit Technologies

Binod Hampapur
Executive Vice President
Infosys

Jolly Zachariah
Head of Service and Customer Experience
Ujjivan SFB

Kushagra Goswami
Senior Solutions Specialist – Customer Workflow
ServiceNow

Lakshmi Natarajan
Global Technology and Service Management Process Leader
Cargill business services

Sachin Srivastava
VP Customer Success & Managed Services
Mobileum India

Shashwat Singh
Digital Transformation Leader
Kimberly-Clark India

A Balakrishnan, Managing Director, Geojit Technologies

Joined as IT Head and CTO in 1998. Served as Managing Director of Geojit Technologies – a Subsidiary of Geojit Financial Services Ltd. for 6 years. Became Executive Director of Geojit Financial Services Ltd in 2018.
Board Member of Barjeel Geojit Financial Services LLC – UAE – a Joint Venture with Al Saud Group

After post graduation, joined in National Informatics Center, New Delhi and then moved to private sector in 1996.
Recognitions:-
Twice obtained IDG Media CIO-100 award. Manager of the Year 2009 from Kerala Management Association.
BNP Paribas Innovation Award.

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Binod Hampapur, Executive Vice President, Infosys

Binod Hampapur Rangadore is an Executive Vice President and the Global Head of Talent and Technology Operations & Quality. Binod is responsible for the following functions in Infosys:

• Recruitment
• Global Immigration
• Quality
• Government Relations
• India Business Unit
• Computer & Communications Division
• Information Systems
• Information Security Group
• Procurement

He is a “Trustee” of the Infosys Foundation & Infosys Employee Welfare Trust.

Binod has over 35 years of industry experience and has held several leadership positions at Infosys. He joined the company in 1993 as the Head of Manpower Planning. From 1996 to 1998, he was Head of the Customer Support Group for the Banking business unit. Subsequently, he was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Commercial and Facilities functions. Binod took on the role of the Global Head of Commercial and Corporate Relations functions in 2010.

As a responsible corporate citizen, Binod has funded the establishment of a 150-bed hospital for Sri Sringeri Mutt. In an honorary role, he is the Chairman of the Board of Governors at Rangadore Memorial Hospital, which is named after his father, the late H.S. Rangadore.
Binod started his career in MICO BOSCH as a technical sales engineer. He has a bachelor’s degree in industrial and production engineering from the BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, India.

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Jolly Zachariah, Head of Service and Customer Experience, Ujjivan SFB

PFB the profile of Mr Zachariah. Please note that his designation is ‘Head of Customer Service & Customer Experience’. Attached is his picture for your reference.

Jolly Zachariah, Head of Customer Service & Customer Experience joined Ujjivan inspired by its mission. He has over 22 years of banking experience with Citigroup, specialising in retail banking where he managed Consumer Banking and Cards businesses of diverse scope and scale across geographies of India, Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America. He has played an important role in establishing Ujjivan’s presence in urban Maharashtra and Gujarat as the Chief Operating Officer – West. Thereafter, as Head of Channels he was instrumental in setting up customer Channels at the bank, including Digital channels when Ujjivan became a SFB in 2017, before taking over his current responsibility.

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Kushagra Goswami, Senior Solutions Specialist – Customer Workflow, ServiceNow

Management graduate with experience of growing businesses from near scratch in
South East Asia, India subcontinent, ANZ in the past nine years.
o Driving Solutioning for Large, Medium Enterprise B2B Sales, Sales thru and with strategic Partners for global delivery.
o Helped the setup of three SAAS companies in the digital transformation space in the last decade across various industries and verticals.
o Expertise in driving conversations at CFO,CIO, CEO levels.
o Passion for driving Customer experience, Social Media, Digital, Business Intelligence solutions.
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Lakshmi Natarajan, Global Technology and Service Management Process Leader, Cargill business services

Lakshmi Natarajan is a seasoned Information Technology and Svc Management Leader, with career spanning in several large scale organizations in the field. She has vast experience in leading strategic and key initiatives in the IT and Service management space, and enjoys her career with industries of global set-up, with a common perspective of creatively applying technology and associated processes to drive business value.
Tata Consultancy Services, Price water house Coopers, Saxo Bank A/S, Walmart India, General Electric, EATON Corp, Ministry of Environment and Forests (Govt of India), Cargill Incorporated are the companies she has been associated with during her career.

Lakshmi is currently associated with Cargill Business Services, and operates from Gurgaon facilities. In her present global role, she is accountable for “Design and deployment of the Service Management Processes”, “Customer Experience Enrichment Initiatives”, and Other Operational Excellence Programs such as Knowledge Management etc, for the CBS Functions across the globe (7 centers with 6 business functions)
Lakshmi is also Leadership Coach associated with International Coach Federation (ICF), and currently pursuing her journey to attain ICF certification.

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Sachin Srivastava, VP Customer Success & Managed Services, Mobileum India

20+ years of global experience in the Telecom Industry. Career span of varying responsibilities across different geographies; right from sales/pre-sales, bid management, business development to software development, project deliveries, project/program management, professional services, product management, bid management and customer success.

Worked in different industry verticals like automotive, mobile technology, M2M IOT, RISK, Network Security, testing and across different functions. Bring to the table a unique perspective due to the different roles – including – Head of Global support, Head of Delivery (OEM), Head of Business line allowing me to have a 360 degree view.

As head of Global support – supporting Customer success and managed services across different business verticals globally.

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Shashwat Singh, Digital Transformation Leader, Kimberly-Clark India

Shashwat has 14 years’ experience being at the helm of digital transformation for FMCG majors. He is currently working as Digital Transformation Lead with Kimberly-Clark, in his latest role he is working on the logistics and supply chain control tower vertical of multimillion-dollar business transformation program that KC has embarked upon powered by S4 HANA. Prior to KC he has worked as IT Head for Supply Chain for Unilever South Asia and has partnered the Chief Supply Chain Officer and his SCLT (supply chain leadership team) and delivered the digital agenda for the function, he has also briefly partnered the CFO and his FLT (finance leadership team). He has also worked with Asian Paints and briefly with Infosys.

Shashwat is a passionate leader with extensive experience in spearheading multiple transformation programs. He is a SC strategist with proven track record of delivering business value with deep subject matter expertise in core business processes. He firmly believes in leading by example & inspiring people to deliver performance improvement & positive top & bottom line impact.

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