A Hot Tea Shop buys 20 times more tea than an average household, making it a significant distribution channel. Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) has a team to service this channel. However, the relationship is purely transactional. HUL aimed to establish an emotional relationship that would ultimately result in brand loyalty, higher Share of Revenues and barrier to competition, for its tea brands.

While the shop owners decide which brand to purchase, the tea makers are major influencers. With 98% of them owning mobile phones and using them ONLY for Voice Calls, mobile is their primary media touch-point. Hence, we developed a CRM programme for Hot Tea Shop owners and workers on Mobile IVRS, called ‘The Good Life Club’.

The Club offers members free entertainment and utility services, also, providing HUL a channel to send relevant communication to the TG at any point of time, on their personal phone.

The Good Life Club is based solely on Mobile Interactive Voice Response Services (IVRS). Hence, all the content needed to be in audio format, structured in small bytes, suitable for mobile phone. The language of the IVRS was Tamil, which is what the TG speaks.

The TG has high affinity towards Tamil cinema, celebrities and songs. Moreover, the mobile phone is their sole medium of entertainment. So, we created a free of charge IVR portal which hosts popular entertainment content. Celebrity brand ambassadors of various brands were utilized to send subtle branded messages through pre-recorded Voice calls to the TG. We also facilitated the TG to have a Live Chat on phone with Tamil Superstar Vikram, which enhanced their feeling of being given special treatment.

Other than this, a dedicated customer-care helpline helped the TG get in touch with the Company directly.

The entertainment portal became a huge success amongst the TG, clocking 10-15 minutes individual usage per month, which is five times more than the industry average.

The dedicated customer care helpline enabled the company to sort out any sales or product issues with the customers in 50% less turn-around-time.

The volume of sales in Good Life Club cities (Madurai and Coimbatore) has grown by 9% within the first three months of initiating the programme. The growth rate of Sales in these cities is 40% more compared to other similar markets.