CIOIN

Vijay Sethi

CIO, Hero Honda

Goodlife has doubled the number of enrollments to the Passport program.”

Executive summary

The ability to know what your customers want is key to the success of any business. In Hero Honda’s case, customers wanted Hero Honda to fast forward one of its customer relationship programs and Vijay Sethi stepped up to the job.

When Hero Honda’s CIO, Vijay Sethi, launched project Goodlife, a CRM initiative, he might not have known it, but he made his mark on larger canvas. The CRM project changed the way Hero Honda’s customers viewed the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer. And, by driving the project Sethi planted a new milestone in the company’s history and demonstrated a level of customer focus that can only be defined as transformative.

What did Goodlife change? Most people don’t associate old-economy manufacturers — like those that make motor bikes — with the new age strategies used by strongly-marketed companies. The former are earnest companies that focus on creating durability and reliability — not customer relationship systems that track redeemable points.  But when you already sell the most motorcycles in the world — Hero Honda has crossed the 25 million mark — the next frontier is transforming the way customers interact with you. Sethi’s CRM - customer loyalty project  Goodlife helped do that. It took an existing idea called the Hero Honda Passport program (that allows customers to collect points on purchases or servicing) and widened it like never before. “We felt that we could use IT to reach a larger customer base,” says Sethi. Goodlife replaced the paper membership cards of the Passport program with magnetic cards. When a magnetic card is swiped, representatives at Hero Honda showrooms or workshops can view all of that customer’s information, speeding up service and racking up points for them on a centralized database. It sharpens the image of Hero Honda as a modern company and has introduced transparency to customers, dealers, and the company.

“The CRM program has made things simple,” says D.S Rajan, MD of a Hero Honda dealership called Sai Motors, 80 percent of whose customers now carry magnetic cards. “Customers no longer have to carry booklets and we can get data online.”
It’s also taken the Passport program to a new level. “Goodlife has seen overwhelming response,” says Sethi. “It has doubled the number of enrollments to the Passport program.”
It’s a claim that the business backs. “90,000 people registered as members [of the Passport program] every month until last year,” says Ajay Dixit, associate VP, Hero Honda. “But now we are enrolling an average of 1.7 lakh customers  every month.”

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