o Understanding Customer Value

  lead generation sources used:

 Family & Relatives:

Each and every member of the group tried to reach out to their relatives and
friends whose siblings are in the K-12 segment, we even looked to find leads
in the extended family members as well as the friends of friends to discuss
their pedagogy to ensure uninterrupted learning to their wards thus
introducing the Extramarks learning solution and how it can be beneficial to
them.

 Friends:     

Each member of the group tried contacting their friends whose siblings and
someone in the family are in the K-12 segment and tried to get their detail,
further made contacts and introduced the products, we even tried to contact
our parent’s friends and even their children to get as many leads as possible.

 Former Teachers:

Each member tried contacting the teachers from our graduations, schools and
high schools, to get information about their children, also to some school and
high school teachers we introduced about the extramarks products and how it
is being used by many schools to make the learning and education much
better for the students present there.

 Referrals:   

For all the family, friends and relatives that we contacted we ensured asking
for referrals of people who will be interested or who could be benefited from
the products, even few of leads were contacted because we got a referral
from a prospective lead. Once people got to know about the product they
even gave their friends and relatives number to help them also.

 Pre-sale planning done for each meeting:

 Prospect information:

Since most of the leads were generated by our group were from
personal contacts hence we had certain information like their location
and occupation, still to ensure the same we asked the lead about all
the information like occupation, location, need for the extramarks, how
they can be benefitted, child’s class of studying and other information
also. We even made sure to ask about the classes and how they are
being conducted and what are the problem’s the child are facing. Also
for the children who are in senior classes like 9-12th standards we
also tried to understand the career options they are looking forward to
in order to understand if they have a need for certain coaching in
particular like JEE preparation courses and NEET preparation
courses.

  Identifying customer value proposition:

 Customer value proposition is the foundation pillar in bringing about
the core benefits that we have to offer to the customer, as schools and
colleges are in complete shutdown since march, most of the parents
are worried about their child’s future, we even saw a 40% increase in
the paid subscriptions of the educational platforms. So in order to give
the necessary push to benefits in correspondence with value for
money we tried to describe all the added benefits they would be
getting being a student who has extramarks with them it just not
empowers students but also assists the parents as well. While doing
so we also enlisted the different features of the extramarks as per the
understanding below.

Freemium app: So while getting the prospects information one of the

question which was asked was do they have the extramarks apps
installed in their smartphones, so to all the people who said no, we
urged them to download the app for free and experience it for
themselves.

Personal learning Tab: Extramarks also offers premium customized

tablets which can be used for interactive learning for the students who
lack the facilities so that the students can have the learning
experience smoothly.

Parent assistance: As the students are in home and so are their

parents, this can lead to a quality learning time between the parents
and their children, as well as they will be updated about the courses
and syllabus of their child. Most importantly the support is multilingual
so if the student or the parent is having any issues they can contact
the support team in any language they want, as there are courses
offered from different boards of India, like CBSE, ICSE, West Bengal,
so even if someone wants to study in Bengali they can.

Board exam preps: for all the leads having students in sr. class board
exams practice materials were a lucrative value addition along with
preparatory courses for JEE and NEET.

Alex chat bot: the app also is AI powered that gives 24x7 assistance
for all the queries in terms of specific questions which the students
can post and get their doubts clarified even if the Alex could not solve
it, it is than forwarded to an expert who will clear it for you.

 Call objective:

Objective of each of the calls we made was being consultative

regarding the academics of their wards given the current pandemic
situation making them aware if necessary, how e-learning modes with
additional ed-tech support apart from school can be helpful thereby
promoting the academic solutions provided by Extramarks products.

For all the leads contacted we tried to answer all the “WH” questions.

Why – Even though schools and coaching centres have stopped,

learning should not stop, this is the time that students will need
 additional support along with school’s online classes. Extramarks
learning solutions will become the need of the hour as it will provide
the resources which can be used by the students to learn better.

When - It is not enough to explain why and what the advantages of

getting along with the commodity are, but it is also enough to build an
excitement within them to force them to move now. As now is the time
to take the required measures for the learning of their child, as it is a
priority decision to be taken.

Where - This is where the task of the sales representative comes in

which is to ensure and empower the prospects with the assistance
needed to recognise Extramarks as a learning medium that can offer a
comprehensive solution to their child's academic progress.

What - The response to all of the above questions should be led to

this one question, which is a solution to all of the above problems, and
to the students, Extramarks learning items are presented as a solution
to all of their learning needs and problems.

 Anticipation of objections:
To rule out the objection which could have been arised, it is necessary
to have them in first, it is really important to think as a customer how
you can object or question the product being offered, and once one
have this figured out they can simply rule out all the anticipations of
objections, in our case we thought as a parent and considered various
factors that can be listed to deny the product being offered. Once they
were listed we came up with the counters of each objections and how
they can be replied leading to a conversion from objection to
acceptance.
Few of the objections which we anticipated of are:
1- Our Child is already having online classes, how will this be any
different.- To counter this we have a simple solution that is, in online
class the child will be taught just once and if he has missed it, it wont
be repeated for him till he understands but with us it will be made
available to him as many times as he wants.
2- Classes are online, it will continue the boredom which child faces in
his normal classes.- To counter this, the child will be having classes
online but in a way more interesting and fun way than taught in the
school, the learning videos with animations are not used in schools
hence there is a better scope of keeping the interest as well as the
learning of the child will also get better.
3- What about the change in course and needs of my child, each
school has something different in their courses.- To counter this, In
extramarks we can ensure that whatever the child will need in his
class will be made available to them via some or other sources, as
each and every packages are made according to the needs and
boards which will cover the entire syllabus, your child will always have
more to learn but will never be short of sources with us.
4-How can this help him/her in the competition exams which he/she
will face next year.- In extramarks we also have special packages
which are catered according to the needs of the students, and for all
the national level examination there are special packages which
 include test series and learning contents along with previous years
papers unsolved and solved so that the child will always have all the
things he/she will need to crack all the exams. There will be no
boundaries to stop the child and always some boosts and technique
that will drag them to further in their life.

 Recognizing key buying members and their roles:

As inferred from the calls we made, provided that the target audiences
are children in the K-12 age range of 5-15 years of age, while the
target customers are their parents who make the requisite decisions
as to whether or not additional academic assistance will be needed for
their child. In order to aid them in this decision-making process, our
group also sought to communicate personally with the children and
used brief tests as resources to show the parent how the Extramarks
products would give them answers to their exclusive issues.

 Pre-approach used: 

 In our view, each client is special and so each call made was not
limited to a single form of approach, but rather to a variety of
approaches based on the parent's requirement. However, the
consumer benefit approach was similar to all the parents we were
trying to reach.

 Since most of the calls made were to our close family and relatives it
aimed more towards customer benefit approach and question
approach to help solve their queries towards extramarks products
while trying to mark out all the benefits that they will receive for their
wards learning needs. We also used the questions approach to know
the various attributes needed to make a good lead and to know much
more about them and the child so that we can provide appropriate
solution to them.

 For each of the calls we made we tried to get referrals and while
contacting the referrals we made good use of the introduction
approach which helped us to establish a relationship between us
which was followed by the question approach which thus creates a
first impression thereby helping in a smooth transition of the call.
When contacting a parent for the very first time not just the product but
also individual introduction is required to gain trust. Also it was
necessary to inform them about the further process they will be going
through and how the sales representative will be calling them. We
tried getting as many parents as possible to be interested in the
products by giving them the benefits of the products.

 While contacting with each client we saw that when we told who
referred them they behaved and talked in a much better way than
those who were not referred by anyone, we were able to get some
leads by just asking for the friends and family who could be interested
in purchasing the product. Use of various approaches helped in
various scenarios, some friends of our parents were just convinced
with the introduction and thus had an interested ear in the whole call.