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Our services should focus on the emotional aspect of transferring money and not just the tangible aspect epitomised by our products and services, Diane Scott tells Viveat Susan Pinto
The core business of Western Union Company is related to consumer money transfer and bill payment besides selling money orders. In a business like this, gaining consumer trust is very important. How does such a company evolve while staying true to the trust that the consumer has vested in it?
A big piece of why we evolved the brand, which actually began a year ago when we adopted the tagline - Moving Money for Better - was because we needed to dwell on the emotional aspect of transferring money and not just the tangible aspect of it epitomised by our products and services. Remittances work on word of mouth and speed of delivery besides the aspect of security. While these are all important attributes, the emotion behind why an individual remits money cannot be ignored. He or she is looking to provide a better life for his or her loved ones in their countries of origin. This emotion had to be captured, which is why the new tagline.
The second part of the brand evolution involves the visual identity - the movement to WU from Western Union. We needed to transfer our history as a 162-year-old brand and yet be modern at the same time. This is where WU comes into the picture. We are moving to this visual identity in phases across markets. In India, it should be visible in the next one month or so.
A related question is expansion. What is the possible route Western Union could take without diluting the brand?
We have already launched pre-paid cards in a few key markets including India. The latter presents an interesting opportunity for us if you look at the unbanked population that exists here. A prepaid card will allow users to do a lot of things - from being able to cash in and cash out, it can also be used as a point of sale or at an ATM. It will help us to reach more consumers.
We also see domestic money transfers as a future avenue of growth in India apart from international money transfers. We already do domestic money transfers in countries such as the US, Philippines and Indonesia. It is already a sizeable portion of our business in these markets. We can expand this service to markets like India.
Bill payments is another example of work that we do beyond international money transfers. It is our dirty secret if you may call it that way. While we do over 230 million consumer transactions a year, we actually do over 400 million business payment transaction in the same time frame. This happens in a few key markets at the moment. We propose to bring this service to India too.
One challenge that you will face in all this-and mind you, this is peculiar to the industry to which Western Union belongs - is hawala or unofficial channels of money transfer. What options do you see before Western Union to deal with this channel? Are you educating consumers to use legitimate means to transfer their money?
That is the cornerstone of our India strategy. We have gone from village to village as part of our below-the-line activities in developing and building awareness for using a formal financial mechanism to receive money in the country. In that journey we have seen people who have lost their money by using various other options, including hawala channels, as you pointed out. This is because there was simply no formal mechanism for them to transfer money. The second part was that they were simply not educated enough to understand how the formal process of money transfer worked.
So, our endeavour has been two-fold; to expand our footprint, and to educate people about a formal mechanism to transfer money. You'd be amazed to know that besides markets such as Kerala, Punjab and Gujarat, where remittance inflows are significant, states such as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar also give us big business besides of course regions such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. This has happened because we have increased access and convenience and also focused on educating consumers about a formal mechanism to send and receive money.
A large number of your consumers will come from rural India. This is a market that is the cynosure of all eyes. What is the best way to address this market and what can other marketers learn from your experience?
What we would do first and foremost is to rollout WU at our retail outlets. When you have a presence in 120,000 different locations across the country, there is no better way than this to make a start. The transition begins in retail. When I was in Kerala, I saw many outlets had already transitioned to the new logo. I wasn't unveiling the new logo there. Our agents unveiled the new logo to me.
Our consumers in India are basically from rural areas and we have been engaging with them through promotional activities during festivals. For instance, the people of Kerala celebrated Vishu, their New Year recently. In our promotional activities and celebrations around the festival, we spoke about the new logo and the relevance of it as well as the new products and services, which we were launching.
Besides, we will continue to convey the transition we are making through Bollywood. We have used in-film placements quite effectively here in India, since it resonates well with Indian people, given their love for Bollywood. These are some of the ways by which we propose to communicate the message that we have a different identity.
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How has social media impacted the way a firm like Western Union conducts its business?
We use social media extensively in the developed world. However, we are now beginning to take it to markets such as India too. We deploy social listening tools to understand what our consumers want. It is a big aspect of the work we do on social media. The other aspect is to incentivise people who refer our services. We are deploying this social referral programme across the globe and will be introducing it here in India as well. The idea is to reward both senders and receivers of money when they refer our brand to people within their network. An interesting feature about this programme is that it is trackable.
What would these incentives be?
The sender will get monetary benefits such as discounts or a promotional offers that she can avail at the nearest retail outlet. For every referral, we give reward points. That is one part. At the receiver's end, we are still working out what should be the mode of benefit, but it will be less monetary.
At a broader level, we already reward our users for every transaction they make. For this, we tie up with local-level partners, say a kirana store or a jeweller or any other retail outlet, where the consumer can walk in and redeem the coupon on purchases that she makes. Both senders and receivers are rewarded with discount coupons. This is a win-win for everyone in the value-chain. The consumer obviously gets a discount and the partner gets more footfalls into his store. We have been running this programme for almost a decade now in select countries such as the Gulf as well as in India. This is part of our loyalty programme.
