Value Management at Tanishq Store

Based on my observation and discussion with the staff at the Tanishq store I could understand the productizing process at Tanishq. I could map their productizing process to my learning of 5 different phases of productizing framework. 

Understanding the value 

They do following to understand the value proposition they have to create:

1. They do market research
2. They conduct surveys in which they ask their customer to fill certain forms.
3. In the market surveys they try to find 

• How often customers will do jewelry shopping
• For whom customers will buy jewelry
• Customer age
• Customer gender
• Occasion for which they will do shopping
• Whether they will buy only from Tanishq or buy from other Jewelry stores also.

From surveys and markets research, they have understood requirement for different market segments, for example they have understood the market for wedding jewelry, jewelry for working women etc.

They also do competitive analysis to understand how their competitors are positioning their products.

When they are launching a new product, they invite some existing customers to come and check out the products. They take feedback from these customers to improve their products.

Creating the Value

They have design studios where designers design the jewelry. They have some 250 factories all over India. They take 30-35 days to design and build jewelry in factories. 

Based on customer feedback and surveys, they have launched multiple product ranges. They have product ranges like Rivaah and Mia. Rivaah is product range for wedding jewelry which consists of heavy jewelry.

Mia is jewelry range for working professionals and consists of very light and small jewelry which women can carry off easily in their day to day work life. There is a Royalty range which starts at Rs 3 Lakhs onwards.

There are other ranges like Shubham, Queen Of hearts etc.

They treat customers as royalty in their store. It doesn't matter if customer is buying something of small value or large value, treatment is still the same. Even if customer is not able to afford something which runs into lakhs of rupees and customer budget is small, staff will still treat customer like a royalty.

Small gestures like offering tea makes lot of difference. They will ask multiple times to the customers if they want to have tea or coffee. There are bottles of mineral water stacked for customers. 

The ambience inside the store is warm and very comfortable. Comfortable chairs and warm and friendly sales staff adds to the value.

The staff is well trained. They have good knowledge of the product they are selling. They have in-depth knowledge of each jewelry and material used to make it. They are aware of the technique by which jewelry is made. They are aware how diamonds are embedded in the rings. They have good knowledge of the gold and diamonds, and the polish which is applied on gold for some jewelry which make the diamond to shine relatively brighter than the gold. In case they do not have any data handy, they quickly check in the computer system about the details of a product and update the customer.

They are courteous to the customer and they talk very softly. Their uniform, name tags, nice hairdos add lot of value to the experience.

I had seen, when some other customer was shouting at the staff member, the staff member kept his cool and was still talking softly and trying to pacify the customer without further provoking the customer.

Hoardings for Tanishq Royalty range says “A TATA PRODUCT”. This adds to the value proposition as in our country, “TATA” brand adds lot of value to any product. 

The elements of value proposition which I observed could be used in multiple industries and for multiple products. The customer friendly attributes demonstrated at the Tanishq store could be used for multiple products and services across industries,

Pricing of value

Price of each jewelry depends on amount and current rate of gold, diamond or stones used. They use either 22 Carat or 18 Carat gold. For example a ring with a small diamond might use more percentage of gold. 

For bigger stone, rings might need less percentage of gold as gold has to add strength to the big stone which is provided by supporting material like bronze or copper.

Pricing will also vary based on some polish which will subdue the glitter of gold so that diamonds shine.

Also price of jewelry might differ in different cities. A piece of jewelry in Bangalore might cost you less in other cities. In cities where real estate is not very high, price of jewelry will be less. For Example, in Mysore, where real estate value is less, so the jewelry price might also be less.

Distance of a store from the factory will add to the price of jewelry as logistics cost will increase.

Communicating the Value

They have various means and go to market strategy to communicate the value to the customers. They use bill boards, hoarding, internet, newspapers, TV commercials etc. to advertise about their different product lines.

In the showroom they will ask customers to fill up a form asking how they got to know of Tanishq. The options would include hoarding, newspapers, TV commercials, friends, internet etc. This information is used to decide in which medium they should focus more on for communicating the value.

Earlier Amitabh Bachchan was brand ambassador. Now Deepika Padukone is the brand ambassador for Tanishq.

While you are at store, the staff will tell you about finance schemes available. One of them is Golden Harvest scheme. Customer can deposit Rs 5000/- with Tanishq for 10 months. After 10 months they will add 7.5% interest to the amount deposited and customer can use this amount to buy any jewelry. The staff will inform customer about such schemes without irritating or hassling them. Adding this here as it is about communicating the value.

They have small table tops calendars in the stores on which they have finance schemes specific to family member updated. For example, customer can pay Rs 3000/ per month for 10 months. After 10months, Tanishq would add Rs 1500/- and customer can buy something worth Rs 31,500/- . Each of these pages would be mapped to family relationships like wife, sister, mother-in-law etc. The page would show different persona and their relationships in the family. Each of these finance schemes are specific plans to sisters, wives, mother in laws etc. Adding this here as it is about communicating the value using emotional branding.

Weddings are about families in India. Ads for Rivaah, their wedding jewelry range, use emotional branding to position their jewelry products as something which is integrated with families.

They are using Digital Marketing in social medium like Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. They use these medium to create awareness about their product ranges. In their YouTube channels they have put lot of videos on customer testimonials.

Delivering the Value

1. Mostly they have their own stores. 
2. Some stores are franchise based. 
3. They have their own logistics to supply jewelry to the stores from factories.
4. They have started online sales also. 5% sales comes from online sales. In online sales they provide return option also to sell.
5. They earlier had stake in Caratlane.com