In an exclusive conversation with Media Samosa, Sukhpreet Singh, Corporate Head – Marketing, DishTV & WATCHO, DishTV India speaks about the how the brand has been diversifying its offerings. Singh sheds light on DishTV’s plans ahead & impact of COVID-19 on the industry.
Edited Excerpts:
DishTV has been one of the first DTH service providers in India. How has been the journey for the brand?
For us, at DishTV, it has been a fantastic journey as we are one of the few brands, which aims to cut across social segments in India. From a start-up that attempted to change the way of watching television in India, to one of the most recognized brands in the country, DishTV has become like a part of pop culture and is being represented by some of the iconic personalities.
How do you plan to differentiate the brand from competitors through offerings and services at this time? What are you doing to help the consumers?
DishTV is bringing the transition to Hybrid entertainment i.e., TV and Online, across screens, at home, and out of the home. The following attributes help us to differentiate-
- Our ability to provide entertainment and infotainment,
- Uninterrupted service
- Innovations
You had launched the ‘Desh Recharge Ho Raha Hai’ campaign during the lockdown. How did the campaign help & what do marketing plans ahead look like?
‘Desh Recharge Ho Raha Hai’ was the heart of our ‘positive’ business response to the pandemic. We ensured to deliver uninterrupted news and entertainment. We kept the TV services running and attempted to infuse positivity in the gloom.
Going forward, as the country learns to live with the pandemic; we have also aimed to transform our consumer touchpoints into digital, intuitive, and self-help.
In this scenario, engaging our millions of subscribers in digital and social media is extremely critical. Everything from brand engagement, content awareness, new launches to troubleshooting, and problem resolution is being taken forward through social media.
Please take us through the operations for the platform at this time. Distribution strategy & issues faced in the context with the ongoing pandemic.
The most important thing during the peak of the lockdown was to keep the operations running virtually from the homes of our employees. Our brave warriors worked hard and managed head-end operations efficiently with a very limited workforce. We have also enabled our call center agents to work effectively from their homes to ensure uninterrupted services.
Further, to deliver seamless services to our customers, we opened new distribution channels for recharge and new activations by tying up with neighborhood chemists, general stores, and dairy shops.
Even with very limited field services, our planning and preparation helped us in being on the front foot to resolve customer issues to satisfaction by following proper government guidelines and through DIY tools. Now when things are eventually getting back to normal, we have already changed several things permanently in our ways of managing things. We have become more agile, and ready to provide solutions from anywhere.
What are the top 3 challenges faced by the brand faced in the COVID-19 period? How is the brand overcoming those?
The top three challenges faced during the lockdown period were:
- Uninterrupted service
- subscriber engagement,
- customer issues’ resolution
For the last few years, we have been investing our efforts in transforming our touchpoints to digital interfaces and that has helped us to adapt and cater to the forced change in customer behavior during this hour of need.
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DishTV also has its OTT arm, Watcho, where does it stand in the scheme of things for the organization?
Watcho, as a platform, aims to help its users to consume as well as create content. In the current scenario, we are focusing on ensuring that we reach out to relevant audiences within our base as well as outside.
We have reached 10million users in a very short span of time and now we would also like to expand the reach further with great content, strategic tie-ups, and breakthrough features like our newly rolled out Watcho Swag UGC platform.
DishTV strengthens its presence in Kerala Market. Please walk us through your regional strategy
South has always been a strategic and essential market for DishTV. In fact, we have gone through a major technological upgrade at our end to cater to the South market in a better way and have added many more channels. We have recently added 6 HD channels specifically for customers in the Southern region and have also launched special offers and packs for Onam.
To help students during this crisis situation, we have added ‘Kite Victers’, an educational channel in Malayalam, and Kalvi TV an educational channel in Tamil for students. Additionally, we already have 33 educational channels of Swayam Prabha available on our platform.
How do you see the industry-shaping in the post-COVID world?
According to us, the Indian market is very resilient and will see a steady recovery in the next few months. Our business is fortunately not among the affected ones and we also have had many positive fallouts like more customer-centric and agile operation and this will benefit us as soon as the economy recovers.
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