It’s the little things which matter! AKA When Points of Parity become Points of Differentiation Part 1

Hey all, Its been a long time since my last post. But time just passes you by as you keep observing life. For those of you who might be wondering why the ultra long (Dr. Strangelove inspired title)? I request you to just read on and find out how little things affect our choices.

I live in a City called Hyderabad which is the fifth largest city in India home to around 4 million people and 300,000 cars. India’s emergence as a super power has given a much needed boost to the country’s middle class which means the city I live in sees an average of 600 new vehicles coming on the streets every day. The purchasing power of the middle class gave rise to the MALLS - the ultimate one stop shops for shopping, movies, food and entertainment. Now the million dollar question is do these multi-storied complexes have the capacity to accommodate the customers who come in with their families. If you are someone who spends his entire weekend shopping or hanging out the answer is a painful “No”. Parking is something which we take for granted whenever we visit a place as there are far more important things (such as availability of a particular item, variety etc) we consider before we decide whether to visit a particular shopping mall. In a nutshell it’s just a fundamental point of parity but whose deficiency can still cause a very significant difference to the customer experience. 

I have had a bad experience visiting two malls during the last few months. The first has very limited in-built parking space for a shopping complex housing a multiplex. There is also no space available for parking in the compound. The second has a lot of space (both in-built and adjacent) but on a weekend there is still not enough space to accommodate all the incoming customers.

Parking Blues

There is actually a very simple cause for the entire problem. The show timings for most Indian films which run for five shows in a multiplex are in the range of 10:00am, 1:00pm, 4:00pm, 7:00pm and 10:00pm. Since the Indian films run for almost three hours there is virtually no gap between two shows which means that incoming customers have to wait for customers from previous shows to exit the compound. This also leaves the incoming customers very little time for their shows.  I have observed that the evening shows are the ones the customers face maximum problems with as the number of people who come in for shopping, dining and hanging out in the mall progressively increases late into the night on the weekend. 

Reducing the number of shows on a weekend could create the necessary gap between the shows but this would hurt the revenues even though it would definitely increase the customer experience.  Spacing out the shows so as to incrementally increase the gaps as you approach the night could be one way to handle the problem. The show timings could be revised as 9:45am, 12:45 pm, 3:45 pm, 7:15 pm and 11:00 pm.  The gap between shows incrementally increases throughout the evening giving customers ample time to park their cars without having to worry about missing out on portions of the show. For longer movies the interval time could be reduced so as to not affect the gap between shows (this once again affects the revenues).  There is no one simple solution but I guess something can be worked out if it is acknowledged that there is a problem in the first place. Instead these problems are treated as one off issues that customers face. As for customers like me we have had enough I at least would not like to return to the 'first mall' I have talked about here.

So next time time you want to go down to a multiplex for watching a movie be there at least one hour before the show timing. You never know how long you would have to wait before you get your slot.

Wishing you a happy movie watching experience. 

Until Next Time,

Your Mall Hopper,

J.J. Chaitanya