My article on Club Mahindra, written during Feb 2007 wherein I suggested readers not to go for Club Mahindra life membership, has been the most popular post on this blog.(Got nearly 5000 hits in 9 months-an avereage of about 18 visits per day) Recently it crossed the milestone of 100 comments. (Which includes 42 comments of mine which were written in response to comments written by others).
This post is a quick analysis of those comments.
Total Number of comments as on 21st October 2007: 105
Comments by readers: 63
Comments by author in written in response to above comments: 42
Rest of the analysis is of those 63 comments written by readers:
Anonymous Comments: 21
Non Anonymous comments: 42
I recommended readers not to go for Club Mahindra life membership. Nearly 70% of those who left comment have agreed with me.
Readers who said “I agree with you, Club Mahindra membership is not good”: 44/63=69.84%
Who said “I do not agree with you, CM membership is good and can be considered”: 7/63 (11.11%)
Readers who were neutral/gave 50-50 opinion or had no exact verdict or didn’t say anything supporting or opposing my stand: 12/63 (19.05%)
Readers who said they have decided not to go for CM life membership after reading my review: 7 (Approximate loss to Club Mahindra because of this article due to loss of these prospective customers: 35 lakhs (At an average of 5 lakh per membership (Membership fee plus ASF) For exact pricing of CM membership check this. (this is a negligible amount for CM to have any practical impact. They run a 220 Crores business with nearly 60000 members.)
Readers who said “I am a member of Club Mahindra and I’m not happy with their membership” 19
Readers who said they are members and are happy with CM: 5
Some of the highly informative comments which are worth reading were written by:
1. An unnamed reader tells he’s worked with CM before and identifies that some of the positive comments were written by Club Mahindra staff. Read his comment here:
2. An anonymous comment on Country Club
3. Nitin shares is bad experience at Zest, a sub brand under Club Mahindra which targets Young working executives. Read it here [More on Zest here]
4.Sandy's gives a mixed opinion here
5. Nishu Kohli's comment. She appears to be determined to fight it out and get her money back. If anyone wants to join hands with her check this comment for her email Id and contact her to see if anything can be done.
6. Bhupesh provides some valuable insights here
7. Uday Kumar has mentioned the detailed written communication he's having with the CM authorities to resolve his concern here:
8. Vishnu gives some strong points why he doesn't agree with me. Read it here
9. Someone here feels I’ve been hired by someone to sling mud at Club Mahindra…
10. Manjusha says he/she had a 50-50 experience:
Disclaimer:
1. Comments analyzed here represents only the opinion written by those internet users (members and non members of Club Mahindra) who have chosen to write a comment and not necessarily of the general public or majority portion of Club Mahindra’s 60000 plus member base.
2. This is a non commercial and subjective analysis done manually by the author. Where ever a Boolean YES or NO is not explicitly stated in the comment classification is decided based on the overall tone of the comment. Further count would have differed by a number or two in an event of manual errors while counting. For these reasons please feel free to analyze the comments on your own if you feel above numbers are not trustworthy.
3. In real life it is very much possible that the person who wrote Club Mahindra is excellent is a CM employee while one who said CM is worst is CM’s competitor. While majority of those who left comment have revealed some kind of traceable identity (Name, link to blogger profile/blog/website or their email ID/address etc) some are non traceable (Anonymous or have left only some initials) Since have I do not have a mechanism to verify the comments/authenticate those who wrote the comment (such as if the person who said he is a member is really a member or CM employee or competitor or someone else) hence that is kept out of scope and it is assumed that all comments are genuine. Please use your own validation and verification mechanisms if need be. If you are using the statistics given here for any business purpose do so at your sole discretion and please use your own judgment. I do not take any kind of responsibility towards authenticity of these comments.
4. The comment count doesn’t include few comments which were deleted by the author as they contained links to commercial websites selling stimulant drugs.
5. I am not associated with Club Mahindra or its parent company in any way (such as but not limited to member, competitor, employee, promoter etc). My post is an independent third party observation of the business model adopted by Club Mahindra and highlights the drawbacks in it, which if ignored may lead to severe disappointment to the members. Please use your judgment.
May 2008 Update: Comment count has touched 200 now.
March 2009 Update: Comment count has crossed 330 now.
Related: Other posts that got good number of comments: Public Toilets, cant we make that free? * An analysis of network marketing companies *
This post is a quick analysis of those comments.
Total Number of comments as on 21st October 2007: 105
Comments by readers: 63
Comments by author in written in response to above comments: 42
Rest of the analysis is of those 63 comments written by readers:
Anonymous Comments: 21
Non Anonymous comments: 42
I recommended readers not to go for Club Mahindra life membership. Nearly 70% of those who left comment have agreed with me.
Readers who said “I agree with you, Club Mahindra membership is not good”: 44/63=69.84%
Who said “I do not agree with you, CM membership is good and can be considered”: 7/63 (11.11%)
Readers who were neutral/gave 50-50 opinion or had no exact verdict or didn’t say anything supporting or opposing my stand: 12/63 (19.05%)
Readers who said they have decided not to go for CM life membership after reading my review: 7 (Approximate loss to Club Mahindra because of this article due to loss of these prospective customers: 35 lakhs (At an average of 5 lakh per membership (Membership fee plus ASF) For exact pricing of CM membership check this. (this is a negligible amount for CM to have any practical impact. They run a 220 Crores business with nearly 60000 members.)
Readers who said “I am a member of Club Mahindra and I’m not happy with their membership” 19
Readers who said they are members and are happy with CM: 5
Some of the highly informative comments which are worth reading were written by:
1. An unnamed reader tells he’s worked with CM before and identifies that some of the positive comments were written by Club Mahindra staff. Read his comment here:
2. An anonymous comment on Country Club
3. Nitin shares is bad experience at Zest, a sub brand under Club Mahindra which targets Young working executives. Read it here [More on Zest here]
4.Sandy's gives a mixed opinion here
5. Nishu Kohli's comment. She appears to be determined to fight it out and get her money back. If anyone wants to join hands with her check this comment for her email Id and contact her to see if anything can be done.
6. Bhupesh provides some valuable insights here
7. Uday Kumar has mentioned the detailed written communication he's having with the CM authorities to resolve his concern here:
8. Vishnu gives some strong points why he doesn't agree with me. Read it here
9. Someone here feels I’ve been hired by someone to sling mud at Club Mahindra…
10. Manjusha says he/she had a 50-50 experience:
Disclaimer:
1. Comments analyzed here represents only the opinion written by those internet users (members and non members of Club Mahindra) who have chosen to write a comment and not necessarily of the general public or majority portion of Club Mahindra’s 60000 plus member base.
2. This is a non commercial and subjective analysis done manually by the author. Where ever a Boolean YES or NO is not explicitly stated in the comment classification is decided based on the overall tone of the comment. Further count would have differed by a number or two in an event of manual errors while counting. For these reasons please feel free to analyze the comments on your own if you feel above numbers are not trustworthy.
3. In real life it is very much possible that the person who wrote Club Mahindra is excellent is a CM employee while one who said CM is worst is CM’s competitor. While majority of those who left comment have revealed some kind of traceable identity (Name, link to blogger profile/blog/website or their email ID/address etc) some are non traceable (Anonymous or have left only some initials) Since have I do not have a mechanism to verify the comments/authenticate those who wrote the comment (such as if the person who said he is a member is really a member or CM employee or competitor or someone else) hence that is kept out of scope and it is assumed that all comments are genuine. Please use your own validation and verification mechanisms if need be. If you are using the statistics given here for any business purpose do so at your sole discretion and please use your own judgment. I do not take any kind of responsibility towards authenticity of these comments.
4. The comment count doesn’t include few comments which were deleted by the author as they contained links to commercial websites selling stimulant drugs.
5. I am not associated with Club Mahindra or its parent company in any way (such as but not limited to member, competitor, employee, promoter etc). My post is an independent third party observation of the business model adopted by Club Mahindra and highlights the drawbacks in it, which if ignored may lead to severe disappointment to the members. Please use your judgment.
May 2008 Update: Comment count has touched 200 now.
March 2009 Update: Comment count has crossed 330 now.
Club Mahindra FAQs: What are the pros and cons of CM membership? * What are the latest membership prices at Club Mahindra? * What are the Escalation points at Club Mahindra? * Where can I buy/sell a used Club Mahindra membership? * How best to Cancel a Club Mahindra membership? * Zest breaks Review * interview with CM official * MHRIL IPO Q&A* Resort Review-Binsar, Coorg * Inflation Free cost of CM membership * Fixed vs Floating week membership *
Related: Other posts that got good number of comments: Public Toilets, cant we make that free? * An analysis of network marketing companies *
don't you think the club mahindra group can sue you for the possible loss of business because of your review?
ReplyDeleteArun,
ReplyDeleteIn fact it is some Club Mahindra members who are planning to sue club Mahindra for their inability to fulfill their obligations towards members.
Instead of suing me, I suggest Club Mahindra to fix the flaws in its model, address the concerns of its members and keep them happy. If majority of their member base feels good about Club Mahindra these members will bring more business by referring their friends and relatives. When that happens, over a period of time my blog automatically looses relevance and there’ll be no need to sue me.
As an individual I have every right to express my opinion and I’m under no obligation to give positive opinion all the time. I’ve not forced anyone to read this blog or not to become Club Mahindra members. I’ve encouraged readers to use their judgment in my disclaimer. The points I’ve raised are valid and I’m open for discussion on them. There’re thousands of bloggers writing negative reviews on hundreds of products and services-Since my blog has gained some popularity in search engines my article is making little more impact compared to others, else it would have just got lost somewhere.
I do not mind a legal action-any such move will only backfire on Club Mahindra-Now just some 10-20 people visit that post daily-If Club Mahindra makes an issue out of it many more people will come and read it to find out what is that I’ve got to say (because of which CM is so upset against me)and when they read, there’s high probability that they’ll agree I haven’t done anything wrong.
My post diverted only 7 prospects in 10 months-That must be an insignificant number for CM as they might be adding hundreds of new members every month throughout India.
Also I may move to my own domain in near future. When that happens I may loose that top position in Google and CM can breath easy!
Will it be feasible for Ram Gopal Verma to sue every blogger who might have written "DO NOT watch RGV ki Aag" for causing loss of business????
well said!
ReplyDeleteThanks Arun... The post has almost touched 200 comments now.
ReplyDelete