This is the 3rd instalment of my series on "ensuring excellence in the era of consumers through innovation". Do you know how the great marketers are using innovative strategy to ensure their customers are "more empowered" and "more connected" while also providing "more convenient" and "more human" like services for customers? Let's go over how they're doing this.

More Empowered:
Do you use Foursquare? This great digital business app provides information to their clients on the restaurants to visit in the neighbourhoods they are traveling to. You need to install the app and turn on your location service. The app will find your exact location and pull recommendations from their server on the restaurants around. It's been created by consumers like you. You visit a restaurant. Like it? Add a review to this app. It's a great example of crowdsourcing and digital marketing that ensures customers/users are more empowered.

More Convenient:
When I was in the U.S., I used to be amazed by the fact that one could easily settle utility bills at the neighbourhood grocery store. I moved back to Bangladesh in 2006 and launched utility BillPay with one of the telecom operators here. It was an amazing experience. At one point of time, I realised that we were able to ensure even more convenience for the customers. Since 2006 they have been settling their electricity, gas and water bills through mobile banking/BillPay, sitting at home, any time of the day. With the rise of telephony network, the great MNO marketers, including Airtel Bangladesh, are constantly working to ensure excellence for the customers. 

More Connected:
That was 2006. Let's discus 2015. We have seen that Bangladesh MFS has come a long way since then. As of November 2015, we had app. 23.31 million customers transacting US $1.2 billion every single month. We have ensured that our consumers are more connected than ever before. 

More Human:
When I was a kid, I used to love playing "Prince of Persia". It was all about a world that didn't exist. All the excitement and magic were awesome but missed that human touch. Fast-forward to more recent times when kids played "FarmVille", "Airport City" etc. These are examples of "more human" games that are able to engage the players even more. The great marketers know how to ensure customer engagement through more content that presents more real-life like situations. 

Stay Tuned for the 4th instalment of this series in which I'll discus the war of the social media giants to acquire the internet space.

Ruhullah Raihan Alhusain is a professional with over 11 years of experience in mobile banking and digital marketing and is currently the Head of mCommerce Operations at Airtel Bangladesh Ltd.