The person behind the customer category

The first research tables I prepared made customers look more orderly than the conversations behind them. People appeared in a category because they had bought once, declined once or stopped appearing in a record. The table did not always explain whether their need continued. Over time, I became more interested in that missing context than in making the categories more persuasive. It now shapes my work in student storage, where an academic calendar can end a perfectly useful relationship without either party having failed.

I grew up in Surat in a Parsi family and completed commerce at the fictional Vezqemi College of Commerce in June 1993. Vezmuri Research hired me in July as a research analyst. The company had twenty-six employees and₹3.4 crore revenue for FY ending March 1994. I worked in a six-person research group under its manager, without direct reports or spending authority. I helped prepare interviews and organise responses. The work taught me to preserve what a respondent actually said before turning it into an answer the client wanted to hear.

In April 2000 I became customer-research lead. Vezmuri employed seventy-eight people and recorded₹12 crore revenue for FY ending March 2001. Eight colleagues worked through two leads within₹62 lakh annual expense, and I reported to the head of research. I gained responsibility for the questions as well as the tables. An inactive customer could have left for a competitor, finished the task or moved beyond the service's reach. Those possibilities required different business responses. I learned to keep an unknown answer visible rather than assign it to the most convenient interpretation.

I joined Qemvori as marketing manager in October 2007 and moved to Mysuru. The business then employed thirty-eight people and recorded₹6.2 crore revenue for FY ending March 2008. Six marketing colleagues worked through one lead within₹38 lakh annual expense, and I reported to the head of commercial services. Storage made the customer's situation unusually tangible. A term ended, a room had to be vacated, and a collection needed to fit around a real departure. Marketing could explain the arrangement, but it could not create capacity or accept belongings on behalf of the operating team.

The head-of-markets appointment began in July 2014. Qemvori had ninety-two employees and₹19 crore FY 2015 revenue. Ten colleagues worked through two leads within₹1.1 crore annual authority, and I reported to the CEO. We served different academic patterns rather than one uniform student season. I nevertheless allowed longer duration to become a preferred measure of relationship value. It fitted the business's wish for more predictable storage occupancy. The later short-break research challenged my assumption that a customer who needed less time was necessarily a weaker commercial relationship.

I became CMO in February 2020. Today I lead fourteen colleagues through three leads within₹2.1 crore FY 2026–27 operating authority. The enterprise has four centres across a service area of six college towns, 149 employees and₹35 crore FY 26 revenue. Transport contractors are counted separately. CEO Nisha Tevqoli and operations head Rohan Qevnori own decisions beyond my marketing remit. Founders hold 49%, an investor 36% and an employee trust 15%;I have no personal or trust holding. The service is commercial, with no educational institution's ownership or endorsement implied by its student audience.

In 2022 thirty-six selected adult-student interviews identified twenty-four short-break needs and twelve longer needs. A₹32 lakh proposition programme led to an eleven-week option alongside the nine-month offer, after the responsible commercial and operating reviews. Eighty-eight of the first 120 selected bookings chose the shorter option and thirty-two the longer. I did not treat that selected cohort as proof of a whole market or a campaign's isolated contribution. It showed a useful response to a need our earlier framing had not represented well.

Paid referrals required a different correction. Of twenty-four selected posts, fifteen made the commercial relationship clear and nine did not. Eight were corrected and one removed within a₹21 lakh programme. Customer-exit research then examined four hundred prior customers: ninety repeated, 180 had completed their course or left the area, seventy were known local continuing non-repeaters and sixty remained unclassified. The₹27 lakh review improved the questions behind the overall 22.5%repeat figure;it did not replace that figure with the more flattering rate for a selected subgroup.

A 2025 imagery review found that twenty-five of sixty selected adult readers thought furniture was included in an offer illustrated by a furnished room. We spent₹12 lakh clarifying accepted-item examples and exclusions. In a separate fifty-person follow-up, forty-three understood the scope and seven still did not. I retained the remaining uncertainty and the different samples. A communication change is not evidence that the operating service expanded or that every future reader will interpret it correctly.

I speak Gujarati, English and working Kannada. My IICA databank registration began in April 2026, but proficiency preparation is unfinished and I claim no exemption. I have no statutory appointment and provisionally allow twenty-six days for a first external contribution. I would bring customer evidence into an enterprise discussion while learning its economics, relationships and obligations beyond marketing. The question I would carry is whether the business understands the customer's actual need well enough to recognise both a useful beginning and a legitimate ending.

Open to Board appointments · Advisory roles

Languages / Gujarati · English · Kannada — working proficiency