Ram Avatar has been with Ujjivan since 2008 as CRS. Before coming to Ujjivan Ram Avatar ran a milk business. One of his acquaintances who worked at the Vijay Nagar branch, referred Ram Avatar and he was selected as a CRS and allocated to the Dakshinpuri branch in New Delhi.

Ram Avatar took up the challenge with great zeal and enthusiasm. Initially his efforts did not yield desired results. But he did not lose heart and his branch manager expressed his faith in Ram Avatar’s abilities and egged him on to keep trying. Ram Avatar’s persistence finally bore fruit with him winning the ‘Best CRS of the month’ award consistently at the Dakshinpuri branch.

Ram Avatar believes that one of the key lessons that he learnt is that ‘The first impression is the last impression’. So he gave a lot of importance to projection meetings, which is the first exposure of prospective customers and the local community to Ujjivan and in some cases to microfinance itself. Ram Avatar also adhered to policies and procedures to ensure customer quality and optimum service. He was promoted as a Sr.CRS in November 2009. He feels that it is his philosophy and work ethic stood that have stood him in good stead.

Ram Avatar says that being at Ujjivan has been quite a revelation for him, as he had not come across an organisation that listens to employees in lower rungs. He was also pleasantly surprised that the emphasis for moving up in Ujjivan is performance. He is happy that the absence of a formal higher education is not a hindrance to the growth of an individual in the organisation, as many amongst his peers have had to discontinue their education due to personal circumstances, despite having the ability to study further. Ram Avatar looks forward seeing Ujjivan grow to greater heights and growing with the organisation.

Lakshmi began working with Ujjivan almost two years ago when the NGO she was working with went out of business. As the first CRS in the Maddur Branch, she was initially very disheartened because she wasn’t able to get customers. She even considered leaving because she felt she wasn’t performing well.

The CRM at the time inspired her and helped her find customers by looking into different working areas. At that time, there weren’t even buses going to some areas, so Lakshmi would walk 5-6 kilometres each day to find customers to serve. With hard work and determination, she was able to start achieving her targets. After ten months, she had surpassed her targets and acquired 650 customers, after which she proceeded to help other CRS who were struggling with customer acquisition.

She would not have been able to succeed so well were it not for the continued support of her husband and guidance from her branch manager. Her advice to other CRS is, “You have to be very dedicated and loyal to Ujjivan as a whole. Be concerned not only for your targets, but also for your colleagues and your branch.”

She has won the branch Best CRS award five times to date. When she was told of winning the National Best CRS award, she was so happy and touched she began to cry. She is now being promoted to CRM of a sub branch near Maddur and aspires to reach out to 1,000 customers in 3 months!

Ataul has an undergraduate degree and before joining Ujjivan he worked with “Swadhina,” an organization in Orissa focused on community development. Ataul’s interest in microfinance surfaced when he observed how it helped uplift and empower underprivileged individuals. He describes the environment at Ujjivan as being blessed due to the friendly work atmosphere, co-operative colleagues and supportive CRM.

His most memorable moment is when Ujjivan CEO Mr. Samit Ghosh congratulated him on being selected Best CRS of the region.

When asked the reason for his success, he spoke about hard work and customer care. In his view, one has to delve into and understand customers’ day to day problems and work to sort them out. He cites an example where an extremely stubborn individual was disrupting the group - to resolve the problem, he had to spend extra time with her and answer all her doubts regarding the group lending methodology. He says that, “Dealing with customers sensitively is essential in solving differences.”

She is a role model for other CRS because of her intellect, determination and motivation. After completing her undergraduate degree, she was working for ‘Maa Ratni’ as a ladies counsellor on health and hygiene, where she used to work with poor women. Look for growth in her career, she applied to and subsequently joined Ujjivan 26 months ago.

The initial 3-4 months was very difficult for Sushila as she was not meeting her targets and unable to form more than 2-3 groups per month. When asked about the reason for her low performance, she said that she was taking the job casually like her previous job and was very soft with the customers. As a result, she was unable to control the customers; rather, the customers were controlling her. Lacking proper knowledge of all the rules, regulations, procedures and products, she was unable to convince her customers or speak to them intelligently about Ujjivan. After getting this feedback from the CRM and COO, she began receiving extra guidance from the CRM on how to conduct projection meetings, maintain discipline, communication, etc. Only six months after joining did she start achieving and exceeding her targets. From that point onwards, she has been determined to succeed and has won Best CRS at her branch many times.

Sushila is currently handling over 400 customers with 100% repayments. The key to her success is paying attention to customer acquisition and managing group and center leaders to help her manage the rest of the customers. As of 1st June 2008, she was promoted to Senior CRS after performing consistently over time and strives to continue achieving and serving customers to the best of her ability.

Prema joined Ujjivan 18 months ago after being recruited by a former colleague who was working at Ujjivan. She knew and talked to some of the CRS at Ramanagar before starting as a CRS at Channapatna. Initially, finding customers and making groups was difficult and she was disheartened because she was unable to meet her targets.

The Area Manager motivated her by telling her to focus on customer selection rather than targets and helped train her to do so. She was inspired and determined and by the next month, she was the Best CRS at Channapatna Branch.

She quickly acquired 400 customers and had no default and no repayment issues. Employees would come to Channapatna for exposure and she would proudly tell them that she had a perfect record with no problems. She aspires to acquire more quality customers for Ujjivan and service existing customers well.

She would not have been able to achieve this without the support of her husband, brother and sister. Her advice to other CRS is, “Establish good relationships with your customers. Don’t worry about time – spend it to develop and maintain a healthy relationship and you won’t have any problems in the future.”

Sabita began her professional career with Ujjivan. She is a graduate and applied to Ujjivan when she heard about the company from Ranjan (an existing Ujjivan CRS) 22 months ago. Her journey at Ujjivan has been wonderful, her most remarkable moment being selected the Best CRS in the East region. She enjoys the quality of work and environment and is grateful for her CRM and colleagues who giver her the support

she requires. Presently she has handles 533 customers by herself. She firmly believes that maintaining a 100% repayment rate is essential for performing well at her task and adds that for other CRSs to do well, they must maintain friendly relations with customers and maintain discipline at centre meetings.

Rinku joined Ujjivan 13 months ago after completing her matriculation. She currently stays with her husband and three year old son. Prior to Ujjivan, she was a 10th class student without any job experience. As her first job, she was very passionate and committed and learned quickly from her colleagues and manager.

Rinku believes that to be an effective CRS, one has to be outspoken, friendly, and career oriented, but most important is discipline and honesty. It was only through discipline and honestly that she was able to communicate the joint liability group concept and importance of attendance to customers. She advises that if you relax on these parameters, customers will begin to take you for granted, resulting in low attendance, repayment issues and group conflicts.

She is happy and feels proud to be a part of Ujjivan as it provides her the opportunity to serve the poorer segment of our society.

A native of Hassan, Theertha Kumar was working for an engineering company in Electronic City when he heard about Ujjivan from a friend who was a CRS. He was interested in the company, applied and joined 19 months ago. He was initially fearful of being in the field and interacting with customers as it was a predominantly Muslim area and he was not comfortable with the language or working with women.

When another CRS went on leave, he took over and handled her customers. The branch manager and cashier were extremely helpful and his strategy for serving customers has been to respect the customers’ time. At the CRS meeting last year, he saw Chandra Layout CRS Gangamma getting the Best CRS award and thought to himself, “Why not me?”

He was determined to achieve this goal, so he worked hard and met his targets within 6 months. He currently handles 620 customers and is helping other CRS meet their targets. He focuses on doing his job better, aspires to take on more responsibility and looks forward to growing with Ujjivan.

Sarmila has been working with Ujjivan for the past 10 months. Prior to joining Ujjivan, Sarmila worked in a TITAN showroom. Her first experience with Ujjivan was when she observed Bishweshwar (an Ujjivan employee) working with underprivileged women in the city.This intrigued her and she subsequently applied to Ujjivan. Her experiences at Ujjivan have been wonderful, the most memorable being her participation in “Chak De”. She finds

the working processes to be impressive and she herself presently handles 672 customers.

From her perspective, the two key factors of her success in achieving the “Best CRS” 2008-2009 were focusing on repayment and maintaining customer discipline at centre meetings. Her advice to other CRSs is the same – focus on and maintain repayment and discipline. She is quick to add that without the help and support of her manager and colleagues she wouldn’t have been able to achieve this. Having worked with Ujjivan, she believes that in a few years borrowers will be able to move up the economic ladder and have a better life.

She says, “If you want to perform your best, you should have the motivation to be better and different than others.” She is ambitious in her career and aspires for a higher position in the organization like Cashier or CRM, which motivates her to perform even better.