Hi Shrijay, tell us about yourself and your background.
I have 15+ years of formative and immersive experience across industries and geographies. After my MBA (San Diego), I worked in the US, gaining an extensive background in eCommerce, with some of the finest digital commerce stories in the US. A large part of that, about 5 years, was with LegalZoom, a global leader in LegalTech. I have also extensive experience in working with hyper-growing tech companies in California, like Qualcomm, LegalZoom.com, Bouqs.com, and Case-mate.com.
Hailing from a business background, I always dreamt of building a business. But I chose to get qualified first and gain some substantial experience before starting up. I grew up my father run his business, I have witnessed 1st hand the impact an entrepreneur can have on society and people at large. There was a strong inner desire to create something on my own. Once I returned to India, I went through the process of registering my business and realized that many first-generation entrepreneurs in India lack quality service providers within their immediate network.
Naman (co-founder) and I met at a business professional networking event in 2014. He then ran a conventional CA firm along with his family. It struck us immediately – my background in Legal eCommerce and his expertise as a CA could create a strong base for offering better services, and that is how we created a comprehensive business professional solution.
Founding Legalwiz.in & running it has been a memorable journey and here we stand 5 years hence: having raised funding recently and planning to grow the venture to be the most “trusted” Professional Services portal in India.
What is the biggest misunderstanding about customer experience, in your opinion?
In my opinion, many businesses think of the scope to be limited to providing services in best possible manner. However, the charm of a good customer experience is beyond that. It includes a complete life-cycle of the customer, including post sales or fulfilment experience – including the communication that you maintain with your clients even after the said work is done. It should extend to engaging clients and retaining them with the business. Repeat purchase is the only major way to make the businesses profitable, in the times where companies tend to spend considerable amount of resources in acquiring a client. LTV matter a lot!
What are some of the newer CX companies/solutions you’re keeping your eyes on right now?
There are many, but Zendesk and Delighted top my list as tools to really enhance your customer experience. However, much depends on how you train your teams to be people centric, and stay proactive about creating good experiences.
What can companies do to improve customer loyalty and retention?
Among the most basic things, we should at least be honest to our clients and ourselves. Communication plays a major role; transparency in providing information is the key to great customer experience. May that be about expected delay in servicing or owning up a mistake and demonstrating willingness to correct it, honesty pays off. Our secret to building a great CX is mostly about active communication with the clients, establishing realistic expectations, and setting up processes to deliver better than the set expectations.
From managerial standpoint, one shall also continuously monitor various trends and KPIs like Net Promoter Score, Returns and Refunds Rate, Repeat Purchase Propensity, LTV by cohorts, etc. Keeping an active eye on these metrics will help you flag anomalies and rectify the mistakes in real-time.
What do you think is most relevant and why: CSAT (customer satisfaction score), NPS (net promoter score), or CES (customer effort score)?
Each of these metrics has their own purpose, and they shouldn’t be thought as a replacement for the others. However, I particularly like monitoring NPS, as it is a representation of both promoters and detractors. Ideally, it shouldn’t just end at knowing your score, but to drill down and see how you can improve. If you can influence detractors through your corrective measures, you are likely to win a lot of referral business. They are found to be the most vocal clients. Client centric companies often use NLP and other technologies to figure out what are the most common issues, and actively work on fixing them.
How can companies better use social media in the era of customer-centricity and personalization?
Social Media is a very powerful, and sort of a dual-edged sword. We often find these platforms to become brand bashing spaces. Engagement is the key here, brands often choose to abandon these responses and that creates frustration and massive outburst.
For the general social media strategy, I would always recommend to be relevant. Companies choose to restrict their social media to be a platform to convey holiday greetings and all. This makes the space unnecessarily crowded and with no charm. If done right, it is a great way to create and publish content that is relevant to the audience and the business, broadcast information to masses, create engaging communities, collect reviews and make your brand presence felt.
What is your opinion on AI-based chatbots to handle customer support?
Absolute boon and cuts down a lot of efforts. Also, helps in making the CX teams function at their best by cutting down clutter and let critical issues surface faster. However, the CX highly depends on how smart and comprehensive your chatbot is. Also, at times, it feels to be a major roadblock when the client intends to get in touch with a person. Such provisions should be thought through.
What was the best movie you saw that has come out during this past year?
OTT platforms have offered great content and unlocked true potential for creators. Family Man and Paatal Lok are among my personal favourites. Also liked Scam 1992, always have loved Pratik Gandhi from his work in Gujarati Movies like Bey Yaar and Wrong Side Raju.
Last but not least, what is your favorite CX metric?
I am obsessed about LegalWiz.in’s NPS. Online reviews are important as they are largely front-facing.
