[24]7’s vision is to make it simple for consumers to connect with companies to get things done. That’s been the big dream, the essence of what [24]7 offers to large global brands across the world.
The journey began in April 2000, with a headquarters in the US and a delivery center in Bangalore, initially for email support and thereafter for voice support. In the last 16 years, [24]7 has rapidly emerged as one of the leaders in customer engagement solutions with a footprint across 5 continents and 11 countries.
Mobile, web and social are the new front door for consumer interactions. However, these channels are often disjointed and therefore cause a lot of anguish to customers as they navigate through the digital maze trying to find answers to their simple questions.
So, this is how [24]7 is redefining customer acquisition and engagement in this digital world. [24]7 today is the only company in the world to offer intent-driven, ‘true’ omni-channel experience, at a scale. The platform can predict a customer’s intent in milliseconds.But what truly sets [24]7 apart is that the platform allows customers to traverse multiple channels, be it web, mobile, chat, social or phone, without the context being lost, so customers never have to start over. It can help a customer resolve their issues in the channel they prefer and also helps them choose an optimal channel.
Based on the context and the complexity, any interaction can be seamlessly transitioned from self-service options — a virtual agent or Natural Language IVR to assisted service options — digital chat or voice human agents.
The platform fully leverages the digital capabilities to make the interaction hassle free. Just imagine how delighted a customer is when a voice call is complemented with rich interactive visual content or when the system intelligently connects an ongoing web session to a voice call or complex information is served through interactive cards that pop alongside the chat window.
Having anticipated the digital wave and with the determination to break the status-co in customer interaction space, the firm invested early on in technology. It has more than 100 patents in its fold. The global team of best software engineers, mathematicians, data scientists, design experts has developed its customer engagement platform from the scratch. [24]7 augmented its platform capabilities further with strategic global acquisitions — six in the last six years.
While there are enterprises that offer the ‘assisted service’ component of the solution spectrum and others that offer the self-service component such as virtual agents, [24]7 is unique in that it offers the entire solution stack of self and assisted services with underlying layers of Big Data and Natural Language Understanding (NLU).
[24]7’s predictive capabilities and NLU prowess are unparalleled in the industry, tuned by billions of interactions to make self-service experience, intuitive, accurate and sophisticated. Over a period of time, the company has created a mix of offshore, nearshore and onshore delivery centers to efficiently cater to client needs. [24]7 has delivered quantum business benefits— reduction in costs, increase in incremental revenue and strong customer satisfaction—to its client base of 250+ large B2C companies across 12 industries.
The firm works on success-based pricing based on achieving pre-agreed measurable outcomes. [24]7 was founded by Shanmugam Nagarajan (Nags) and PV Kannan, ex-colleagues at TCS and co-founders at Business Evolution, a successful software company in the US that offered a platform for email and chat support and which was sold to Kana Software in 1999. From their experience at Business Evolution and high attrition in US call centers, it seemed quite obvious to the founders that the customer support could be managed out of a country like India where there is significant workforce available with good proficiency levels in English.
Not only would it create job opportunities for the educated youth but also bring down customer service costs without hampering quality, making it a win-win for both sides. [24]7 has been funded by founders themselves and two leading names from the venture capital & technology worlds —Sherpalo Ventures and Sequoia Capital.
As with any growing business the company faced its share of challenges. The first and foremost challenge was building a team of people, who were the right cultural fit, especially at the beginning. Ensuring high internal standards set for quality services meant company had to invest aggressively in training its workforce in the delivery centers. Timely technology investments, although steep at the time, were critical for long-term success. As the company grew, building a cohesive vibrant global culture based on shared values has been a priority, especially given the string of acquisitions.
Today, [24]7 powers a few billion interactions, however, the larger world of customer service comprises of few hundred billion interactions. [24]7’s mission is to use its technology and services to power all those interactions and continue to bring an order of magnitude change in customer experience. And the company seems to be well on its track to achieve this mission.
BW Reporters
Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
