Aino is India’s unified voice-driven platform that bridges the gap between customer service departments and the end-consumer. The evolved multi-pronged technological solutions developed by the platform can be leveraged by consumers and businesses alike for hassle-free queries, requests, and complaints across various categories including utilities, travel, and consumer electronics. The easy-to-use application helps in optimizing consumer services by directly connecting the customer with the concerned consumer response team and is aided by an intuitive GUI. The integrated platform enables consumers to add a brand to their dashboard and directly interact with it through a query, request, or a complaint.
After founding highly successful venture ICCS, India's leading BPO service provider in 2004, Aino came about when Divij Singhal, CEO & Founder analyzed the major pain areas for customers during brand service calls and conceptualized a mobile-based helpdesk application that could address the same.
In an interaction with Sujata Sangwan of BWDisrupt, Divij Singhal, Founder & CEO of Aino, shares his startup’s present status and future plans.
What are the special key features of Aino? The innovative service solutions offered by the platform help businesses in eliminating redundant consumer touch points and in decreasing call abandonment rate. IT completely eradicates the cost of Toll free numbers. It also facilitates seamless service delivery and enhance the customer experience. Services offered by Aino reduce Average Handling Time (AHT) by a minimum 40 seconds and save up to 10% on customer service budgets for brands, whilst also enhancing consumer engagement and satisfaction by driving greater efficiency. This makes it the perfect tool for organizations to optimize their customer service operations.
For the end consumer, Aino provides the ease of receiving a call back once a call request is placed on Aino, saving the hassle of searching for a number, going through IVRS and holding the call in queue. It enhances the customer experience.
What challenges are you facing in running your business? Aino is currently facing challenge in terms of making an awareness to the consumer that this kind of the service is available. If they download this app they are saved for a lot of hassle they go through every day for customer service.
What is the funding status?Aino is already in talks with some of the major funds and VC's in India and is looking for a firm that can add value to the organization.
What is the market size and opportunity? Aino is targeting multiple markets through this concept. First being the customer service industry in India for B2C brands across various sectors like Telecom, D2H, banking, insurance, ecommerce, etc. The market size of this is pegged to be close to $2 billion. Second being the online advertising and toll free number market.
What are your future plans?The platform plans to integrate with Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) of different brands in order to allow consumers to receive live status of their queries. Self-service options like recharge, bill payment, bill details, plan upgrade/change, and complaint registration are expected to be added, while other new features, such as a payment wallet for users and the issuance of brand tickets via CRM integrations, will also be launched in the near future. With these developments, Aino aims to enable better brand-customer interactions and efficient and effective customer query resolutions
What are the traction details?In about 45 days of pilot launch of the platform already has close to 10000 registered users who are making close to 300 calls every day to 200+ brands. Aino aims to have 10 Million users in the next 24 months with more than 1000 brands listed on the app and plans to cater to at least 20 million customer service calls every month by then.
How Indian BPO industry gearing up to transform and meet the changing needs and expectations of clients and consumers?The Indian BPO industry is striving for Innovation. There has been no sense of innovation for a long time and the practices that were followed in BPO’s about a decade ago are still being followed.
The Indian BPO industry has being running on a cost arbitrage model for a long time, it’s now time to start delivering value to the customers and reduce their cost through innovative technology based solutions and create stickiness for the clients and a niche for yourself.
How Brands leveraging technology to enhance consumer relation?To serve consumers better, it is important to first understand what they require. Fast-paced lifestyles and crunching timelines have made time an extremely valuable commodity today. Endlessly surfing the internet for a company’s details, waiting for the Interactive Voice Response system to comprehend the query – after-sales inconveniences like these leave a lasting impression on a customer’s mind regardless of the quality of the product or service. This is where leveraging technology helps. With the proliferation of online marketplaces for products and services, Indian customers are already familiar with the benefits a tech-driven approach brings in. Convenience is now at the heart of the shopping experience. By enabling brands to stay connected with the customer at all times, technology can ensure that any issue or query that consumers have is responded to quickly and resolved to their satisfaction. This enhances the customer service experience, and helps businesses grow exponentially through repeat customers as well as word-of-mouth publicity.
