Startups up their game in on-boarding customers before implementing CRM

Over the last six months, startups are piloting several ways to on-board the customer without any additional steps. Several apps like EasyChair, DigiLocker and Clever already allow quick checkouts through mobile numbers or one-click logins. But this method has caught on with companies that have raised large rounds of money. Mobikwik, CarDekho and Ixigo are experimenting with quick sign-ins to keep their customer acquisitions easy. “Getting the customer on-boarding is the first step in customer relationship management and it works well for an omni-channel world,” says Reshma Nagpal, CEO of E-Bee, adding that it builds loyalty for every brand.

These simple actions are now part of the design thinking process that is emerging with engineers across the country. “From the onset of developing an app, engineers need to think how people will react to a process,” says Anil Reddy, CEO of Lollypop Studio, a UI/UX design centre.

Most companies have realised that their active users were dropping out because of login problems. Anil says that if a consumer likes an app, its fate is decided in seven days, or he or she uninstalls it quickly. “Bad design leads to bias against the app and it does turn away consumers,”he adds.

Every time a consumer uninstalls an app or if the app is static, the valuation drops drastically. YourStory has reported that bad app experiences contributed to the loss in valuations for food startups. “The road to making consumers loyal is to make the processes simple in app,” says Anshul Khandelwal, Founder of app studio Upside9.

The app industry is worth $30 billion globally and investing in customer relationship management (CRM) is becoming the most important strategy.

New verification formats

Picking up on this theme is TrueCaller. The Stockholm-based company, which has more than 100 million customers in India, is experimenting on an SDK that makes login easy. If the customer has the app downloaded on the phone then signing in to other apps, including the verification, will be done in a single step. This process gets rid of the one-time password mechanism too.

Mobikwik is taking every step with customer experience at the centre of its focus. It has integrated TrueSDK from Truecaller. “We look forward to solving many challenges in one shot on our app. Our users, while signing up on Mobikwik, now will have an auto-fill mechanism with their Truecaller verified phone number,” says Bipin Preet Singh, Founder & CEO-Mobikwik. He says that the “verified” phone number based user on-boarding will significantly reduce friction in the user journey and minimise drop-offs, which could be a key in the entire consumer engagement lifecycle.

Similarly, CarDekho believes in making user experience seamless and frictionless. “The potential of integrating with Truecaller promises authentic details without making users fill forms or enter OTP for verification,” says Rahul Yadav, Director-Products, CarDekho.

With these kind of experiences cropping up, it would be interesting to see how user login and customer service would morph into a chat bot and Aadhaar-enabled verification system. The argument is that a single chat bot will connect consumers to multiple apps and close transactions, as businesses are beginning to realise the importance of keeping it simple for the consumer, in order to succeed.