India Inc & COVID 19: Customer Centric & User Obsessed Brands Will Thrive

As the Pandemic ensued and companies took a financial hit, spending on marketing saw a cut down by various businesses across verticals. Therefore, it has become more important than ever to engage in customer management and retention. This is the take of Raviteja Dodda, founder and CEO of MoEngage. Let’s delve into it a little further!

Catching Up With Your Customers

While some verticals are negatively impacted, some verticals are positively impacted as well. With the same in mind, MoEngage, that has businesses at its customer base, is looking out for their clients. Raviteja Dodda shares that they are trying to gauge whether and how the business codes have evolved. Moreover, MoEngage is trying to give an insight into providing practical solutions with regards to customer engagement. 

For instance, for a vertical like Travel, which has been deeply impacted because of safety concerns amidst the coronavirus, MoEngage is suggesting them to be customer-centric by showcasing empathy instead of driving conversions. This would translate into sharing information whenever and wherever possible. Right now, it is more beneficial to engage with customer management and retention than conversions. Therefore, investments of businesses are being diverted to the same.

Another important aspect is understanding and working with models of different businesses. MoEngage, with the consent of other companies, is sharing the best practices across businesses as a banner of hope. Evaluating, testing and application of the practices by various clients is the main focus right now. 

Impact on Business Verticals

As the pandemic hit, some verticals that met necessities over wants inevitably did better, and the latter took a hit. Grocery as a vertical picked up demand. Even though there had been a supply shortage initially, the company was able to pick right back up in three to four weeks. Music, like Gaana.Com and OTT like TataSky, have grown by around 35%. Similarly, Pharmacy as a vertical has also grown. Gaming, too, has been positively impacted. 

On the other end are the negatively impacted companies like Travel and Hospitality that have not been only restricted because of lockdown, but also the border restrictions. 

Of course, offline retail and transportation has also been impacted. Ola, Zoom Car and others are facing the brunt because of the lockdown. Unlike Travel and tourism, the opening of the lockdown is still beneficial for these verticals, as per Raviteja Dodda. Finance is also positively supported during the pandemic, and so is e-commerce. However, Raviteja points out the geographic region matters in the results that are yielded. 

Business Continuity and Bouncing Back

With the pandemic hitting everyone in all sorts of ways, Raviteja Dodda shares a ray of hope and empathy and shares some important insights from his experience for other founders. He shares that building a team of strong leaders is very important for founders. One should have the wisdom to know when to zoom in and when to zoom out in terms of areas of the organisation, which can only happen when strong leaders are encouraged, who can take over the functions well.

A second point to pay attention to is having a strong goal-setting framework. The goals can be scaled across the organisation. MoEngage, as a company, has transparency at its core values. They set common goals across the company, which is a strength of the organisation. Even though it’s a tedious process, it is essential to the big picture. Thinking about goals rather than projects has been a key motto of MoEnagage. 

The third point is having a strong financial function and a strong CFO who will keep you humble and realistic. Raviteja jokes about how founders are extremely optimistic but how their expectations need to be lowered and focus on leading and efficiency while being grounded. 

The final point is having the ground reality of your business. This basically means speaking to one’s customers themselves and their teams and know what is happening on the ground.  

A Customer-Obsessed Culture Can Help Brands Thrive

Finally, Raviteja shared that whether the business is based on consumer experience or SAAS, every business needs to be obsessed with its users and customers. Building this kind of culture takes a lot of time, yet, it is important. Giving an example from MoEngage itself, Raviteja explains that he and his co-founder look at customer tickets, what customers are like and even meeting them. 

In turn, having the ground reality using the aforementioned helps to identify the gaps and challenges faced by the business and change the strategy, plus, at a faster pace. 

Raviteja Dodda shares some final advice for all businesses in lieu of the Pandemic: as marketing spends go down, retention becomes important, and therefore, customer engagement has become an important aspect and a sensible move in the current business scenario.