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There's no shortage of mundane and repetitive tasks, no matter how big an organization might be. These activities eat up valuable time which could have used for increasing a company's revenue or for value creation, in general. Thankfully, automation technology now permits businesses to get rid of such tasks and save on time and money. Using rule based automation, businesses can complete crucial action items like maintaining communication with its customers and potential leads, thereby leading to higher customer satisfaction, lead generation, and conversions.
Verloop, a Bengaluru based startup, has come up with a platform for automating actions such as customer support, lead generation, and lead qualification. Verloop's product is the world’s smartest conversational automation platform on a mission to make business related conversions more personal and effective—that too without the need of physical workforce.
StartupTalky interviewed Gaurav Singh, Verloop founder and CEO, to know more about the company.
Verloop - Highlights
| Startup Name | Verloop |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bengaluru |
| Founder | Gaurav Singh |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Website | www.verloop.io |
| Parent Organization | MagicLane Pvt. Ltd. |
Verloop - About
Verloop - Founders And Team
Verloop - How It Began
Verloop - Product Validation Stage
Verloop - Business Model And Revenue Model
Verloop - Revenue
Verloop - Funding And Investors
Verloop - User Acquisition
Verloop - Hiring Funda And Work Culture
Verloop - Startup Challenges
Verloop - Advisors And Mentors
Verloop - Awards
Verloop - Growth
Verloop - FAQs
Verloop - Conclusion
Verloop - About
Verloop is a B2B company that provides a conversational automation platform for businesses to remain in touch with their customers 24/7. This is possible through chatbots that are implemented on a company’s website/application or through Verloop’s recently launched WhatsApp chatbots. Verloop fuels businesses' customer support, marketing and sales department 24/7 non-stop using its AI powered bots.
Verloop’s USP is the essence of automation integrated in its chatbots. This allows one to automate a conversational chatbot by pre-feeding messages in its workflow. This is done by understanding the set of questions that customers frequently ask and possible variations of these questions.
Some features that make Verloop a must for any B2C company are:
- Businesses can respond to customer queries 24/7 in a personalized manner using Verloop’s always-on-bot.
- Visitors are answered in their preferred language.
- Real-time sentiment analysis helps businesses to deal with queries better.
- Bots help in lead generation by connecting with the website visitors. They are can be used for lead qualification as well.
- Bots can book meetings with web visitors.
- Using Verloop’s 1000+ available app integrations, data can be pushed into any CRM.
- One can use tools such as FAQ navigator, sliders, etc. to enhance customers' chat experience. Users can create ideal chat flows as needed, edit it whenever required, and go live instantly.
- Verloop allows seamless hand-off from the chatbot to human representatives for sales closure or if the question is out of bounds for the bot to answer.
Our vision is to reach out to various countries and spread the word of our emerging product successfully. Our mission is to ensure that through automation we can reduce the burden off of the employees and enable them to work on vital tasks rather than monotonous and repetitive tasks.
Verloop’s Language Understanding modules are built equally on classical machine learning as well as modern deep learning ideas. In terms of specific tooling, spaCy, MITIE, and Duckling are the main classical NLP focused toolkits that Verloop uses. Verloop uses PyTorch and Tensorflow from Deep Learning perspective. It enables businesses to understand users' intent and respond in a personalized manner. Verloop’s NLU powered modules are used for responding customer FAQs, figure out user target, and personalize conversations—these are done in multiple languages.
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Verloop - Founders And Team
Gaurav Singh is the founder and CEO of Verloop. An engineering graduate, Gaurav Singh began his entrepreneurial journey in college. He has been on the founding team of ventures like ‘Stalk Ninja’ and ‘GoDeliver’. Gaurav worked with TCS, LT Research, and Vizury before starting Verloop.
Piyush Mishra is the ex-CTO of Verloop. Piyush was always interested in freelancing and has worked as a freelance developer with various companies. He was on the founding team of 'GoDeliver' alongside Gaurav.
Gaurav reached out to Piyush about the initial B2B idea. At that point, Piyush was working several freelance engagements and was quickly convinced to begin work on a conversational automation. To Piyush, this was a profound idea which piqued him.
Gaurav overlooks the operational activities at Verloop such as marketing, sales (pre-sales and post-sales), and lead-generation. He also attends regular meetings with top-prospects. Piyush, on the other hand, is the tech expert overseeing issues related to coding, development, processing of chatbots, etc. Both of them are masters in their respective fields and ensure systematic functioning of the processes under them while ensuring that employees are on the right track.
Verloop has a team size of 30 at present which includes full-time employees as well as interns. The team comprises marketing and content strategists, technical team, human resource representatives, financial executives, forward deployment teams, business development teams, pre-sales, and post-sales teams.
Verloop - How It Began
The idea of Verloop emerged when founders Gaurav Singh, and Piyush Mishra were running a B2C Personal Concierge Startup called Magictiger. While managing a chat ops team of 100+ members, the team slowly started automating mundane and repetitive tasks. In the process, Gaurav and Piyush realized that automation of conversations with customers could help many other businesses like Magictiger. This pivoted them to become a B2B company: Verloop.
The idea was to use machine learning, AI, and NLP (Natural Language Processing) and help companies connect with customers on a large scale while maintaining the level of personalization people expect from super agents. The idea was to use the 80-20 rule in the practical world; 80% of customers' questions come from 20% of the company’s query database. By automating that 20%, one can free upto 80% of the teams’ time, allowing the workforce to focus on the vital components of the sales process rather than spending time on those parts which are monotonous and menial.
We understood how monotonous tasks are very time-consuming for the employees and how through automation we will be able to reduce the burden and make the work for the employees highly productive. Automation is present around us everywhere, but to use it is most productively, is a challenge. In a way, that it is beneficial to the employees and they don’t consider it a bane. Keeping all of this in mind, we used automation in a way to help the employees and allow our bots to take over repetitive tasks.
Verloop - Product Validation Stage
Considering the constant growth in the automation segment, Gaurav and Piyush decided to embark on their venture. They figured out a bunch of tasks not strongly dependent on human intervention and that could be easily performed using a digital workforce (bots). They started by automating tasks within Magictiger and then decided to provide the same services to other organizations as well.
We sat in a shared office space initially, we talked to other startups on our floor. Our investors also came through with some connects. I also did a LOT of traveling and talking to potential customers, gathered loads of feedback on where exactly we'd fit well and what path to take from there" says Gaurav explaining Verloop’s product validation stage.
Verloop - Business Model And Revenue Model
Verloop has a B2B business model. Users can take a 14 day free trial.
For revenue generation, Verloop is currently offering 3 packages:
- A free forever starter package that allows 500 monthly conversations.
- Business package that starts at $49/ month, and where prices vary according to the number of monthly conversations.
- Enterprise package with a price of $699/month.
There is a drastic change in our previous business model( for Magictiger) , which was previously Business to Consumers. Due to this change, our ideologies, campaigns, promotional methods, etc. had to be changed to a certain extent. Since our target market changed, we had to adopt a different pitch to cater to the needs of the new market. Different schemes were adopted to satiate the needs of the market. As our focus shifted to businesses, we gathered that every business will have a different use-case towards chatbots. Hence, the pitch needs to be changed accordingly by understanding each business and its priorities
Verloop - Revenue
Verloop reported a revenue of around $960k in 2018.
For revenue generation, Verloop is currently offering 3 packages:
- A free forever starter package that allows 500 monthly conversations.
- Business package that starts at $49/ month, and where prices vary according to the number of monthly conversations.
- Enterprise package with a price of $699/month.
Verloop - Funding And Investors
Verloop raised funding worth $3 Million from IDFC Parampara Fund and others in November 2018. The amount is intended to be used for technology enhancement and team expansion.
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Verloop - User Acquisition
The Verloop team has worked on various channels to spread the word about the venture and secure multiple sign-ups.
We have noticed that people love videos and that they are very engaging. The most engaging channels are LinkedIn and Twitter for spreading awareness about your product and the outreach is also very high since everyone has a different network and a different set of followers. That’s exactly why these two work the best.
For customer retention, Verloop follows the same funda that most companies usually do: “customer is king”. The company puts high intensity efforts into its post-sales procedure as the team ensures that customers are satisfied. The team also makes sure that the chatbot is updated as and when users want a change within the bot’s flow. The Verloop team also sees that the use-case is pitched to each business based on their need and requirement.
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Verloop Hiring Funda And Work Culture
Interested candidates usually reach out to Verloop through LinkedIn and other hiring portals. Once the candidate's resume has been verified and they are seen as a potential fit, the candidate is called down for a set of tests/interviews for evaluation. Interviews at Verloop are designed to not only understand the candidate's technical capabilities, but also to identify any scope for improvement and openness towards learning.
Verloop’s work culture is very positive and encouraging. The team indulges in various activities such as gaming, team outings, and various other motivation based activities.
We believe that automation at this day and age is highly important. We make sure each one of us are aware of each of our roles and run a smooth and fair collaboration in whatever work is to be completed by us. We believe in teamwork and constantly updating new features and satisfying the customers.
Verloop - Startup Challenges
Speaking of the challenges, Gaurav tells, On a meta-level, initially the challenge was about knowing what was necessary for customers. Once we had a brief idea of that, we kept digging deeper. Initially, it was about survival. First through the next few weeks, then months. Right now we're talking years, so now the focus is more on growth
Verloop - Advisors And Mentors
Although Verloop is not being mentored by any organization or individual at the moment, it is consulting Smooch and Kaleyra to get an idea of what templates to run and how to approve WhatsApp templates for its recently launched WhatsApp chatbots, . Kaleyra and Smooch are directly accelerated by WhatsApp and are in constant contact with Verloop.
Verloop falls under Y Combinator’s Track’17 company, a hub for emerging startups with different agendas and plans of action.
Verloop - Awards
Verloop received the “most-agnostic award” from MIT.
Verloop - Growth
Verloop has a customer base consisting of leading organizations like Aadhar Bridge, Apollo Munich Health Insurance, Livpure, Portea, LockTheDeal, and Nykaa.
Verloop's recently introduced WhatsApp chatbots have brought a significant increment in its clientele list. The company is also receiving recognition from various magazines and websites.
The team focuses on improving its services for maintaining customer satisfaction and provides its users with the most advanced technology. The Verloop team is hoping to gain more recognition overseas in coming time. The company has clients in the UK, UAE, Australia, and is planning to expand its presence to cover several other markets.
Since automation is slowly catching up with people, they are starting to realize how essential automation is for businesses to run smoothly and to reduce the employee turnover rate. Through automation, we only wish it will make the lives of the employees more productive and reduce the unnecessary workload. Automation will be considered a boon and not a bane, where people will understand the requisite need to implement it within their company - Gaurav Singh
Verloop - FAQs
Who is the Founder of Verloop?
Gaurav Singh is the founder and CEO of Verloop
What is Verloop?
Verloop is a B2B company that provides a conversational automation platform for businesses to remain in touch with their customers 24/7
How much is Verloop Funding till date?
Verloop raised funding worth $3 Million from IDFC Parampara Fund and others in November 2018.
What is Verloop's Revenue?
Verloop reported a revenue of around $960k in 2018.
Verloop - Conclusion
At Verloop.io, we believe that the internet was the single largest revolution for global communication. It’s how you can talk to your friends and family across the globe in seconds, and how we’re talking to you right now. But even as technology was built to make it quicker and easier for people to talk to each other, businesses didn’t buy in – using old tools and older ideas. Verloop.io aims to achieve a single mission – to help enterprise businesses help their customers better. From creating easier outreach to building more meaningful relationships, our technology-first focus empowers businesses to get the most out of every interaction.
Author: Chayanika Goswami
Source : https://startuptalky.com/verloop-success-story/
Date : 2021-03-31T10:30:00.000Z