When the Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan had visited Chennai last time, he had tweeted: “Had a refreshing discussion on use of digital technology to improve customer satisfaction with Vinod Muthukrishnan.”
Mr. Pradhan, who had read about Mr. Muthukrishnan’s (CEO of CloudCherry) claims to provide real-time ‘Omnichannel Customer Experience Management platform’ for any brand, and took time amidst his busy schedule to meet the innovator.
“Our company offers customer feedback collected through 17 channels, including email, SMS and Twitter and at every point of contact including parking, billing, product quality and billing,” says Mr. Muthukrishnan. “If a feedback is given in real time and the customer is immediately contacted, we believe that a poor tweet or post on Facebook could be prevented. With instant data crunching, analytics and visualisation, businesses are able to take better decisions and bring in the customer’s perspective into tactical and strategic decision-making,” he says.
On his discussion with the Minister, Mr. Muthukrishnan said he learnt from him that the Centre thought itself as a customer-centric organisation accountable to the masses. “Until I met him, I didn’t really believe that a Minister would visit a company like ours. But to see the government thinking from the customer view point is refreshing,” he said.
CloudCherry was started in 2014 by Vinod Muthukrishnan and three others — Vijay Lakshmanan, Prem K. Viswanath and C.L. Nagendra. It was listed by Business Today as one of the coolest start-ups of 2016. Economist Venkatesh Athreya said that it was a good idea for the both public and private sector companies to get customer feedback. “Action must be taken based on the feedback. Also, the way you get the feedback should be randomised so that every kind of customer is covered,” he said.
IVRS system
Oil majors are trying to be in touch with their customers and keep them happy. The Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) for LPG refills is a step in that direction.
“Earlier, consumers made bookings over the telephones. A customer-relationship group is working on a technology-based platform to get customer feedback,” said a senior official in one of the oil companies.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan evinced interest in the company’s focus on customer feedback
