In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Nidhi S Mittal, who is the head of marketing at JioSaavn, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of marketing at Gupshup. In this insightful conversation, Nidhi spoke about what drives her love for marketing, and how she approaches communication with consumers. She walked us through the key points of the right communication with your audience, whilst not drowning them in automated emails.Using data to engage customers through meaningful conversations.Understanding analytics and building strategies around the data is crucial for marketers. Nidhi walked us through her process of analyzing data and deploying the most effective form of communication with your audience. She also spoke about how to not overdo chatbot automation and outreach in general.“You have to understand the people, process, and the product part of it, you need to put up the best of the product and understand what's really applicable to you, and then expand it over a period of time. you have to have a very, very seamless process from the start till the end for your own internal, team as well who's delivering and also for the customer point of view.” - Nidhi How to not overdo communication.We are drowned in information whenever we go on the internet. It is very easy for brands to push their agenda too hard on their audience without knowing the right conversation streams, and how to communicate ‘the right way’ is where miracles happen, as Srinivas explains.“It's easy to sort of create some distance between your audience and you., while you still might be visible everywhere on every format or retargeting and all of that, but, you should always take care to ensure that you, your brand, and its followers don't feel a separation or a distance. And that is happening quite a bit because, a lot of digital marketing today is sort of like mass marketing, even though you have very good targeting mechanisms. There is a lot of fatigue, that's also creeping in, to what consumers, experience. I mean, the kinds of stimuli that we are exposed to, as consumers on a day-to-day basis is humongous. And it's very hard to make and keep that connect with your followers, which is where I think the one-to-one connect with, your followers is where the power of conversations really comes in” - SrinivasBios:Nidhi is a ‘marketer by passion.’ Over years of working across various genres of marketing, she’s developed keen insights into consumer engagement and creating meaningful conversations. Currently, she employs her expertise for marketing in the music streaming industry. Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing, and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum, and Tejas Networks.Gupshup.ioFollow Nidhi on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Mehul Bhatt, who’s the CEO and cofounder of FloCareer, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of marketing at Gupshup. In this insightful conversation, Mehul walks us through how FloCareer helps businesses secure top-tier talents by working with several stakeholders like the business they are working with, the talent they are interviewing, and the folks who are conducting the interviews.FloCareer is India’s fastest growing HR tech company that provides “Interview-as-a-Service” and leverages automated interviews to streamline the hiring process.How automation is key to streamlining the hiring processOn average, the hiring process can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks. The process isn’t as simple as reviewing a job application and then hiring the candidate. In fact, it’s complex and extremely time-consuming in terms of finding availability of multiple parties and scheduling times for interviews. Mehul shares how automation helps streamline the coordination between different stakeholders like the job seeker, the HR, and support team. “[W]hat happens is the candidate would say, when they are available for the interview, and they will provide a few time slots on our portal. And we would inform from like 3500 odd interviewers we have, right? We will inform the right set of interviewers based on certain machine learning based algorithms that who are the best interviewer for this particular candidate” – MehulUsing personalized messaging through multiple channels is essential to connecting with prospective customers In this digital age, now more than ever, it has become important to deliver personalized messaging to our customers to engage with them and to build trust and lasting relationships with them. And this can be successfully achieved by humanizing and unifying our communication through multiple channels, as Mehul explains. “When we say bot, it's not just the Chatbot anymore, but multiple different ways you can interact with a human being in humanly ways. So, these are the interfaces, especially the tech savvy people are very comfortable using because you know, typing something versus just talking is of course, much more efficient.” – Mehul Bios: Mehul is the CEO and cofounder of FloCareer, India’s fastest growing HR tech companies that provides “Interview-as-a-Service” and leverages automated interviews to streamline the hiring process.Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:https://www.gupshup.io/Follow Mehul on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Vitasta Kaul, who’s the director of brand marketing at CredR, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of Marketing at Gupshup.In this insightful conversation, Vitasta walked us through the various ways in which CredR seamlessly integrates their offline shopping experience to their online presence. This helps them CredR is India’s Most Trusted Used Two-Wheeler Consumer Brand that leverages Technology & Processes to simplify the Market. Understanding exactly what your customers wantEach brand at its very core is trying to solve a problem for their customers. With time, the problems as well as consumer motivation keep evolving. But in a country like India, the customers themselves can be from a varied demographic. Vitasta shows us how understanding your customers becomes really important which also creates the need to directly initiate a conversation with them. “I'm talking about that level of personalization, or the problem statements are so unique, that it becomes really, really difficult for us to augment it down to that level, or go down to that level of granularity and understand, like, what is this guy's problem in life? And how can I solve this problem” - Vitasta Using technology to smoothly initiate two way conversations for marketingWith so many messaging and media platforms, it becomes essential that brands use them thoughtfully without overburdening their customers with messages. Bringing a set strategy into place is key to great messaging and Vitasta further explains this process.  “A solid customer data platform, in the backend, where a lot of this information, this enrichment of consumer information is present. And then you create an omni-channel engagement strategy. You have your website, you have an app, but you also try to get consumers to have two-way conversations with you, typically on messaging apps”. - Vitasta Bios:Vitasta ,who’s the director of brand marketing at CredR which is  India’s Most Trusted Used Two-Wheeler Consumer Brand that leverages Technology & Processes for its growth.  Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.ioFollow Vitasta on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Priyang Agarwal, who’s the director of brand marketing at Tata 1MG, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of Marketing at Gupshup.In this insightful conversation, Priyang walked us through the various touchpoints in which Tata 1mg connects with their customers, and walks us through exactly how and where to use chatbots to improve the overall customer experience. Tata 1mg is India's leading digital healthcare platform. From doctor consultations on chat to online pharmacy and lab tests at home 1Mg does it all.  Building the ecommerce journey of digital healthcareThe digitalization of healthcare is a very recent concept in India which also requires setting up the entire customer journey as smoothly as possible right from scratch! Priyang takes us through all the different channels that are a part of this journey  at Tata 1mg and the various ways they optimize each stage of the journey.“We remember you from the day you have come to our website, and from the day you have ordered anything from our website. And once you have ordered, we also try to provide quite a lot of engaging content to you through multiple, again touchpoints.” - PriyangFinding the balance between automation and humanisationEven as technology takes forefront in running all digital businesses, it's important for brands to also keep the human factor alive and somehow finely balance both so the customers get the best of both worlds. “Suppose you are ordering a medicine, you're stuck in between or you are facing some problems in delivery and if the automated chatbot is not able to solve or not answer a query to the best level of your satisfaction. That's where I think the customer service team comes into play and solves those particular queries. I think the balance between the two, that is the human touch, plus the automated journey flow is very, very important. If one is not able to cater to the other, please and please bring the other channel. if one channel is not able to cater to the other, please bring the other channel. That's what I think balance is all about” - Priyang  Bio:Priyang is the director of brand marketing at Tata 1MG which is India's leading digital healthcare platform. He has had an incredible career in marketing and is considered one of India’s greatest minds in the space.Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources: Gupshup.ioFollow Priyang on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Ashish Bajaj, who’s the Head of Marketing at Medibuddy, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of Marketing at Gupshup.In this insightful conversation, Ashish walked us through the comprehensive chatbot flows that his team have to manage at Medibuddy. Medibuddy is India’s largest healthcare platform and they help integrate the entire healthcare lifecycle for their users through their chatbot communications.Managing the Online to Offline IntegrationsMedibuddy and Ashish’s team have to look at managing and automating the entire customer lifecycle. Everything from online to offline. That means setting up appointments with the right doctors to manager your particular ailment, to partnering with pharmacies to help provide the medication.As you can imagine, getting the numerous process and possible scenarios toward which the company must interact with their customers is hugely important, but also really challenging. And in this episode, Ashish breaks down exactly how they do it!“So, touch is very important factor in how the offline world works, from a point of view of one-to-one interaction. But if you map how digital platforms are doing it, doesn't mean if the touch is not there, the empathy is not there, when you come on a digital platform, the first step then becomes knowing more about you, and the kind of information require any illnesses previously, any reports that you want to upload. This feeds into a lot of information back to our databases, and allow us to have a much more stitched, experience for the consumer.” - AshishThe importance of Social ListeningSocial Listening through automated tools helps you truly understand what your customers are saying and think about you. It also helps understand what areas you need to improve. Ashish and his team and Medibuddy consistently use this to help create their content and make improvements to their processes.“I think it's important for any marketing team to figure out what their consumer is saying. The other day we were, we were having a chat at one of the other panels for future in terms of how the brand will listen to consumers. I think, consumer sourcing is going to be a very, very, very, very thing in terms of immediate impact. Now coming from there, and we being into healthcare. just imagine that, you need a lab test to be done, and you're fasting since seven and somebody's supposed to come by eight and pick up. We need our SLAs in place with partners to execute on this. We are one of the highest rated app in terms of doctor consultations in the medical category itself.” - Ashish"So, we have more than 1200 FAQ videos through doctors where people have asked questions to us. And I'm talking about four different languages, five different languages. And that now has become a repository that sits on our platform as well, where you can find out already, similar FAQ kind of things which people are looking for, that answer is already there.” - AshishBio:Ashish Bajaj is the Head of Marketing at Medibuddy, which is India’s largest and highest rated Healthcare app. He has had an incredible career in marketing and is considered one of India’s greatest minds in the space.Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.ioFollow Ashish on LinkedIn

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Rumi Ambastha, who’s the Director of brand marketing at The Man Company, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of Marketing at Gupshup.In this insightful conversation, Rumi walked us through how her and her team at The Man Company humanize, personalize and optimize their chatbot experience on their website. She let us know exactly how they consistently create new content for their chatbot and interactions for over 100 SKU’s with their users.Humanizing the messagingChatbots are such a powerful to tool for ecommerce companies like The Man Company. Why? Well, they allow them to scale their customer interactions. Instead of having a team member, having to spend his/her time with a customer, a chatbot can be programmed to answer any and every question a customer may have. But to make that experience a positive one for the customer, the messaging needs to be deeply thought about. Rumi walks us through exactly how her and her team do so.“So, it becomes extremely crucial for a D2C brands like ours, because you are talking to all kinds of men, different age, different region, different language, and you are talking to them not just on online, you're talking to them offline, you're talking to them on your DMs, on your social media. So, your conversation in all the spaces need to be, need to have the same tonality or the same language.” - RumiOptimizing your messagingFor a company like The Man Company, it’s so crucial to be consistently updating their chatbot based on their previous interactions. Everytime a customer asks a question, it’s a new learning for the marketing team to decide whether they want to include that as part of their interactions.“Data plays a huge role here, because we have a very robust customer database. There is a lot of insights coming to us. Then the job is, of the marketer to cull out actionable insights from that and enrich, not just your physical people standing, offline but also your chat, your bots. You need to be a customer centric brand to actually progress and there has to be a lot of self-awareness that you may not have all the right answers right now as a marketer, but the customers out there will be teaching you a lot of new things. So, you need to stay open with all this knowledge that is coming from every medium possible.” - RumiBio:Rumi Ambasta is the Director of Brand Marketing at The Man Company and she specializes in building powerful brands and effective messaging campaigns. Rumi has a wealth of experience in marketing and has spent her entire career helping brands grow their awareness.Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.ioTheManCompany.com

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, we spoke to Rapti Gupta, who’s the director of brand marketing at Instamojo, and Srinivas Vijayaraghavan, who’s the VP of Marketing at Gupshup.The conversation centered around two major points. The first was how to build messaging campaigns and stories that resonate with audiences, and the second was how to use chatbots to scale and personalize interactions with end customers.Building Testimonial Campaigns that resonateTestimonial campaigns are powerful. The reason they work so effectively, is because they are genuine reviews of your product or service, from people who look and speak exactly like your audience. And this a great way of building trust with your audiences. At InstaMojo, Rapti and her team are currently running a very successful testimonial campaign called Mojo Stars.”If you as a brand are able to tell your story and talk about the value that you can create to your end customer and the impact that you are delivering through your product or service. I think that's what's the most important part of a story for a business, especially when you're doing a customer testimonial. Today, Mojo Stars is a very heartfelt and a very warm campaign for everybody who's looking at it and understanding it. It's written in first person where they are talking about their challenges, they're talking about how they went about solving it” - Rapti GuptaThe Key Elements of a Great Story“It's really about their journey, the focus is the customer. And I think it goes and it extends beyond just storytelling. It has to be even on your product. The only reason that your B2B SaaS product will work if they understand the customers from the core, right? What are the real problems that they're facing? What are the challenges that they face on a day to day basis.” - Rapti GuptaThe importance of personalizing your chatbot communicationsInstamojo’s customers are ecommerce entrepreneurs. And to enable their B2C Entrepreneurs, they allow them to access chatbots through their app store. The main purpose of this is to help them improve their communications with their prospects and to personalize the experience.“They struggle with traffic to their stores. And once someone lands on the store, you wouldn't want to lose them. You can't afford to lose them. So chatbots allow a great way to capture those leads, and understand what channel they came from and what kind of things they were looking And also, there are FAQs, and different other things that one could use on the ecommerce website to engage the lead who has not yet converted into a customer.” - Rapti GuptaBio:Rapti Gupta is the Head of Brand Marketing at Instamojo and she specializes in content execution and strategy. Rapti has been with Instamojo for over 5 years and has been a core member of their content team ever since joining them.Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.ioInstamojo.com

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Thiagarajan “Thia” Rajagopalan, Founder and CEO of Tripeur, joins Srini to discuss how conversational messaging can massively get rid of customer pain points while increasing brands’ efficiency. Tune in for a conversation about how better communication equates better brand reputation. The Changes in Consumer Requirements COVID has definitely brought massive changes on the way people travel, regardless if its for leisure or for business. According to Thia, people demand more information about travel arrangements, places they’re travelling to (restrictions, policies, etc.), and have expectations in terms of the place, hotel, etc.). All of these are driven by the fact that people’s regard for safety alongside convenience has become higher. This drives the need for better communication. “I would say the travel industry is innovating and adapting to the new needs of the travelers. I would say this is just the beginning, we are just scratching the surface.” - Thia RajagopalanThe Increased Need for CommunicationBecause people’s priority is safety, communication has become more important than ever. As many travelling transactions are affected by the pandemic, there is also an enormous need to provide consumers with the information. Hence, it is important to provide contactless but reliable communication to consumers. Thia believes that automating this process through conversational messaging is the best way to optimise operations.  “Since we are a tech company, we started focusing on, ‘how do I let the user help himself or herself, without having to speak to anybody without having to even pick up the phone and talk to somebody?’” - Thia RajagopalanEnsuring Your Brand’s Good Reputation Before, brands’ reputation used to be completely based on their customers’ offline and real-time experience. However, with the accessibility of technology, the market has become so much more competitive than the way it used to be. Consumers now assess brands in terms of their online services (e.g. mobile apps performance, etc.). Hence, today, brands should be making an effort to impress the users not only while they are actively transacting with brands but also before and after their transactions. Brands can do this by sending out personalised messages to customers, which Thia believes to have a positive influence on brands’ reputation.“Social media is becoming very, very common for all the users. The direct connectivity between the service provider and the consumer is only going to accelerate, and it'll go to the next level.” - Thia RajagopalanBio:Thiagarajan “Thia” Rajagopalan founded Tripeur, an AI-powered end-to-end corporate travel management platform. With a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Computer Science, Thia is a known figure in product management and product marketing associated with telecom giants such as Motorola, Qualcomm, and Mobileum . Srini has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.ioTripeur.com

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Gupshup’s Product Leader, Kunal Talreja, joins Srini to discuss how the Gupshup IP Messaging empowers a no-app, no-call, and no-store visit—the most convenient customer service for both sides. Tune in to see how less is more! The Gupshup IP Messaging Kunal explained the power of the Gupshup IP Messaging (GIP), a platform that transforms one-way messages into two-way conversations. Ultimately, GIP gets rid of inconvenient processes that require customers to call the brands, install applications, or visit the stores. By just clicking a link that’s embedded in messages sent to customers, customers can start transacting using automated customer service powered by smart bots. “When it comes to IP messaging, since it is on the internet, it gives you a leverage of using various different formats, can carry large files, and it can enable two-way communication.” - Kunal TalrejaAccessing Everything at Home Digitizing and automating customer processes should be a norm for brands, especially now that there are so many restrictions due to COVID-19. It’s a convenient and smart move for brands, no matter which industry they’re under—retail, banking, or even car dealerships. The customer should not have to go to stores, banks, or showrooms for processes they can complete by just scanning a QR code or clicking a link that would just collect their information and proceed with the process. With just a click, everything they need should be delivered right to their homes. “The customer change that a customer needs to make is not major; it's just within the same SMS template that they're using.”  - Srinivas VijayaraghavanPersonalized, 24/7 Customer Service The GIP offers countless possibilities—customer experience improves significantly, from being able to reach resolution bots 24/7 to get a more personalized customer experience. For the brands, it’s quick and easy as they only have to provide the template for messaging and provide the functionalities (i.e. report fraud, file a complaint, apply for a loan, purchase a product, etc.). With the GIP, the messaging channel doesn’t stay a messaging channel; it becomes a marketplace where brands could expand and reach a wider audience. “It gives a very good competitive advantage to small retailers and SMEs to have their own digital store in which they can get customers to do all those transactions without coming to their store physically.” - Kunal TalrejaBio:Kunal Talreja is a Product Leader at Gupshup. He’s been driving a lot of cool innovations around the area of messaging within the company. Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Gupshup’s Product and Strategy Team Senior Member, Adwit Sharma, joins Srini to discuss how conversational messaging makes company processes and communications seamless. Tune in and see what you’re missing by not automating your HR processes. Communicate More Naturally Because of the pandemic, many companies have switched to remote setups. While this brought many issues as employee communications can no longer happen face-to-face, there is a way for companies to still make communications seamless, easy, and natural. Adwit believes that many work-related issues, instead of being raised through complex processes (i.e. ticketing system) can be resolved through automation using common messaging channels such as Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, Hangouts, etc. “We are improving usability as well as availability, using conversational automation without replacing anything that already helps and works for an organization.” - Adwit SharmaEasier Company ProcessesAutomation is especially helpful for the Human Resources (HR) as it can make HR processes (i.e. hiring, onboarding) easier. Simple inquiries like scheduling an interview, sending out documents, all the way to setting up the company equipment, if tied to an automated messaging channel, can be a great help in reducing inconvenience not only from the HR officer’s perspective, but also the new employee’s. Automating company processes may also be helpful for employees wanting to file leaves, get payslips, and many others. “The repetitive queries that you get, they automatically go down fast. Because people are now reading your notifications.”  - Adwit SharmaIt’s Not ComplicatedFor Adwit, the beauty of automation and tying it to messaging channels lies with the fact that it’s not a complicated process for the companies at all. Once you select a vendor that would oversee the entire automation process, integration integration framework and engineering resources, business analysts, and a conversational design team are all provided. There’s also no need for employees and the company to heavily adjust with the new systems as automation is commonly tied with Teams, Slack, and WhatsApp, which people use on a day-to-day basis. “You don't have to expose people outside your company to too much technical complexity.” - Srinivas VijayaraghavanTo know more about Conversational Messaging in Company Processes, listen to this episode.Bio:Adwit SharmaAdwit Sharma is a conversational automation industry giant. He is currently a Senior Member of Gupshup’s Product and Strategy Team. Srinivas VijayaraghavanSrinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Gupshup’s Product Head of Conversational AI, Niyati Agarwal joins Srini to discuss how smart social media bots can bring your brand closer to consumers. Tune in to find out about how this strategy builds customer loyalty, increases sales, and even becomes a marketing tool for your brand! Engaging to Consumers OnlineSocial media is so widely used these days that it has become an outlet for thousands of annoyed (sometimes satisfied) customers. When consumers are unhappy with a product, they tend to voice out their concerns online, the same way they leave positive reviews online when they feel otherwise. Hence, now is the perfect time for brands to incorporate social media bots and automation in their online engagement with consumers. “You allow that platform on a private channel to voice out the same kind of concerns that he or she might have done on a public channel.” - Niyati AgarwalGetting Your Customers’ LoyaltySocial media bots and automation allow consumers to be heard instantly—not thirty minutes or an hour after their feedback, but instantly. This should greatly impact how consumers feel; a very mad customer can at least be turned into a neutral one. The goal is instead of having actual people to monitor this pile of public consumer feedback, which is almost impossible, customers can privately reach out to smart social media bots and be presented with a deal, offer, or resolution that would leave them satisfied and with a renewed loyalty for the brand. “You're not able to just handle the negative situations, you're able to handle the positive sentiments of such people. And you're creating a strategy that includes the overall engagement of your users.”  - Niyati AgarwalSmart Social Media BotsWhat brands need to keep in mind is that the success of social media bots depends on how deep the context bots can perceive. If the bot is programmed right and is smart enough to determine what a consumer needs, a consumer who is simply engaging online to leave feedback can be led to making another purchase. Social media bots can definitely establish a deeper connection between brands and consumers that is beneficial for both sides in the long run. “I think this is a solution that can really bring brands and followers closer, which is what conversational messaging does.” - Srinivas VijayaraghavanTo know more about Improving Your Online Reputation Management with Social Media Bots, listen to this episode.Bio:Niyati AgarwalGupshup’s Product Management Head for AISrinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast, Beerud and Srini welcome guest Pratekk Agarwaal, an experienced financial advisor of FinTech companies.  They discuss how the integration of messaging to FinTech services is an absolute win not only for the brands, but more importantly, for the consumers. Customers’ Habits EvolvedCustomers are long done with downloading dozens of apps that serve different purposes. Their needs and habits have changed to being able to do all online activities at once, including finance, regardless if it’s through WhatsApp, or anything they use for messaging. Therefore, FinTech services, being one of the most powerful industries in the digitised era, needs to move forward along with its consumers. “Since 10 years ago, there have been multiple things which have changed and everything which had to have a physical presence is now converted, or it's now changed into a digital way.” - Pratekk AgarwaalWho Stands OutAs FinTech has grown massively, many brands appeared left and right, with varied things to offer to customers. Some would offer great user interface or great user experience, while some would entice customers with great interest rates. For Pratekk, when the competition is tight, that’s where customer experience comes into play, as the brand that offers the most seamless and satisfying experience gains the highest customer loyalty. “We are now wanting to build and start asking for where it's more personalized and it's focused on customer experience, and it's transactional level banking.”  - Pratekk AgarwaalWhat Satisfies CustomersIt’s an absolute win for FinTech to offer their services through a messaging app instead of going through the complex, not to mention expensive, the process of building a separate app. From the customers’ perspective, on the other hand, these apps are painful, time-consuming, and outdated. Pratekk believes that the integration of conversational messaging in FinTech services is what would bring customers exactly what they need, which would have countless returns for the brands. Less complex processes means more customers will buy insurance, open a savings account, get a personal loan, etc. “I think the moment we start introducing these features, and people start using them, you will see an immediate adoption and immediate movement from app to appless FinTech.”  - Pratekk AgarwaalBio:Pratekk Agarwaal is a passionate intrapreneur and Fintech expert with over 18 years of multi-industry expertise in setting up successful businesses from scratch to scale with focus on the financial services domain. He held key positions with leading Fintech and NBFCs like Bajaj Finserv/Bajaj Finance, Fullerton, Selfin, IndoStar Capital, ftcash, and BharatPe. Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast, Beerud and Srini discuss how the Instagram messenger API can be the game-changer for everyone involved—for the brands, consumers, influencers, etc. Tune in to learn about how to make use of Instagram for your brands marketing, commerce, and support. The Instagram We LoveInstagram is a powerful social media platform that has hundreds of millions of users. It enables its messenger API to present countless opportunities not only for brands but also for consumers. Automated chats through Instagram direct message (DM) gave way for businesses to increase their interaction with consumers and for influencers with their followers. The converging of social media (public) and conversational messaging (private), according to Beerud, made a lot of impact on how brands operate.“There are things you want to say publicly, and there are things that have to be done privately. If you can do both in a seamless manner, I think that can have some dramatic impact.” - Beerud ShethMaking the Experience PersonalBeerud thinks that this automation, if done right, could be a rich experience for consumers, brands, and influencers. For example, through trained AI or smart bot, consumers can DM their favorite influencers/celebrities and get an "authentic" response. Influencers, which are on the other end of the spectrum, can monetize from increased engagement, partnership with brands, or by simply using the feature however they like. "You can ask what you're interested in, and they will answer. It really changes the whole thing, it gives a very personal, intimate experience.” - Beerud ShethEverything in One GoThe Instagram messenger API is an all-encompassing capability that can help with brands’ marketing, selling, and support.  The platform can now be used to cater to all concerns, starting from the announcement, deals, launches to the selling itself, up until resolving customer issues such as cancellations, returns, etc. However, Beerud notes that aside from Instagram, there are other channels (WhatsApp, etc,) that brands can use aside from Instagram, so make sure to check those for consumers to have as many options as possible when connecting to brands. “It just dramatically transforms a brand, a business or an influencer's ability to engage their fans, followers, and customers.” - Beerud ShethBio:Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast, Beerud and Srini discuss how incorporating conversational messaging in the payment collection process can work in favor, not only of the consumers but also the business. Listen as they talk about why this matters, how it works, and how to get started.Less Painful Payments The payment process nowadays, despite the online option being made available for so long, is still inconvenient for consumers. More often than not, consumers’ lack of easy and customer-friendly payment options leads to late payments that may result in not only bad consumer experience (i.e. incurring late fees, experiencing service interruption, etc.) but also lower collection rates, longer collection cycles, and lower cash flow for businesses. Beerud thinks we can end this pain both from the businesses and consumers’ perspective by making the payment process conversational and interactive, but still efficient. “Payments are critical, but the process today is incredibly inefficient.” - Beerud ShethThe One-Click ProcessBeerud talks about how we can revolutionize the payment process by simplifying the traditional ten-click process to a one-click process. This means that instead of the consumers having to do a series of steps and processes just to complete a payment (which may need extra time), they just have to click a link and authorize (may be a fingerprint, pin, or however the consumers set their security settings) their payments. Consumers can now stop worrying about late fees or anything else, as they can do their payments anytime, anywhere.“The goal is to make every message meaningful, interactive, actionable, and conversational to accomplish the purpose.” - Beerud ShethThe High ReturnsBeerud believes that it’s now time for businesses to start transforming their payment process. It’s not complicated at all—Gupshup can do all the work. This is an investment that requires zero effort from the businesses and consumers but with an incredibly high return. “We've done some extensive training, we have very rich datasets to train our AI to figure out reliably. Because you can't have errors in something as important as this.” - Beerud ShethTo know more about Conversational Messaging for Payments and for more information about Beerud Sheth and Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan, listen to this episode.Bio:Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Product Head of Conversational AI, Niyati Agarwal joins Beerud and Srini to discuss how Conversational AI technology changes the course of brand interaction with consumers. Tune in to know how Conversational AI impacts your brand reputation, reduces your manpower’s effort, and optimises your business costs. The “Magic” of Conversational AI TechnologyConversational AI technology is ideal whether you want to have an unstructured (free style) or structured (straightforward) communication with consumers. Through natural language understanding (NLP), AI understands the intent of consumers’ query and provides the right responses. With advanced techniques, AI can solve even the most complex queries no matter how complicated consumers phrase them, which can ultimately have a positive impact on the brands’ reputation. “You take 10 people, and they'll have 10 different ways of asking the same question. That's where you need artificial intelligence. You need this field called natural language processing to understand the user query.” - Beerud ShethThe Evolution of Conversational AI TechnologyNiyati points out that AI uses “reactive” and “proactive” techniques. Aside from the expected resolution, AI also offers other recommendations based on the consumers’ history. These techniques prompt the incorporation of AI to other business processes like marketing, human resources, ITSM, and such. Conversational AI technology is a good space to explore, as its concepts and channels continue to evolve in a way that greatly reduces the efforts of not only the consumers but also the brands. “We are trying to not replace humans. We are trying to have a more human-like conversation that has the power of automation and intelligence a machine could have.” - Niyati AgarwalThe Ease of Conversational AI TechnologyThe demand for Conversational AI technology rapidly increases, so small brands should not be hesitant to explore and tap companies who specialise on this type of technology. Companies like Gupshup put everything together by providing pre-defined industry templates and other tools you’ll need in automating your consumer interactions. Beerud sees a great development in Conversational AI technology’s human style mimicry, and he expects many brands to have their own “Alexa” in the next few years. “We are automating them, and we are providing tools, so that this becomes a mundane task for you. It becomes something which you do not need to go to your IT team to implement.”  - Niyati AgarwalTo know more about The Power of Conversational AI Technology, listen to this episode. Bio:Niyati Agarwal Product Management Head for AIResources:Gupshup.ioGupshup Conversational AI

In today’s episode of the Conversational Messaging Podcast, Gupshup’s Beerud and Srini discuss the inevitable demand for customer support with the rise of social media. They explore how shifting from traditional call centers to automated customer support is the smartest and most cost-efficient way to make consumers happy. The Common Mistake of Most Businesses Although customer support is one of the most critical aspects of a business, it often doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Most businesses compromise customer service because they think that it’s an expensive investment. Beerud believes that with conversational technology, quality customer support becomes cost-efficient as it can handle peak demand but requires little manpower.  “Using conversation technology is the best way to break that false choice. You can have great and high-quality customer support, and do it at an affordable cost.” - Beerud ShethAlways Prioritize What Makes Consumers HappyNow is the time for businesses to adapt to conversational technologies to interact with consumers. It’s easier for consumers to interact with brands using the very channels they use to interact with their families and friends. Shifting from traditional call centers to automated customer support can positively impact customer experience, leading to improved customer loyalty. “Ultimately, the only reality is the customer reality. The way that customers experience your company, your business, your interactions, is what matters. If they have a difficult time doing business with a company, if it’s challenging, they'll go find somebody else that they can do business with.” - Beerud ShethAlways Go for the Smartest SolutionConversational technology is easy to incorporate in customer support because of the simple type of questions. Through AI, Beerud proposes to create a chatbot that understands structured queries, unstructured queries, or a combination of both. For everyone’s satisfaction, human agents can handle the most complicated ones, those the bot can’t resolve, making the solutions inclusive to all types of queries. “It depends on the specific business, the brand, their consumers, the nature of the product, the complexity of the conversation, and so on. There's a lot of different ways to slice and dice this problem. There's no question that taking this approach is indeed the right way to automate customer support.” - Beerud ShethTo know more about Conversational Technology in Customer Support, listen to this episode.Bio:Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode,  Beerud and Srini discuss how marketing evolved with the infusion of technology. Together, they talk about the evolution of marketing from offline to digital, and now, conversational. Find out why conversational marketing is the best for your brand.Conversational Marketing Appeals To IntimacyWhat makes conversational marketing better than offline and digital marketing is its ability to appeal to consumers’ intimacy and relationship with the brand. Conversational marketing can make the consumers’ experience highly personalized as they are talking to someone who knows them by their names, styles, preferences, and dislikes. The best thing about it is it doesn’t cost that much to invest in, as it can be tied to the brand’s existing marketing campaigns. “In conversational marketing, you know the person, so that changes a lot of things. It can be a highly personalized and very textual interaction.” - Beerud ShethConversational Marketing Personalizes Consumers’ ExperienceFor most brands, having personal “shopping assistants” is only available for VIPs and premium-type of consumers who shop. However, with conversational marketing, it becomes possible for everyone to get their own shopping assistant/concierge/partner/helper that would be helpful in making valuable decisions for each purchase, only with the use of their smartphones. Beerud compares this level of experience with notable brands like Nordstrom and Zappos, which are both known for their top-tier customer service. “There's the offline analogies of that. With conversational marketing, you can replicate that same dynamic. That's an extremely powerful thing.” - Beerud ShethConversational Marketing’s Powerful Entry PointBeerud says that the first step towards shifting to conversational messaging is to have a platform (i.e. WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, etc.) where your brand and your consumers can have a conversation. Once that has been set up, the next step is to find natural entry points like SMS campaigns, billboards, QR codes, or any existing campaign of the brand. Beerud shares that finding a powerful entry point provides richer experiences for the consumers and more opportunities for the brand to upsell and cross-sell. “SMS is a very powerful entry point into their search. Social media, print, TV ads, advertising as well. Linking into these and building these rich experiences offer innumerable possibilities.” - Beerud ShethTo know more about Conversational Marketing and why Bio:Beerud ShethBeerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas B VijayaraghavanSrinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast, join Gupshup’s Beerud and Srini as they discuss how the pandemic and the rise of digital smartphones affected the consumers’ dining experience. Listen as they talk about how conversational messaging allows restaurants to receive a “natural” and personalized dining experience, at the comfort of their own homes.How The Dining Experience EvolvedThe global forces that affected the dining and food ordering industry for the past year are the pandemic and the rise of digital smartphones. Because people have been discouraged to dine-in for the collective good, a lot of consumers relied on online platforms to put in their orders in restaurants. However, despite the presumed comfort of this approach, it doesn’t seem to give consumers a “natural” experience that is comparable to in-house dining. “We're all getting used to your smartphone as a remote control for the world that can magically bring whatever you need. Consumer habits are changing; they expect to have natural experiences.”  - Beerud ShethHow Consumers Value Personal ExperienceBeerud thinks there’s an unmet opportunity for restaurants — the opportunity to provide a personalized digital experience. Some examples Beerud mentioned are: creating a loyalty program, offering coupons, giving special benefits to regulars, personalizing the ordering process through links or QR codes, and such. “Once you can offer these conversational experiences, it makes it much easier. When I say conversational, it can support both structured and unstructured interactions.”  - Beerud ShethHow To Break The NormalMany businesses, especially the small ones, think that going digital and transitioning to conversational messaging is hard—but it’s not. Companies like Gupshup make it possible by offering models with built-in integrations, which can be used immediately and have flexible and convenient pricing. The best part is that conversational messaging for restaurants is easy to blend into any marketing campaign, so it covers every aspect of the restaurant interaction. “These tools have become so easy that literally anybody can do it.”  - Beerud ShethTo know more about Conversational Messaging For Restaurants, and for more information about Beerud Sheth and Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan, listen to this episode.Bio:Beerud ShethCo-founder and Chief Executive OfficerBeerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 100K+ customers and developers and handles over 6 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas B VijayaraghavanVP MarketingSrinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode, Beerud and Srini discuss how the pandemic changed the way consumers shop. Join them as they talk about conversational commerce, the future of e-commerce. Learn what conversational commerce is, why it’s a game-changer, and what you need to know to get started. Conversational Commerce in a NutshellThe pandemic made everything digitized, pushing consumers to rely on dozens of applications for different types of activities and transactions. This sparked the need to discuss conversational commerce. But what is conversational commerce?  It allows customers to interact with businesses as if they are interacting with friends, creating a seamless experience. According to Beerud, this can be made possible through a single messaging mechanism that lets the consumers do everything, from ordering, payment, to delivery, and for all sorts of transactions and products. “The quality of experience is limited, and that’s the challenge in the way app-based commerce works. I think the solution to both of these is conversational commerce based on messaging.” - Beerud ShethWhy Opt For Conversational Commerce Even before the pandemic, giants in mobile-based e-commerce and famous brands use their websites and own applications to interact and transact with consumers. However, small businesses can’t do the same right away, and even if they can, customers’ experiences from these platforms are not necessarily ideal. Ultimately, conversational commerce helps reduce the consumers’ effort from jumping from one website/application to another and improves the quality consumers’ experience. What You Need To KnowBeerud emphasizes that conversational messaging can engage consumers in a holistic interaction that replicates an experience with a live and smart salesperson. For starters, businesses can start to make their one-way SMS to two-way, where they can be redirected to somewhere for more options, get recommendations, additional support, or feedback. Also, as security is a priority, newer technologies like IP messaging can be incorporated to ensure consumers’ data privacy. “There could be multiple entry points, could be offline or online in different areas. All of them lead to this one consistent, high-quality conversation experience.”  - Beerud Sheth, CEO of GupshupTo know more about Conversational Commerce, and for more information about Beerud  and Srini, listen to this episode.Bio:Beerud ShethCo-founder and Chief Executive OfficerBeerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 30K+ developers and handles over 4.5 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities.His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.Srinivas B VijayaraghavanVP MarketingSrinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation. Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io

In today’s episode of the Gupshup Conversational Messaging Podcast, Beerud and  Srini talk about how the banking industry keeps up with the digitized world. Together, they discuss the challenge of transforming offline and online banking to “conversational” banking, which makes banking seamless for all generations. They also discuss the three stages of this transformation: the marketing, transactional, and support stage. Making The Experience SeamlessBanks found ways to reduce consumers’ pain points by launching banking websites and applications. However, consumers still take a lot of time and effort to do simple transactions like payment, balance inquiry, money transfer, and such.  Beerud thinks that it’s more convenient if consumers are able to do everything in one go. How? By incorporating these easy transactions in messaging-like platforms “Search ads, social media ads, or other digital ads are the different entry points, whether it's offline or online advertising. From that, they come into this conversational experience where the users can customize their journey, as they discover and find the right product. That’s the marketing part.” - Beerud Sheth, CEO of GupshupMaking The Experience Contextual Simple transactions are a perfect opportunity to upsell or cross-sell to consumers. Its success lies in making sure that the offers and recommendations for the consumers are timely and relevant, making it an added value to their experience. This contextual placement of transactions is a win not only for the consumers but more importantly, for the banks as this prompts more transactions from the consumers.  Making The Experience SatisfactoryBeerud talks about how conversational banking positively affects customer satisfaction as it promotes unlimited availability and accessibility. Instead of making the consumers unhappy because of long hold times on the phone, conversational banking allows them to resolve conflicts at their own time and pace. Most importantly, with continuous development, this kind of banking with the highest regard to data security and user privacy can be the safest and most secure.“If you spend a lot to provide the right experience, then your margins are lower. On the other hand, if you spend less, then you drive a lot of customer dissatisfaction. Conversation experiences in the customer support area allow you to have 24/7 availability.”  - Beerud Sheth, CEO of GupshupTo know more about Conversational Banking,  listen to this episode.Bio:Beerud is the co-founder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 30K+ developers and handles over 4.5 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities.His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering. Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute SilverMedal.Srinivas has over 2 decades of experience in running marketing for high-growth technology companies and managing corporate marketing, product marketing and demand generation.Prior to Gupshup, he held marketing leadership positions with Qubole, Pluralsight, Mobileum and Tejas Networks.Resources:Gupshup.io