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Startup Mantra: Helping companies build customer loyalty
Dyrect facilitates firms to offer improved experience to customers along with faster claim settlement process
Ever wondered why in recent past we are being asked to register for a warranty for any product you have bought online or offline? The quick response (QR) code technology is proving to be a game changer especially for retail brands who do not have a direct connect with their customers and solely rely on sales channels like ecommerce online marketplaces and offline stores or distributors. Pune-based and United States-headquartered startup company Dyrect, founded by Abhishek Agrawal and Yogesh Miharia is using first party data to assist growing retail brands in converting unknown buyers into loyal customers. The duo envisions Dyrect as a consent-based personalised marketing; and one of the most engaging post-sales experience platforms for high-growth, rapidly evolving retail firms all over the world.
In the beginning…
Abhishek and Yogesh both come from a business-family background and became friends while pursuing their education at the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT). After graduation both started working in the corporate world, however they felt that they should be entrepreneurs. The duo quit their jobs and began brainstorming about what startup can be done together.
Says Abhishek, “In 2016-17, we had tried our hands on a B2C business. However, the unit economics were not feasible and that business required a lot of cash burn. We then had about one thousand vendors in Pune as our clients. Soon we realised that that business was not scalable and not made for us. Since we had seen sustainable businesses in our family, hence we dropped that business idea.”
“Our second venture was into anti-counterfeiting technology solutions. We had developed a substitute for holograms with the help of QR code technology. Our software could scan the QR code and further authenticate products. We started this company in 2018 and have worked with more than 100 companies in the last four years and continue to do it,” he said.
Turning point
After two years of supporting hundreds of retail brands, Abhishek and Yogesh faced turbulent times during the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns. Business was affected and the duo went for introspection of their business model. Brands, on the other hand, were also demanding direct connect with customers.
Abhishek said, “We were already putting a QR code on products sold by companies. This meant that we were reaching to their customers. But still, those companies were unable to understand who their customers were. Those brands were selling their products offline as well as online and, in both cases, they could not directly communicate with customers and neither could they upsell other products to them. Brands could not find out why a particular customer has brought a certain product. Sales channels like stores and ecommerce platforms claimed that the customers are their own and brands were left with no choice. However, whenever customer faced any problems on the product side, the brands were supposed to deal with it and sales channel partners never took any responsibility. Even with some D2C platform companies, the story remains the same.”
“We had made a warranty registration mechanism for an Indian company which was a paperless solution. Customers used to scan a QR code and further register for warranty online. Brands were asking us if we could help them in reaching out to customers directly, even if the customers were acquired through ecommerce players or offline retail stores. It was this demand from companies that forced us to pivot and think about what we should be doing,” he said.
Dyrect launched
After much deliberation, Abhishek and Yogesh concluded that they should have one solution which should be scalable in terms of business. They launched their new company Dyrect, which is a platform that uses product packaging QR code technology to connect buyers directly with brands, allowing brands to use first-party data to deliver targeted communication and sell more on ecommerce channels. Dyrect is backed by Upekkha, a Value SaaS accelerator.
Abhishek said, “We decided to name our startup as Dyrect as it was started with an objective of connecting retail brands directly with customers. Dyrect has launched one-click registration and post-sales experience platform built for high-growth, fast-changing retail businesses around the globe and help them increase their e-commerce revenue.”
“Third-party channels account for more than 70 per cent of a company’s revenue, but these channels do not give any relationship with purchasers. With our platform, brands can leverage the one-click product warranty registration and post-sales experience platform, which engages buyers and sells more. Marketing teams of brands gain real-time visibility into their buyers across offline retail and marketplace sales channels,” he said.
Privacy
Commenting on privacy issues in India and globally, Abhishek said, “Today privacy is of utmost importance and a big concern globally. Nobody wants to share data. Third party cookies track users without their consent resulting in privacy breach. With global worries over privacy norms and situations such as Google’s recent announcement of deprecation of third-party cookies in Chrome browser and with Apple’s recent iOS14 update allowing users to opt out of app tracking marketers are already facing challenges. Retargeting is becoming tough and customer acquisition cost is increasing with time.”
“We have headquartered our company in the United States for the very reason that privacy is less valuable in India than other geographies globally. We had conducted a survey in which we got good response from the US and Europe market. Companies from these two markets are eager to use our SaaS services and hence we are targeting these regions as of now,” he said.
“Marketers in the future will need to rely on customer data and do consent-based personalised marketing. Our mission is to provide fast-growing brands with direct buyer connections and provide an engaging post-sales experience, allowing them to reach their business goals faster,” Abhishek said.
Call for action
With solutions offered by Dyrect, the customer initiates the process and hence their consent is factored in. While devising these solutions, Abhishek and Yogesh delved deep into what are the strong Call-For-Action (CFA) for customers to connect with brands; and once the customer registers on the platform, what are the post-sales services that can be offered to customers.
According to Abhishek, warranty is the biggest use case for brands. He said, “There are three ways of connecting brands and customers directly. First is warranty, second is authentication, and third is loyalty and rewards. Through these means, brands can offer improved experience to their customers along with a faster claim settlement process. The affinity towards the brand improves or increases on the customer side, which results in increase in sales too. Depending on geography, companies can also market their other products on the same channel where their customers are.”
“Brands can reach out to their customers on email, SMS and WhatsApp messenger app. WhatsApp is considered as the most prominent and personal medium to connect with customers and this medium has more brand recall and inclination. There are some limitations too like push marketing is limited. However, we have open application programming interfaces (API) which we integrate with major platforms. Whatever data we have, we send it to the marketing tools and from there the companies manage the workflow of customers,” Abhishek said.
