Vineet Gupta, Founder of Ashoka and Plaksha University has made a name for himself in the higher education ecosystem of the country over the last 25 years. A passionate educator and institution builder, Vineet has been advocating for high-quality education in India, building world-class institutions and helping train thousands of students for better careers.
Graduating as a mechanical engineer from IIT Delhi in 1991, Vineet realized quite early that his true calling was entrepreneurship and he set up and scaled a packaging firm which manufactured styrofoam. In 1996, he co-founded Jamboree Education with his wife Akrita Kalra. Jamboree started with one centre in Vasant Vihar to help students crack exams such as GMAT, SAT and GRE which are required to study abroad. Today, it has close to 36 centers across India and Nepal and has trained over 1.5 lakh students in the last 25 years.
The idea behind Ashoka University
At Jamboree, Vineet, while interacting with the students, would find that bright students with 90% plus marks would struggle to make it to a regular degree in Delhi University but would get admission to some outstanding universities abroad. Moreover, the choice of courses available abroad was vast. “Somewhere, it made me feel that our higher education system is letting our students down. We are in dire need of institutions that fulfill the requirement of these students so that they could continue their education closer to home instead of going abroad,” adds Vineet Gupta.
Forming Ashoka University
Joining hands with a few like-minded entrepreneurs and visionaries in 2006, Vineet Gupta started thinking about setting up a top-notch university in India. The group approached several state governments for land and then settled on Haryana due to its proximity to Delhi. In 2008, the economic crisis happened and the sentiment of the business community mellowed. The group decided to start a post graduate program called the Young India Fellowship in a rented campus in Delhi to try their model of multi-disciplinary education. The group also decided to focus their efforts on building a Liberal Arts university that focuses on social sciences, humanities and sciences. The idea was to establish an institution that could compete with Ivy League institutions. Gradually, the founding group grew to about 15 individuals and the university opened in 2014 in Sonepat with the first undergraduate class of 126 students and 200 Young India Fellows. Ashoka is a collective philanthropy institution and today, has over 150 donors. In a short span of time, it has also established itself as one of the finest institutions in the country. Vineet played a pivotal role in setting up Ashoka by also being the Founding Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University from 2014 to 2017.
The emergence of Brand Ashoka
The model of collective philanthropy is the first of its kind in India. Ashoka has also attracted some of the best faculty from India and abroad. Ashoka also offers liberal scholarships and has students from all states of India and from all socio-economic backgrounds. Ashoka has been hailed as “India’s answer to the Ivy League”, by the National media. In 2019, Education World ranked Ashoka 2nd amongst 100 private universities in India. In 2020, The Department of Economics, Ashoka University was ranked 1st in India out of 239 institutions by RePEc – the International Database of Economics Research which covers 8198 institutions and 60355 registered authors worldwide. As per QS World University Rankings 2022, Ashoka University is amongst the top 250 in Asia. Ashoka University has collaborations with some of the world’s best institutes such as Yale University, University of Cambridge, University of Michigan and the National University of Singapore amongst others. The University has also established several centers of research which encourage students to collaborate with their peers on issues that challenge the world.
With the emergence of Ashoka as a top name in higher education, Vineet Gupta has become a known face in India’s education ecosystem. After the success at Ashoka, Vineet Gupta went on to establish Plaksha University at Mohali, with the aim of re-imagining technology education in India. Plaksha is also built on a model of collective philanthropy and aims to make technology education inter-disciplinary and experiential. Plaksha opened in 2021 and is likely to emerge as a top engineering and technology university in the country. As the Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees at Plaksha, Vineet has played a pivotal role in setting up the institution. He is a distinguished member of the education committee at FICCI and also serves as the Co-Chair of the Education Sub Committee of ASSOCHAM. Vineet was also awarded the Edupreneur of the Year Award (2021-22) by APAC in their 2nd Education and Skill Conclave.
We all are familiar with the business mantra, “Customer is King”. But what does it imply? It asserts the importance of customers and their satisfaction for any business.
When it comes to startups, you need to go the extra mile to win customers and it undeniably starts with strengthening your customer support. So, we have listed some customer service solutions for startups or online support solutions for you to solve any customer support problem.
Let’s look into some points that illustrate the significance of customer support:
Customer Loyalty and Repurchase Every business wishes for customer loyalty, and the only way to build that is by ensuring customer satisfaction. You can ask your customers to rate your product, and the higher the ratings are, the higher are the chances of repurchase. Through this, you can always keep an eye on your customer’s choices, and when their rating starts to fall, it’s an indication that you need to modify your product or customer service for startups.
Standing Out in the Market These days, the availability of products or services is not a problem for customers as multiple companies are into similar businesses. In such a case, the only way to win over them is by offering reliable customer support. Companies that provide excellent customer support create an environment where a customer feels much more comfortable and safer. This way, customers will not only repurchase your product but promote it as well. As it is said, “A satisfied customer is the best strategy to ace the market”.
Tackling Negative Publicity Many times, brands bear the brunt of negative publicity in the market, either spread by their unsatisfied customers or competition. With the help of customer support, a brand can directly reach out to their customers and clear the cloud of negativity that’s been building around them. Many players like Pepsi, ICICI Bank, McDonald’s, to name a few, have adopted this method to tackle negative publicity.
Customer Service Solutions For Startups
Now let’s explore some amazing customer support solutions that’ll facilitate you to offer a great experience to your customers:
1. ProProfs Help Desk
ProProfs Help Desk | Customer Service Solutions For Startups
It is a subscription-based online software that facilitates ticketing of service requests and helps desk management. It helps businesses to manage customer service requests promptly and proactively. The salient features of this robust tool are:
Management of e-mails from a single point so that agents don’t miss any service request.
Knowledgebase where customers can find most of the solutions instantly thereby reducing tickets by 80%.
Live Chat whereby agents can answer the queries of customers in real-time.
Customer Surveys and reports to track the performance of agents and find valuable feedback.
Price: Starting from $39/user/month.
2. Aircall
Aircall | Customer Service Solutions For Startups
It is a cloud-based phone system that caters to the needs of modern-day businesses. It takes customer support to another level with:
Bundle of call features like Virtual call centres, power dialing, call conferencing, call routing, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), extension, business hours, and blacklisting.
Integration with CRM and other help desk tools to allow agents to call from the app and have a well-informed conversation with customers.
Tracking of agents’ performance and their status in real-time.
Scalability to add new teams, workflows, and numbers according to business needs.
Price: Starting from $30/user/month.
3. Sprout Social
Sprout Social | Customer Support For Startups
It is a comprehensive social media management and social publishing tool. It allows businesses to build strong relationships with customers. Some of its key features are:
Gathering of actionable data from various social accounts of the business to create customer-oriented business strategies.
Publishing tools to help business in planning, developing, organising, and delivering content on multiple social platforms.
All in one inbox to manage all social accounts and enhance the responsiveness of business.
Advanced analytics to study data from social platforms and make strategic business decisions.
Price: Starts at $99/user/month.
4. ChurnZero
ChurnZero | Customer Service For Startups
As the name connotes, ChurnZero is a powerful tool that mitigates customer churn. It helps businesses to comprehend the product usage trends of users and their health to enhance the overall customer experience. Some of the main features of this tool are
Command Center that acts as a single point to manage all activities.
Integrations with other CRM, communication, and analytics platforms to drive meaningful insights to enhance customer experience.
Reporting and analytics tools to find customer statistics on various metrics like churn rate, growth, etc.
Receive customer usage trends in real-time.
Tools like NPS survey to monitor the health of customers.
From onboarding, expansion, engagement to advocacy, customer journey across all verticals can be created and monitored.
Price: Users can request a quote based on their business needs.
5. TeamSupport
Team Support
It is an all-in-one customer support tool offering functionalities such as ticket management, customer management, reporting, and analytics. It is regarded as one of the best customer support software for startups. Its salient features are:
Tracking of customer details and their management.
Service ticket generation and management.
Product database to allow agents to see the products that customers are using and issues pertaining to them.
Shared calendar and internal chat option to enhance team collaboration.
Knowledgebase where customers can get answers to their questions 24/7.
Reporting on various customer metrics to improve the overall support.
Price: Starts from $50/user/month.
6. ProProfs Chat
ProProfs Chat
It is a robust tool that allows businesses to capture quality leads, initiate chat with customers, close sales, and enhance customer support. Some of its amazing features are:
Track service requests and initiate live chats to create an excellent customer experience.
Integration of Knowledge Base and Help Desk with live chat to empower agents with customer-centric data.
Real-time monitoring of activities of visitors.
Pre-chat forms to capture quality leads and post-chat forms to gather feedback from users.
Integration with Google Analytics to facilitate tracking of PPC campaigns.
Price: $8/user/month.
7. Keap
Keap | Best Customer Support Software For Startups
Keap is a powerful CRM tool that empowers businesses to foster a bond with their customers through superior customer services. Some of its chief features are:
Automated greetings, reminders, text, and emails to capture new leads and to sustain a bond with existing customers.
All-in-one platform where appointments can be set, leads can be tracked, quotes can be accepted, and invoices can be processed.
Automation of marketing and sales.
Price: $49/user/month.
8. Trello
Trello
It is an amazing team collaboration and project management tool that allows businesses to boost their team’s productivity to enhance customer support. Its key features are:
Based on cards and boards concept where cards represent tasks.
A task can be created, edited, delegated, and monitored using the tools.
Powerful integrations with other apps like CRM, help desk, etc. to enhance the team’s productivity.
Team members can chat with each other and add attachments in the chats.
Automate tasks to enhance efficiency so that agents can focus on offering better customer support.
Price: Starts at $9.99/user/month.
9. Salesforce
Salesforce
It is one of the top-rated and most popular CRM software. It is even the best solution for startups as they can get started with minimal investment and infrastructure. Its major features are:
AI-powered personalized solutions that create a gratifying customer experience.
Tracking of customer interactions and information.
Updated information empowers businesses to make insightful decisions.
Automation of marketing and personalization of emails to enhance customer engagement.
An Impactful social experience by integrating social platforms with the tool.
Price: Starting from $25/user/month.
10. ConnectWise
ConnectWise
It is a cloud-based CRM tool acting as a centralized platform to track all customer data. With this tool, businesses can create an amazing customer experience. Its chief features are:
Deployed on-premise and its ticket encapsulates all interaction with users (email, live chat, phone call).
Reporting tools to measure performance on various metrics and enhance customer experience.
Monitoring sales activities and prediction of future trends.
Price: Users can request a quote based on their business needs.
Customers prefer a clean experience, and businesses can provide this in the best way by integrating customer support tools. Understand your customer base and identify their preferences and zero down on that support tool that meets their needs and aligns with your business. Eventually, the support you extend to your customers defines the growth of your business.
This article was contributed by Vineet Gupta. Vineet is an online marketer who loves to study Google search algorithms. He has been helping businesses in brand building and improving sales for more than 8 years now. He has also made contributions to various online publications by sharing his experience in the field of SaaS product marketing and UX optimization. In his free time, he likes to play with his Dog, watch Cricket and listen to Luis Fonsi.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is live chat support?
Live chat support allows customers to have text-based conversations with support teams via the web. Using live chat software for startups embedded on the company’s website, customers can send their questions to a person (or sometimes an AI bot) who can quickly reply to them in the same small window.
What are the best live chat solutions for websites?
Best Live Chat Software for startups:
LiveChat.
Pure Chat.
JivoChat.
Olark.
SnapEngage.
Userlike.
Tidio Chat.
Smartsupp.
What is online customer support services?
Customer Service is defined as any service that helps customers solve problems. Such a service is usually connected to a business or brand which sells products and offers online support solutions.
What is the best way to provide customer service?
Ways to deliver great customer service:
Know your product.
Maintain a positive attitude.
Creatively problem-solve.
Respond quickly.
Personalize your service.
Help customers help themselves.
Focus support on the customer.
Actively listen.
What is good customer service examples?
Good customer service includes remembering and appreciating repeat customers, forging a local connection with shoppers, putting your product knowledge to good use, and more.
What is a customer support system?
A customer support system helps an organization to manage customer service requests and interact with the customers to resolve their support tickets. A customer support system is the backbone of your business, and the right help desk software will assist you to position your customer service as a competitive advantage.
What is the difference between customer support vs customer service?
The difference between customer service and customer support is that customer support teams support a product, while customer service teams provide service to a customer. The customer has everything they want, but there’s no other feedback or information that goes into the experience.
