Today we speak with Ankit Ruia, CTO & Co-founder of SuperBot, to understand how SuperBot is shaping the communication industry with its’ innovative product offerings.
Read the complete interview:
TechGraph: Could you help give a sense of how far SuperBot has come since its existence? From when it began to where it is now?
Ankit Ruia: Launched in 2018, SuperBot was initially an AI-driven text-based, omnichannel conversation platform. It eventually transformed into a voice-based conversational agent, managing over 1 million inbound or outbound calls in a day.
Clocking in a year-on-year growth rate of 85%, SuperBot is trusted by over 250 clients, including premium educational institutions and healthcare organizations.
Today, SuperBot offers industry-agnostic solutions, comprising over 100 Voice Bots, already trained for different use cases for various industries and verticals. After creating an undeniable mark in the education sector, we are now focused on growing SuperBot’s presence across other industries and verticals, like D2C, BFSI, and Automobile amongst others.
TechGraph: How is SuperBot is utilizing its sectoral expertise and digitalization to solve the unsolved communication gap?
Ankit Ruia: This is the era of digitalization and instant gratification. Tech-savvy users of today are used to having information in their fingerprints. The pressure is more for consumer-centric companies since a delay in communication may be detrimental to the brand image and may lead to loss of business. And notwithstanding the number of agents hired for customer support over calls or chats, it is still a mammoth task for an organization to ensure 24×7 availability.
However, SuperBot bridges this communication gap, by offering zero wait time or missed inquiries. It extends an easy-to-use DIY platform for users so that businesses can get started without any need for coding skills, deeper pockets, size, or scale of their operations.
With over 100 pre-trained agents available for different industries and in different use cases, SuperBot enables organizations to get their Incoming Helplines live in as low as 30 minutes, by just feeding responses to the predefined questions.
Being well-versed in 9+ languages, SuperBot can assist in addressing all the queries of the users, round the clock. And that’s not all! Whether it is a new development, an announcement, quick feedback, or a survey, with help of SuperBot, brands can reach their consumers in a jiffy! With the capacity to place over 1 million calls, simultaneously in a day, SuperBot helps brands completely bridge the communication gap.
TechGraph: How do you prepare for the highly disruptive communication-based industry?
Ankit Ruia: Maintaining continuous communication and being available 24×7 is a big challenge faced by organizations. Various factors affect the entire communication ecosystem including the high volume of incoming call flow, the heavy pockets infrastructure, the low retention rate of the human agents, the high training time, and the human limitation.
All of it together makes it almost impossible for brands to cater to all their calling needs. This is where SuperBot comes into the picture. Which by using state-of-the-art AI technology, can drive conversations with humans through multiple telephony channels.
It leverages cutting-edge Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and machine learning algorithms to extend the finest features like customizable speed, pitch, voice modulation, multiple human voice-overs, and support for regional languages.
The platform can easily manage over a million inbound and outbound calls per day for business, thus sufficing their calling needs at zero infrastructure and training costs. Overall, SuperBot itself is the most unique, convenient, and superior voice agent which is supporting several companies across the sectors to offer a quality experience to their customers.
TechGraph: How SuperBot is leveraging technology to enhance the customer experience?
Ankit Ruia: As stated earlier, in the present times of instant gratification and everything being made available at our fingertips, a delay in response can significantly disrupt the customer experience. As an AI-driven, smart automated conversational agent, SuperBot is unlike other solutions in the market. It understands the sentiment behind customer queries and responds in a human-like manner.
Furthermore, to help businesses of Bharat, SuperBot understands the regional dialects, intent, and colloquialisms. It is fluent in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Bengali, amongst others.
Furthermore, SuperBot comes with multiple human voice-overs along with the option of speed, pitch, and voice modulation, thus creating the most sophisticated experience for customers that imitates real, human-like conversations.
SuperBot can place concurrent calls to cater to multiple use-cases for a brand. It’s 24×7 available, thus offering customer support at scale.
TechGraph: How is technology transforming the communication industry? Do you think the trend had taken hold even before the pandemic-induced disruptions?
Ankit Ruia: There has certainly been a quantum leap towards technology-driven and tech-focused services in the communication landscape. Owing to the massive technological advancements, communication today has become faster, smarter, more interactive, and affordable.
In the past 5 years, we can notice significant shifts in the way organizations operate and how customers interact with these organizations. And surely, this leap has been set in motion much before the pandemic.
While the pandemic might have been an accelerator for this adoption, the consumers at large have been transitioning to tech-driven and online channels much before the COVID-19 outbreak. If anything, COVID-19 further made it clear for the organizations that they need to meet customers where they are and AI-enabled automation is a crucial step in achieving the same.
TechGraph: How do you see technologies namely Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Cloud, with regards to their relevance across the industry? What does the future look like?
Ankit Ruia: Technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are here to stay. It is no longer a matter of choice or individual preference. The world around has grown so fast that today’s customer takes AI-enabled services for granted.
It has become the ‘new normal’ and if a business is not leveraging artificial intelligence, it might lag in the race, because with the increase in competition, its competitors won’t leave any stone unturned in acquiring or retaining customers. Inevitably, automation is going to define successful communication for businesses in 2022 and beyond.
TechGraph: What are the new trends in the communication industry?
Ankit Ruia: Automation in communication is the Numero Uno trend. Organizations need to work towards quick response time and have an integrated communications framework, to be available and accessible on multiple devices and platforms, without delays.
Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence will continue to shape customer support functions. While initially it was feared that AI-enabled solutions would replace CX professionals, we now know that it is a far cry from happening. In reality, the solutions allow customer support agents to focus on solving complex problems for their clients.
Personalization, furthermore, will be a driving force in times to come. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, customers expect personalized interaction, which includes matching their tone and sentiments and extending a truly customized experience instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.
TechGraph: What is the roadmap for SuperBot going forward?
Ankit Ruia: The future roadmap for SuperBot is extremely invigorating. We are driven by the vision of bridging the communication gap between brands and their customers. To that end, we intend to make SuperBot accessible to every organization, notwithstanding the scale and size.
Soon, we are also going to expand the wings of SuperBot and make the finest AI-based voice agent services available to multiple industries, including D2C, BFSI, and automobiles among others. We are also planning to step into the international market by the end of this fiscal year. And to achieve this vision of ours, we are also planning to expand our team size to 250+, by the end of this fiscal year itself.