How CS played a pivotal role in Vervotech’s exponential growth

In 2023, Vervotech entered the fifth year of its operation. The first five years are always crucial for any startup. It’s that time for an organization when the culture starts to mature, and people start recognizing the brand, the logo, the style of messaging, and, most importantly, the impact of an organization’s offerings.   

For Vervotech, the impact has been brilliant. Saying it overwhelming would also not be too adventurous. They crossed the magic number of 1000+ active clients, integrated 600+ supplier partners, and mapped more than two million unique hotels. The numbers speak for themselves and are a testament to how their products are perceived in the market. All within five years.   

Interestingly, there’s one thing that has been consistent from Vervotech over these years – it is their customer success function. The reception it got from all its clients has been remarkable. It’s out there in public, and it caught our attention. So, we made an effort to unravel what they were doing differently. 

As the client portfolio increases, the responsibilities increase too. The flow of questions/issues/queries that need active attention multiplies. Vervotech’s customer support and success team has taken this responsibility with great spirit. They did not look at it as a concern but as an opportunity. They further streamlined their processes to avoid any possible chance of being overwhelmed. 

The outcome and the impact of the team continue to be unwavering. In one of their customer satisfaction surveys, 99% of respondents rated Vervotech’s customer support at four and above on a scale of five. 

We decided to interview their team and bring out the magic wand they have in the world as an aspiration to others. Following is the entire interaction. 

Q. How do you ensure smooth onboarding/integration of new clients?  

Anuradha: We start with setting up one onboarding call with CSM, where we try to understand the client’s long-term objective, goals, and timelines. We discuss specifics at length – this also helps us deliver what we promise to the customer within timelines. 

Following the Kick-off call, we set up a “tech call” with our engineering team, where we explain all our APIs to clients, answer their questions, and discuss the particulars of integration. Also, Introduce them to our dedicated 24*7 customer portal. 

After the integration is over, we set another “tech call” to see how satisfied they are with the process. If they are facing any issues, we create tickets to resolve them. And ask them to raise tickets on the customer portal as and when they face any issue with the product as well 

We don’t stop there, as they are new customers; even if they don’t raise any tickets, we contact them to see if they are utilizing Vervotech’s products to their full potential. 

“That sounds fantastic!” But… 

Q. Do you have any checks before a customer goes live? 

Anuradha: Indeed, yes! And we take it very seriously. We have set up a process called “API certification”, where we check if everything is in place. After confirming, we give a client the “go ahead.” 

Q. You touched upon “Value realization” briefly. How do you go about that? 

Anuradha: There are cases when customers pay us for more suppliers but do not avail themselves of the benefits for the same. For example, a customer pays for 10 suppliers and gives us the names of only 8. 

So, we don’t react to these situations. Our goal is simple, our customers should derive the best value from our offerings, so we proactively set up a call with them and do follow-ups to ensure all their suppliers are live. 

Q. Do you make any conscious effort to maintain a healthy relationship with clients? 

Vaibhav: Yes, we do. There are instances when customers do not raise tickets for minor issues, such as they are not able to call certain APIs; rather they directly call us personally. We make sure that we resolve their queries with the same professionalism on phone call as well. It helps us to build rapport with them and make them comfortable too. 

Q. Do you speak to customers on issues that are not directly related to Vervotech’s offerings? 

Vaibhav: Yes! In fact, we try to share the best practices with our clients and recommend services that we think could work best for them. We never limit our discussions to Vervotech’s offerings. We are always more than willing to share our experiences and expertise with clients. 

So, this was our interaction with two core members of Vervotech’s Customer Success team – Anuradha Satpute, Customer Success Manager, and Vaibhav Shetty – Customer Success Lead. We hope this gives you better insights into how this travel-tech startup  Vervotech, approaches Customers, which has given them tremendous success over the years. 

They take pride in being a customer-first organization, and it’s now engrained in their culture. And we believe such organizations are the biggest beneficiaries of being customer-centric organizations.  It helps them grow at scale and grow faster, as sooner or later, word of mouth does its magic.