Singh will be driving customers around, a move he says will offer valuable insights into their points of view.
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Singh and other company leaders are part of an Uber initiative to ferry customers across cities, as the US cab aggregator completes a decade of operations in India.
Leaders across ecommerce startups such as Licious, Red-Health, Captain Fresh, Pilgrim and Razorpay are walking the talk to enhance customer connect, not just to improve products and services and prioritise customer satisfaction, but also evolve with changing market dynamics.
Experts say this has become even more crucial in the current business scenario, when building consistency and trust is critical for standing out in a competitive market, as startups and investors sharpen their focus on profitability.
“Founders’ understanding of the customer pulse is fundamental to the business as reliance on second-hand information can be misinterpreted or misunderstood, and ends up becoming more expensive for the business,” said Vikram Gupta, managing partner of venture capital fund, IvyCap Ventures.
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“There’s nothing like firsthand experience that allows us to gather unfiltered feedback while also fostering empathy and respect for the work our drivers do,” Uber’s Singh told ET.
At business-to-business (B2B) seafood tech startup Captain Fresh, business heads are mandated to meet customers at least once a month.
“Good customer service has many parts to it and one of them is to ensure that every feedback is heard and worked upon, for us to continually improve,” said Abhishek Sudhakar, senior vice-president, business excellence, Captain Fresh. “We make it a point to show up at 4 am, speak to customers, stand with teams as they serve these customers, and connect the dots between our capabilities and customer pain points.”
Others that have embraced the omnichannel route, such as Pilgrim, use these interactions to understand regional preferences. Senior leadership at the vegan direct-to-customer (D2C) beauty and personal care brand actively interacts with consumers and beauty advisors. This gives invaluable information about products’ reception among customers, the performance of sales efforts, and which products resonate most with the target audience, said Gagandeep Makker, cofounder, Pilgrim.
Over the past four to five months, Makker and his senior leadership team have conducted these visits in New Delhi and Mumbai, among other cities. For investors, too, customer connect is one of the aspects that can make or break a deal.
“As VCs, while evaluating a company for investment, we use how founders connect as an evaluation tool during the due diligence process. If they’re not close to their customers, it’s not a deal we want to do,” said Gupta of IvyCap Ventures.