In conversation with Nishchay Chaturvedi, Co-Founder, SmartPuja
“For an early-stage venture like ours, interakt is the best value for money. I was able to connect instantly with the team. My entire team has easy access to the tool and we have witnessed a growth in our response rate.”
– Nishchay Chaturvedi, Co-Founder, SmartPuja
Meet SmartPuja
SmartPuja is an online platform for hassle-free Hindu religious ceremonies that was started by Nishchay back in 2016.
Nishchay realized that the experience of booking pujas online was broken and needed to be fixed. Coming from a customer experience background, Nishchay along with his partner Pooja Chaturvedi took the plunge and started this venture to provide the best puja experience by leveraging technology.
This bootstrapped business has witnessed a consistent year-on-year growth. However, the last year and a half has been tough with the lockdown in play. The core business model which is around in-person vedic ceremonies, has slowed down owing to the need for physical interactions. Users are now open to having a live Zoom or Google Meet session. As a result, E-pujas or virtual vedic ceremonies are on the rise.
Their Goals
When SmartPuja started their operations in 2016, calls and emails were the main customer touchpoints. They went on to add a chatbot to their website as well.
Nishchay recalls that in just a year they started receiving customer queries and requests on WhatsApp. WhatsApp brought in an ease of communication. With instant replies, they were able to move faster.
Over time, the team grew and using a single device for one WhatsApp number ended up being quite a hassle. They wanted to use an end-to-end WhatsApp Business Solution to be able to:
- Get the whole team to easily access, manage and respond to customer chats on WhatsApp
- Send timely communication to customers on WhatsApp with regard to the service requested
- Streamline and speed-up the process of managing follow-up conversations with customers
- Expedite and improve the payment collection process
Their Solution
Nishchay was on the lookout for a solution where they could automate WhatsApp communications via API integration with their Mobile App. These could be messages confirming the booking, service processing information, reminders or customer feedback.
He soon came across interakt and was impressed with the simplicity of the solution. Being an early stage venture, interakt’s pricing and the startup offer was great value for money according to Nishchay and his team. The overall feedback in the market, the pricing point and the instant support that they got were the main hooks for them to get started with interakt.
Today, with the whole team working remotely – interakt’s multi-login feature has helped the entire team to get access to the customer chats on WhatsApp using interakt’s web and mobile app across multiple devices. They are also able to easily send regular updates to clients using WhatsApp templates.
“I do see a lot of promise in the tool and I see us using interakt for a long time now.”
– Nishchay Chaturvedi, Co-Founder, SmartPuja
How did interakt help?
Nishchay and his team uses interakt primarily to respond to incoming customer queries as well as to send subsequent updates with booking details and confirmations – this in turn has helped them get more sales, faster.
• Email has clearly become an afterthought as responses that took 24-48 hours via email are now occurring instantly on WhatsApp.
• interakt has helped them manage all their customer interactions via WhatsApp with a host of options like Quick Replies (predefined messages) and interactive message formats with buttons.
• Using interakt, they are now able to get 15-20 new customer enquiries per day.
Looking for online puja services? SmartPuja is a one-stop solution for all puja and pandit booking services.
Talk to them on WhatsApp to know more about their unique offerings.
