ZipDial connects clients with customers through missed call

Marketers are in the business of wooing customer loyalty, but very often what may seem like a winning marketing idea fails, because of the sheer complexity of the reward loyalty program.

Set up in 2010, ZipDial essentially addresses this problem. ZipDial was started by three graduates from Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Stanford University in 2010 Valerie Wagoner, Sanjay Swamy and Amiya Pathak. They have developed a powerful and innovative suite of marketing solutions based on the simplicity of dialling a toll free number.

ZipDial helps brands connect with customers through a missed call. The client has given a toll free number that consumers can dial into, but instead of having to wait endlessly to connect with a call center executive or punching multiple options the call rings once and disconnects and then the consumer receives an SMS with more information on the marketing campaign.

ZipDial's clients leverage these number for sending promotional messages or information. Services include mobile number verification for e-commerce ventures, mobile banking polls and customer feedback surveys.

"We came up with the idea for ZipDial in a late night brainstorm as entrepreneurs do. By the time we came up with about 300 different applications we said, okay, now it is time to put a business around this.At the time I contacted a couple of smaller businesses who I thought might be interested in using such a service and literally in the first conversation they were trying to hand me cash over the table for their first month subscription because they were so excited about the service," says Valerie Wagoner.

Between 2010 and now ZipDial has been steadily adding clients. Today its mobile engagement and analytics platforms is used by companies like Procter & Gamble (P&G), Hindustan Unilever (HUL), Cadbury, Disney, MakeMyTrip, Ola Cabs, Snapdeal, Puma, Amnesty International and a lot more. Businesses pay annual or biannual subscription plus usage fee based on success. Valarie claims that compared to Facebook, ZipDial drives between 2-5 times more engagements across all customers and in a time period that is at least twice as fast.

"Cafe Coffee Day is an example of a retail customer that we work with. They have done campaigns where they are promoting a coupon opportunity and users ZipDial to earn coupons and those are then redeemed when the person walks into the Cafe Coffee Day outlet. We have also looped in a feedback survey where consumers can rate their experience at Cafe Coffee Day by Zip Dialling for happy or unhappy," Wagoner says.

In April 2011 the venture raised Rs 3.6 crore in funding laid by Mumbai Angels. This maiden brand also saw participation from Blume Ventures and the partners at AngelPrime. In December 2012 Silicon Valley based incubator cum seed fund 500 startups invested another Rs 2.5 crore. The funds were used to scale up and get the wheels turning on international expansion plan. Times Internet is the latest investor in the venture.

"The ZipDial has created engagement for 100 percent of consumers. So compared to something like QR codes which is limited to smart phone users or even SMS which fewer than half of Indian mobile phone owners like to send or know how to send. Zip Dialling is a 100 percent accessible interaction. So we see fantastic results like makemytrip.com increasing their feedback responses from less than 0.5 percent to more than 10 percent," Wagoner says

With revenues of Rs 5.5 crore in just first year of operations Wagoner and team at ZipDial seemed to be dancing all the way to the bank. Wagoner is now looking to leverage ZipDial's relationship with its global brands to expand across countries in Asia and Africa. Not only is ZipDial creating value for large brands but it is also helping Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) use mobile engagement and analytics for a starting package of Rs 1,000 a month. Wagoner claims this important segment will continue to scale up in India.