LogMeIn Supports 200 Million Customer Interactions Every Year
Rahul Sharma, MD, LogMeIn India discusses the changing world of customer support. According to new innovations and different podiums to interact with consumers, the expectations from customer service has been increasing as well as the challenges. In his exclusive interview with BW Businessworld, Rahul asserts that LogMeIn India supports 200 Million customer interactions every year.
What are the solutions that you have for customer support?
As one of our core markets, LogMeIn’s customer engagement and support solutions are designed to empower companies to deliver smarter, more personalized customer experiences. Supporting over 200 million customer interactions every year, LogMeIn is helping companies transform how they interact with their customers in real-time, creating experiences that drive increased satisfaction and brand loyalty. Within our portfolio, we have remote support solutions – Rescue and GoToAssist, Nanorep, Bold360, an intelligent customer engagement platform and Xively – an IoT Connected Product Management solution.
What are the challenges you have faced at LogMeIn when approaching clients in telecom and banking industry?
Both these sectors have a unique set of challenges when it comes to making a decision on a new product or solution. The telecom industry in India has been witnessing restructuring and consolidation. In this scenario, commissioning of any IT asset often undergoes a longer engagement cycle, and that often poses a challenge to scaling up. The banking sector, on the other hand, presents a relatively different challenge. The understanding and commissioning of Software as a Service (SaaS) products depend on strict regulatory norms, and this brings with itself, a longer engagement cycle before deployment as well. However, in the last 6 to 8 months, there have been a series of investments made by the banking industry in cloud technologies, and that is a positive sign.
What is the importance of customer support in today’s world?
Customer support is becoming a key competitive differentiator for companies all over the world. The rise of digital, artificial intelligence and mobile-first lifestyles has influenced the way customers want to interact with their favorite brands. Consumer expectations are rising and one bad experience can be enough to drive a customer to the competition. Offering a variety of engagement channels is just the beginning. To truly create brand loyalty, the experience – whether automated or agent-assisted – needs to be personal and seamless regardless of channel.
How is customer support evolving with respect to the changing technological trends?
In general, we see the digital customer service market shifting focus from traditional solutions like CRMs which capture single, point in time interactions, to engagement platforms that capture the entire customer journey in real-time. Having a complete view of the customer helps organizations enable the right engagement with the right users at the right time via the right medium with the right context – creating an opportunity for each interaction to become a true competitive differentiator. We also know that emerging technologies like augmented reality and artificial intelligence are changing the face of customer service, as we know it. Intelligent automation like chatbots, for example, meet the expectation of today’s consumer by delivering a quick way for customers to self-serve while also freeing agents up to be able to focus attention on more complex, high-value issues.
What are the ways in which LogMeIn India aims at delivering quality experiences?
Delivering quality experiences is the core tenets on which LogMeIn is based on, and we look at this in two ways - providing a great user experience on each of our products and providing local and in-country support. We received numerous requests from our customers to expand our footprint here, and the 130+ strong India team, is now among only four of our centers globally, which features all the departments – from sales to engineering to customer-facing teams to marketing to HR etc., and we even have a Network Operations Command Center here. India has always been an important market for us, and we are growing aggressively in this region to cater to its demands.
What are the advantages and challenges of providing technological solutions for customer support?
The customer experience has become a boardroom conversation and how you support the customer is a key player in that overall experience. Agents need to be offered the right tools to deliver that next-level customer experience consumers are demanding and we firmly believe we have the solutions that help customer service and support organizations create deeper more meaningful relationships with customers.
What are the plans of LogMeIn India for the next 5 years?
LogMeIn India has been the fastest growing region for LogMeIn over the last two years, and we want to keep that momentum going. We are making significant investments in growing the team and our offerings here as we grow. Even globally, some of the newer technologies that we have acquired, like Nanorep, have immense potential in India. We are excited about the next phase of our growth in India and are looking forward to it.
What is the business strategy of the company?
Our goal at LogMeIn is to achieve a leadership position in three markets we play in -- collaboration, customer engagement and identity. We do that by simplifying the way tech forward, insight-driven-SMB professionals interact with each other, their customers, and the world around them through our intelligent, engaging and on-demand SaaS solutions.
Can you share details about LogMeIn’s global reach? Do you have any expansion plans in India?
LogMeIn has millions of customers spanning virtually in every country across the globe. The company is headquartered in Boston with additional locations in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
India has always been an exciting market for us, and in 2010, we set up our India presence to support the regional users of our global clients. We are happy to say that we have over 500 customers in India and we continue to grow our customer base. As Indian enterprises are making leaps and strides towards their digital transformation, we are uniquely positioned to help them in many aspects of that transformation. We are looking at growing our team to cater to the needs of the Indian market, and the future promises to be an interesting one. Having recently closed a merger with Citrix’s GoToSuite of products, we are also happy to announce that we will soon be moving into a much larger office in Bengaluru, to support our growing team.
