An organization becomes successful only when its customers become successful. This simple yet fundamental premise is behind the rapidly maturing industry of Customer Success Management (CSM). This has led to the evolution of a new breed of technology enabling the success of customers.
There is one such company in this emerging landscape which stands out for its constant innovation, and it’s none other than SmartKarrot. It believes that retaining existing customers should be a ‘Karrot’ for all businesses and it needs a ‘Smart’ approach to being efficient in solving this complex set of moving parts. This was the thought process behind SmartKarrot.
This amazing venture was started by Prithwi Dasgupta, CEO and Co-founder along with Arnab Chatterjee, Co-founder of SmartKarrot.
Smart Beginnings
In Prithwi’s 22+ years of corporate experience, he has always maintained a customer-first approach. Also, he was lucky to have the experience of building and growing Business Units as well as independent portfolio of businesses. Hence the concept of customer success was very intuitive for him.
Prithwi and his co-founder, Arnab not only share this passion for managing customers better but also the realization that this needs multiple moving parts to come together to solve comprehensively.
An Inspiring Guru
Prithwi Dasgupta is the CEO and co-founder of SmartKarrot. Prithwi is an experienced business leader. Prior to starting SmartKarrot, Prithwi was the President of the Health Tech Business Unit leading a team of over 1500.
As he grew his business unit, he had to set up the account management/client services function ground up. Whilst sales got the company entry into the accounts, it was this team that managed, grew, and retained the business. A big eye opener for him was also the valuation impact a higher net retention had on the business.
Moreover, this was not only a complex problem to solve but there were very few focused technology offerings in the market in this space. Most organizations ended up using its existing CRM software or a combination of CRM + Support + Reporting tools to manage this.
Existing focused customer success technology solved some of the problems, but most were clunky first-generation software and not very easy to use and adopt. As he discussed this with his co-founder – Arnab Chatterjee, they realized a shared passion to create a great ‘people focused’ but ‘customer centric’ business.
That is how SmartKarrot started. It is growing rapidly today and helping customers globally manage its own customers and users. It aspires to continue innovating in this space and making customer centricity available to all.
Industry know-how
The software-as-a-service industry is estimated to be over $300 Billion and growing at a CAGR of over 25%. Whilst growth has been rapid, the focus is now on retaining and growing existing book of business by showcasing value and enhancing customer experience.
The company recently published its findings from a Global Customer Success Survey it conducted.
Exclusive Offerings
SmartKarrot is a customer success platform designed to help B2B businesses retain and grow their existing customer base. The company utilizes Intelligence and Automation to help manage all aspects of retaining and growing customers.
SmartKarrot brings together aspects of customer management, customer experience, and product adoption under one integrated platform and is unique in its ability to generate value from actionable customer intelligence and automation of workflows.
Success in Pandemic
A new venture as everyone knows is full of multiple challenges and twists and turns. Trying to get traction during the pandemic posed its own set of challenges. Coming from a high touch relationship driven business environment in Prithwi’s previous role to a product-led digital environment was one standout challenge it had to overcome very early.
For the company it has been a positive impact. The pandemic has put enhanced focus on retaining and growing existing customers. This has led to a higher appreciation and demand for SmartKarrot’s customer success platform.
Self-Competing to be the Best
SmartKarrot was launched in the pandemic year and hence has been completely digital from day one. The company runs all operations from acquisition and implementation, etc., to onboarding and support virtually for now.
It has leveraged the best of the cloud architecture to enable it to provide an enterprise grade product for its global spread of customers. Its customer success operations of course, uses its own platform for end-to-end management.
Future Goals
The customer success market is growing leaps and bounds and the company envisions itself as a leader in this field within the next few years. This is an industry ripe for disruption and it is currently at the forefront of this change.
Technology is going to be a key enabler as organizations increase focus on its existing book of business. SmartKarrot will continue to pursue innovative ways in which, customer success outcomes can be met and operationalized.
