Onsitego is your buddy for digital and home appliances

Courtesy: IndianCEO.in  

Onsitego Is All Set To Go Higher

OnsiteGo is an independent provider of after sales service for digital products and home appliances. Their flagship product is OnsiteGo Extended Warranty. They claim that their Extended Warranty program ensures that Customers are able to maintain their electronic products in top condition even in years 2, 3 & 4 of the life of the product – long after the manufacturer’s warranty has expired.To put it simply, they charge Customers a small fee at the time of purchase of their new product, say a TV. The TV is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty in the First Year. However, in Second Year there is no warranty by the manufacturer. If something goes wrong with the TV, the Customer will have to do 2 things viz. they will have to take the pains to figure out the closest Service Center to log a call with them and also have to pay for the repairs and service charges associated with the malfunctioning TV.However, because the Customer had purchased the OnsiteGo warranty service at the time of purchase of TV, all the customer has to do is to call them. Not only do they visit the Customer at their home, but also pay all the charges that are incurred to repair the TV.Customers can buy the OnsiteGo Extended Warranty plans from their website, www.onsitego.com or from any of their preferred partners like Croma, Amazon.in, Flipkart or Snapdeal. OnsiteGo Extended Warranty is also available with hundreds of their single and multi-store partners across India.Apart from Extended Warranty, OnsiteGo also has a couple of Damage Protection services for mobile phones, tablets and laptops. Manufacturer’s warranty covers all routine problems occurring in the phone for the first 12 months of ownership of the phone. It does not cover any physical or liquid damage to the phone.

OnsiteGo Spills and Drops Protection program is their flagship damage protection program. The Spills and Drops Protection program is designed to ensure that any damage to your phone in the first 12 months of ownership of the phone is taken care of by them. The damaged phone is picked, serviced and delivered. At no extra charge to the Customer.

Apart from Spills and Drops Protection they also have the OnsiteGo Screen Protection program. Unlike Spills and Drops Protection – which ensures that all parts of your phone are covered against damage – the OnsiteGo Screen Protection program covers damage to the screen of the phone. This program ensures that Customers are able to get protection for the part of the phone that is the most fragile and has the highest propensity of breaking; at a lesser cost – while retaining the five-star Customer service experience that OnsiteGo seeks to provide.

Challenges

In the early days the challenges were very different from what they are currently. For example – When they were starting up they had a hard time convincing service centers to work with them. They had to go from one service center to another to meet the owners and convince them to work together. Most saw no value in what OnsiteGo was proposing. However, they did manage to convince some of them. Now, the challenge is completely different. They today have more service center partners than the real need. The challenge is to build systems that can filter service centers on multiple parameters to ensure only the best service centers work with us.

Moreover, They also had to face the challenges similar to any other start up. Dearth of quality talent. Doubts from partners. Restricted budgets. They overcame them like any other start up would. Through sheer blood mindedness! That’s the fun in a start-up. No problem is too big. You are limited only by your own imagination!

Main Aims

“OnsiteGo is a Customer Service business. We aim to provide special experiences to our Customers every single day. Delivering truly special service to every single Customer every single day can be very challenging. It only takes a small slip to disappoint a valued Customer. The challenge, therefore, is to consistently deliver best in class service standards. We are trying to achieve this by leveraging opposite ends of the spectrum. Technology and People.

We are building systems and processes by which Customer Experience does not remain a matter of chance – it becomes a natural outcome of the process!

The second concern is one of trust deficit. When Customers buy our service they are essentially buying a promise. That if their product does not perform as expected we will be there to help them. That they won’t face any hassle in getting their product repaired. The Customer is trusting us to keep our promise and deliver him a great experience when he faces a problem.”

The CEO explains, “My personal experience of receiving sub-par repair service for mobiles and gadgets in India is something that led me to recognize the need for hassle-free and reliable post-purchase services. I started OnsiteGo as a help for pick and drop services for repairing mobile phones and laptops. The philosophy was simple – to provide a hassle-free service to the customer for repairing his device and thus improving their post-purchase ownership experience. During the course of providing the pick & drop service to thousands of Customers, I realized that there’s a need for better after sales services beyond the warranty provided by the manufacturer. That is when we started Extended Warranty and Damage Protection Programs.”

The Team

The team is a fantastic blend of people who care, very deeply, about the Customer Experience. Right from folks who work in the call center, to folks who manage service operations – everyone at OnsiteGo has a common trait. The desire to deliver a fantastic Customer Experience.

According to them, the big call was the positioning they wanted to take. Do they want to be a low price low quality player or a premium service provider with best in class service? Ultimately, the call was an easy one to make. The DNA of the Company has always been to deliver best in class service. And so they could evolve as the best service provider in their category. Simply because, the core team is extremely passionate about Customer Service.

Background Of The Promoters

The core team at OnsiteGo is a group of dynamic leaders who are passionate about their job.

* Kunal Mahipal
He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and aspires to make OnsiteGo India’s most recognized and valuable service brand. He’s an alumnus of IIM, Bangalore.

* Sushant Khairnar
Sushant is the Chief Product Officer (CPO). He is responsible for designing delightful customer experiences. An alumnus of IIM, Ahmedabad, Sushant is also a co-founder at PolicyBazaar.com.

* Sunil Gandhe
Sunil is the Chief Operations Officer (COO). He heads Operations, and is responsible for ensuring that OnsiteGo’s customers always stay delighted with its service. Sunil is an alumnus of IIT, Bombay & IIM, Calcutta.

* Rahul Rai
Rahul is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and the brain child behind the scalable and robust technology for a delightful customer experience and risk management. Rahul is an alumnus of IIT, Kanpur

Onsitego Journey So Far

In their CEO’s own words, “When we started off in 2010 we had a few hundred customers in 1 year in Mumbai. Today, 5 years later, we have over 3 million customers in almost every pin code in India who have bought our services. We work with the largest online and offline retailers in India. Our partners include Amazon, Flipkart, Croma, Vijay Sales and Snapdeal. We work with the best service centers in India who are extremely committed to delivering best in class service.”

Revenue Model

In their own words, “The one thing that sets us apart from our competition is that we are not playing the same game as all of them. We are a Customer Service company. At OnsiteGo we are insanely focused on the Customer and the experience we provide them. That focus is reflected in our product design – we are the only extended warranty and damage protection company that does not have fine print for the Customer. This higher price that we are able to command from our Customers in turn helps us deliver the best service experience in the market! Our competition is not able to do that because they don’t trust the Customer. As a result, they design poor quality products with a lot of terms and conditions and exclusions for every possible scenario. This results in a poor Customer experience for the customer. “

“Our internal meetings are never about cutting costs or achieving operational efficiency. We don’t discuss ways and means to cut costs or to improve productivity in our meetings. In fact, we take pride in the fact that we are operationally inefficient. It means we are able to deliver service to the Customer when they want it – not when it is cost effective for us to provide it. Our discussions center largely around the Customer Experience. In all of our meetings, one spot is always reserved for the Customer. None of the competition has this insane focus on the Customer.”

Funding

OnsiteGo is a cash positive Company. They generate more cash than they spend every month. They proudly claim that they are one of the few startups that is funded by Customers. In their space, they are the most capital efficient Company. Their capital raised/topline ratio is the least in the industry – and they intend to keep it that way! Accel Partners, investors in Facebook and Flipkart, is an investor in OnsiteGo.

Future Plans

The CEO says, “We want to help Customers buy, own and resell electronic product. Right now, our focus is on 2 areas. We want to help more and more people in their ownership experience – To that end we are expanding the extended warranty and damage protection business and taking it to more and more Customers.”

He adds, “We have lots of information on performance of various products. For example, we know which brand of AC lasts the longest and which brands costs the least to maintain. We know which brand of TV customers are happiest with – which they are least happy with. We believe Customers can use this information while making purchase decisions. Our next step will be to provide Customers with inputs which can influence their purchase decisions.”

Courtesy: Vasisht Bhupathiraju, IndianCEO.in