Founder Stories #5: e-satisfaction
e-satisfaction collects customer feedback and converts it from a static report into an active tool used to increase loyalty, improve operations, and increase trust and conversion rates.
Do you want to learn more? Evangelos Kotsonis, co-founder and CEO, gives the answers.
Why did you choose to become an entrepreneur?
I am not sure if it was a choice or not. Creating stuff and setting up new capabilities and services was what I was good at, even when I was working in companies I did not found or own. If I try to think why I enjoy being an entrepreneur I would summarize my response to “having the freedom to choose what kind of impact your effort will make in the world”.
How did the idea come about?
The idea came up during a discussion, during which Xenia Kourtoglou, one of the co-founders of the company noticed that while in traditional retail there are a lot of opportunities to interact with the customer and a lot of ways to capture and track their feelings, in eCommerce nothing was happening. We felt that this is an opportunity and most importantly, we felt that this would really help retailers shift their attention to how important customer experience and customer loyalty is for them and for the market.
How did the team come together?
After the ideation stage we decided to begin building a small product and test it to some companies we knew. The tests showed that consumers really like being asked about what they feel and this is when we realized that we had something real in our hands. Later, we decided to take part in a prestigious entrepreneurship competition, which we were announced winners, leaving us with an initial funding and a solid belief from an external evaluator that what we do does make sense. This is when the project become the company we are today.
What is innovative/ different about your product/service?
The differentiation of what we do comes from the way we approach feedback. Most of us consider feedback to be a report. We think of it as an opportunity to open a discussion. This is the foundation of how we innovate and we have built several technical enhancements to this foundation. Machine learning and AI functionalities will also be added in what we are already offer and enrich our industry benchmark and retail specific segmentation tools that we are already offering.
What has been your most difficult challenge?
As a company that has passed the “valley of death” period, I believe that the biggest challenge we faced was to keep the morale up, especially in times when commercial success was not what we anticipated. Keeping the team united and using these times to build a strong core for the company proved to be a real challenge.
Biggest success / failure?
The biggest success that we have recently achieved was the launch of a brand new, customized offering in less than a day, meeting a rigorous need of the market. During this period the whole team came together and worked as one person with multiple skills, resulting to marking a 5% revenue boost in 2 weeks
Biggest failure was that during the bad days we failed to maintain important people that really loved the company.
Most significant lesson learned?
Growing means moving fast, thinking big and not be reluctant in taking your product out to the market and test it as a commercial offering.
What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
When I received a personal message from a client in which he mentioned in how many different ways he was using the platform and how important tool it was for them.
Who has been your greatest inspiration?
I cannot name a single person in the world that I can think of as an answer to this. My list of inspiration includes several people from different industries, such as Bill Gates (primarily because of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and not Microsoft), Steve Jobs (because of his capability to see beyond his era), Michael Jordan (because of his “win no matter what” attitude), Sir Richard Branson (because of the way he simplifies the implementation of high scale ideas into huge companies) and many more. I love reading biographies of great leaders and I usually find something that really hits a corde in each one of them.
What business-related book has inspired you the most? (or, What is your favorite book?)
I love books and I am trying to make time for reading. I have lots of favorites but I really like “Everybody Lies” written by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, as it shows how data tell stories if we just take a look on them. If I had to respond about my favorite book, I think I will go with Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer, as this book taught me a lot about how our minds work, and why “softer” things like food, art and music have this impact on us.
