January 6, 2022
5 min
As per global reports, India’s ecommerce industry is growing at the fastest pace globally.
It is projected that India will reach the 700 million mark for internet users, with around 150 million active internet shoppers by the end of 2020.
Despite rising competition, D2C brands in India have been riding the growth wave – thanks to better access to technology, cheaper data, and a steady demand from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
India’s D2C rush is real – close to 500+ brands across the country have been quick to tap into markets and segments, and have registered rapid growth, owing to spike in demand across categories like – fashion and accessories, FMCG, electronics, health and wellness and home decor.
D2C brands have grown by 88% over the years, in comparison to the 32% growth achieved by marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon.
There’s no stopping the D2C (Direct to Customer) growth rush in India.
India’s D2C rush is real – close to 500+ brands across the country have been quick to tap into markets and segments, and have registered rapid growth, owing to spike in demand across categories like – fashion and accessories, FMCG, electronics, health and wellness and home decor.
Growth often comes with its own set of problems to be solved. At the massive scale of D2C, these problems soon become barriers.
Digital-first D2C brands are easily generating leads and acquiring customers left right and center, but even the best of the brands have to navigate through classic growth problems, especially after reaching a particular scale.
India’s largest D2C healthcare brand was facing a similar problem.
When their growth reached a plateau, they looked at their sales funnel and asked – how do we generate new revenue opportunities at scale?
Here’s how SquadStack solved their sales growth problems.
If there’s one thing certain about online shopping, it is the fact that shoppers hate to wait.
Consumers expect fast and responsive communication from brands and any delay in reaching out to leads, or following-up with prospects, ultimately bears huge opportunity losses.
It’s easier to convert when you’re the first to connect.
And to solve for this, sales teams prioritize reaching out to fresh inquiries, while ignoring the potential revenue value stored inside their pool of leads.
The problem is – prioritizing reaching out to new leads comes at the cost of ignoring old ones – leads that might have gone cold – but can be re-engaged.
The D2C healthcare brand’s growing pool of leads was a sign of the growth challenges to come – as demand scaled, the in-house team couldn’t catch up, and reaching out to leads on time emerged as a bottleneck for revenue growth.
With new leads joining the pool, old leads were getting deprioritized. In-house agents were unable to reach out and follow-up, leading to a loss in opportunity.
How We Solved It
SquadStack deployed omni channel lead outreach across mediums like – Voice, SMS, Interactive Voice Responce, and Email.
By deploying a cadence of (1+4) follow-ups, we ensured regular connectivity with leads, and timely interactions at scale.
The Impact
In a span of a few months, the overall lead connectivity on new leads improved by 2x, meaning now it was easier to reach out and connect with more leads.
Lead connectivity on months old data reached 75%. This means new revenue opportunities were generated from old lead pool.
Generating marketing qualified leads was a solved problem for the D2C healthcare brand.
Being a household name, acquiring leads via marketing wasn’t a challenge, but reaching out to the right leads first and converting them was emerging as a priority.
The gap between marketing and sales extended further – after connecting with leads, converting them into customers became the next important problem to be solved.
In-house agents lacked the agility, rigor, and technology needed to offer a seamless, contextual, and personalized sales experience. Ultimately, leaving opportunities at the table.
Further, there was no process in place to identify the relevant or ‘warm’ leads from cold ones. Filtering out quality prospects from a growing number of leads was a challenge unresolved.
How We Solved It
SquadStack deployed a pre-sales qualification layer to pass on relevant opportunities to the in-house agents, within minutes of acquiring leads and qualifying them.
We created custom outreach workflows across channels like – Voice, SMS, and IVR to accurately qualify leads on the basis of predetermined qualification parameters.
The Impact
A pre-qualification layer helped the in-house teams save up to 33% of their time, so they could allocate their efforts only on converting the most relevant opportunities into customers.
To cater to a growing number of leads and customers, it required an equally robust and equipped team.
Further, fulfilling a massive volume of order inquiries meant growing the team size in proportion with the rising demand.
Building teams in-house teams isn’t the most optimal solution, because demand is fluctuating, plus it leads to significant overheads in the short and long run.
This led to an important question – whether to hire, train, and manage resources in-house or look for a more flexible solution to this problem?
Most importantly, the D2C healthcare brand wanted to know whether there existed a way to scale without incurring huge operations expenses and additional resources at every growth cycle?
How We Solved It
SquadStack deployed its distributed workforce of 5000+ pre-trained, industry-ready callers who became the voice for the D2C healthcare brand for different use-cases.
To ramp up supply and scale outreach, we created new missions on our app. Each mission created was tailored to solve specific D2C use-cases like – order confirmation, NDR/RTO, customer feedback, repeat orders, etc.
The Impact
From 8 products to a suite of 41 products across multiple categories, the D2C brand could easily connect with people, without getting into the hassles of hiring and managing resources in-house.
India’s D2C landscape is ripe with the right technology, ample demand, and rapid adoption.
Compared to marketplaces, D2C brands enjoy a clear advantage – they can interact directly with customers and build a deeper relationship.
The opportunity is huge, but the challenge is – how can brands deliver personalized sales experiences at scale?
Customers expect rapid, hyper-personalized experiences, and to deliver them in a unified way, D2C brands need to invest in the resources, both human and technology, starting now.
Ultimately, it will all come down to one thing – how well can D2C brands deliver personalized sales experiences to a growing pool of leads and customers and stand out from the competition.
To double down on the opportunity, D2C brands must focus on investing in technology and partners who can help them deliver consistent, timely and quality experience at scale.
To be among the top direct-to-consumer brands in India, businesses need the resources, technology, and insights, all as part of one package that makes it easier to grow.
Imagine a solution that lets you –
That’s exactly how SquadStack helped India’s leading healthcare brand solve their lead outreach and engagement problems, so they could grow faster.
India’s D2C (Direct to Customer) story is poised for growth – there’s no better time to grow faster!
With SquadStack, growth focused D2C brands can achieve faster sales and fulfilment with a fully remote, on-demand workforce and easily avoid the hassles and overheads associated with managing things in-house.
