SaaS Startup ‘inFeedo’ Uses AI Integrally To Manage Employee Engagement
Employee Engagement is often considered to be of paramount importance. How are startups catering to it, and how is technology playing Cupid?
Considering the current pandemic and global scenario, most HR departments would be actively engaging with their employees who are working out of their homes.But at the same time, they would also need to understand their employee sentiments and if the engagements are positively affecting the employee morale and productivity.
inFeedo is currently connected with more than 3 lakh employees across the globe through its AI-chatbot Amber. It has seen an increasing demand from HRs across companies for its chatbot wherein the focus is less on controlling attrition but more on connecting with employees better, keeping their morale high & understanding their sentiments and issues.
Talking to Express Computer’s Gairika Mitra, the founder tells us more about the SaaS industry.
How do you think is the sector going to upsurge in the near future?
These are unprecedented times. Right now, we need to focus even hard on the workforce that socially isolates and works remotely during this Covid-19 crisis. It’s hard to put a number on this; but employee engagement will be a burning priority for leaders right now in all parts of the world. Most businesses will rely on remote tools to connect, collaborate and create a virtual workplace culture. Such a culture will require a virtual engagement tool to help leaders create better experiences and adapt quickly to employee needs and expectations.
What is the exclusiveness of your startup, that’s unique from other gigantic players in the market?
inFeedo is a SaaS-based people predictive analytics company that develops and deploys employee engagement solutions for the human resource function across global organisations. inFeedo’s core offering includes Amber, an artificial intelligence enabled chatbot that helps CHROs manage employee engagement, predict attrition and measure company culture in real time. The concept of employee feedback is not new with HRs taking feedback from employees annually.
What sets us apart is the personal touch, sincerity and attention that is given to each employee which traditional methods of engagements lack. Currently, the employee engagement market is saturated with products that don’t work or employees don’t care about. The uniqueness of Amber is that upon engaging and interacting with it, employees don’t feel like they are having a conversation with a chatbot. Over the years, Amber has gained the trust and confidence of employees across several global organisations. We are thereby building a product that employees like conversing with and also helps HR leaders to garner actionable insights from.
What is the latest mode of technology that you are catering to?
With Amber, we are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and it has its own predictive analytics dashboard which helps the chatbot generate actionable reports, which can be configured by enterprises, based on their own requirements. Amber works on a simple engage and identify model. For example, an employee in the company will receive a chat request from Amber periodically from time to time from the first day of joining till the last day. It will ask a set of personalised questions which will further engage with the employee basis the answers given. If an employee gives a negative response, Amber does not reprimand them, but asks further questions to identify the root cause of the issue. When the same employee expresses unhappiness repeatedly for months, that’s when Amber alerts the HR department.
How important do you think is it for people to rely on technology? Are there any major follies per se?
Technology has become an integral part of our lives. Especially with the current scenario where people across the world are working from home, technology is playing an important role connecting them. Organizations across the world are utilizing technology to help coordinate and engage with employees. For example, at inFeedo we are using Slack for communication, Zoom for video conferencing, Google Sheets for project management/task management. While we have observed that individual productivity shoots up, there are challenges around collaboration and social isolation that we’re proactively addressing as a company.
We see technology as an enabler but on the other hand, face-to-face communication is the most important form of communication specially for Human Resource function as it helps connect with the employees better.
Coming to the financial perspective, are you a bootstrapped venture? If not, kindly elucidate on the nature and amount of funding raised.
We were bootstrapped till 2016 wherein we then raised funds in September 2016 by winning the Indian version of internationally acclaimed show Shark Tank, The Vault. We raised USD 200,000 from a clutch of investors including Dheeraj Jain, Managing Partner, Redcliffe Capital, Anupam Mittal, CEO of Shaadi.com, Ameera Shah, CEO of Metropolis, Vivek Bhargava, Group CEO of DAN Performance, Rahul Singh, CEO of Beer café and Ambarish Gupta, CEO of Knowlarity.
What are your immediate and long term milestones like?
We plan to expand our product as a function to be able to respond to Covid-19 that has impacted several organizations, not just our own customer. For now, growth of the product has been kept in mind while the remaining of us hustle to help our customers and us afloat during these challenging.
Lastly, any word of advice for the wannapreneurs?
To believe hard in the idea and go all out, whatever it takes!Learn from wherever you can, be hungry for knowledge, apply that everywhere you can, experiment like there’s no tomorrow, and do not be afraid to fall. It’s not an easy path but when you achieve your dream, there’s no better feeling than that.
