CloudQ
Enhancing Customer Experience to Create a Better Client Base

It is an undeniable fact that the customer experience is an essential part of a good market strategy. Driving positive customer experiences is a differentiating factor for companies when it comes to standing apart from the competition. It increases the customer retention rate, boosts referrals and helps create a stable revenue stream with the competitive edge that good CX provides. Though there are several customer relationship management platforms in the market, not many companies know how to utilize them to the best of their potential.

CloudQ is a company that helps businesses enhance client-company relationship with their guidance on strategic planning, implementation and maintenance of software business solutions. In an interview with the CIOApplications editorial panel, Yaser Hameed, CEO of CloudQ and Ann Albergotti, Sales and Marketing Director, put forth their views on the challenges and trends related to customer relationship management and how the company stands unique in the industry.

Could you give us a brief background of your company CloudQ?

CloudQ was founded in the year 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia, with the name Syrainfotek. Right from the beginning, the company had been a strong performer in consulting business and delivering quality managed service. Since then, we have scaled up from a $100,000 to a $10,000,000 business. We realized that there is a market need, specifically in the implementation of digital cloud and transformation. Soon, we decided to focus on that area rather than just consulting services, to make ourselves a product-based company. The latest technology on the market was the cloud, so we changed the name of the company to CloudQ, where Q stands for quality. We researched the market and identified software, which included Salesforce CRM, AWS, and started building projects in those technologies.

Could you walk us through the prevalent challenges that you solve concerning your client-base?

CRM software is not recent in the market. They have been popular since the 1990s. Earlier systems had several drawbacks, starting with the first kind of desktop versions. With them, every time a customer wants to have a CRM system, they must install the software in the PC and get licensing. Now, clients can use their entire CRM from a cloud-based technology, such as Salesforce, the leader in the market. The main concept of Salesforce CRM was no downtime; meaning that the system will always be up and running.

For most users, if you take an existing implementation, the customer pain point would be the adoption rate of the product for the client. This would be comparably smaller than expected, and so we check their Salesforce health, and how the users are trained on the software and their activities. We then implement all the tools required to improve the process. In case of new implementations, if a client needs a specific technology to be built on their project, we analyze and recommend the ideal solution through which this can be done (AWS or JAVA or Salesforce) based upon the cost and other details—that's how we provide the solution.

What sets you apart from the rest of the competitors in the space?

Quality is what we promise and provide. We are a highly ethical company, and follow industrial standards, which never change whether it is a small business or an enterprise customer. We always make sure that we provide the right delivery, and so far, our delivery rate for the client is 100 percent. But more importantly, there are three main aspects to this:

One is we provide service for the customers after the project been done to make sure that their adoption rate is high. Two, we make sure the system is being used thoroughly. Three, we provide training as a part of our implementation, making sure that the client gets the necessary practice they need on the new software that they are building.

Could you provide us with a success story where you helped your clients overcome a challenge that they faced?

We have three categories among our clients. The first scenario involves a medical client who already had a CRM adapted to their system. They were only given the license with no proper customization. The company approached us online, and soon we analyzed their system and ran a health check. We completely customized their CRM for them in a short time span and trained everyone. They are now integrating multiple systems to one specific platform. In another case, we helped a client who had an abundance of resources but needed to save costs. The client lacked the experience to do this, so we suggested they allow us to take over their headcount, reducing their employee overhead, and we agreed to provide 24/7 support for them to work on all the process and customization with a specific package per year. We were able to save them around 60 percent of all of their cost.

Could you share your recent track record or any key organizational transformations?

We specialize in Medicare and energy services. A lot of new clients are getting added to the field and we are reaching our targets in this space for that last 5 to 6 years without fail. We received the TiE Atlanta award, and are MBE (Minority Business Entrepreneur) certified from the Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council. CloudQ ranked 794th Fastest Growing Company with Inc. 5000 in 2019. Our office is located in Atlanta, and we started consulting services in Canada. Subsequently, we opened our third location in India, and now we have our other location in the US, in Denver, Colorado. So far, we have offices in four locations and an ever-rising employee count, nearing 200. We are also currently silver partners with Salesforce.

Would you tell us about the company's future roadmap?

The roadmap for the company is to add more cloud-based technologies and to increase our service offering. Currently, we are generating around 90 percent on consulting services and 10 percent on the solution. Our long-term goal is to go 50-50 percentage on consulting versus solutions. So, our roadmap for next year is to get at least 80 percent of consulting and 20 percent of solutions in the project.