Tech duo rides on popular chat apps to grow global business

Charles Gichuki (left) with Trevor Kimenye (right), co-founders of Ongair a dashboard application that allows corporates to manage instant messaging with their customers on platforms like whatsapp during the interview at their Nairobi office on April 19, 2016. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA  

By SANDRA CHAO-BLASTO

In Summary

• A majority of their clients are businesses based in South America though they have a few in Asia and have managed to create value for companies across the continent.

Trevor Kimenye and his friend Charles Gichuki hit the jackpot when Chase Bank called on them to come up with a creative way to create a buzz for the corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign they were running in support of maternal and child health in 2014.

The bank was looking at how to interact with their clients and at the same time boost their campaign.

The duo came up with a simple idea of integrating the bank’s systems to WhatsApp so each time a donor contributed to the cause they would send a thank you message with images of roses to show their appreciation.

“After the successful campaign, we began thinking of ways of how the client could continue to use WhatsApp to grow their business. Almost everyone had downloaded it on their phone and was using it to keep in touch with family and friends,” says Kimenye.

They began thinking about how to best explore the idea further, especially with the growing popularity of the social messaging channel.
For the bank in particular WhatsApp provided an immediate way to interact with its customers despite their geographical location.
That was how Ongair, a dashboard application that integrates several instant messaging platforms was born.

“Instead of calling customer service and being kept on hold, you just send them a WhatsApp message that is connected to their customer service system and they are able to respond to them almost instantly,” said says Gichuki.

Ongair has registered more than 800 clients mostly small businesses globally using their service to keep in touch with their customers.

A majority of their clients are businesses based in South America though they have a few in Asia and have managed to create value for companies across the continent.

Nigeria and South Africa have been organically growing markets that started with partnerships and being active in local tech events which finally led to mentions and referrals by their initial clients.

The entrepreneurs have also run campaigns for Airtel, Heineken, Castle, Coca Cola, Cheki and the BBC.
The Ongair website basically allows clients to register and use their dashboard services for managing instant messaging services, with very little physical interaction which has allowed the duo to take their service globally.

The online dashboard allows access to the messages on various channels by a firm’s customer service team enabling each message to be responded to in a matter of minutes by assigned individuals.

The service packages start from as low as $29 to $119 per month. They receive payments through electronic funds transfers as well as PayPal.
They have had to deal with phone calls from worried clients questioning their competencies and location of their servers which are hosted in Europe.

Initially they used local cloud service providers but with the expansion into global markets came the need for more efficient and reliable cloud services.
“There is still a perception that because software originates from Kenya it is not of good standards, we do not want this to be the basis of our first interaction with our clients, let them use the service then makeup their own mind,” Kimenye explains.

In April, Ongair raised Sh12,625,000 ($125,000) from global venture capital firm Nest enabling them to create a headquarters in Hong Kong as part of their Asia expansion plan.

“We were not looking for equity investors with the incorporation we wanted a joint venture that would enable us tap into the 10 million WeChat users in china alone,” Gichuki says.

Kimenye adds: “Chinese market has not been so easy to enter due to the language barrier. Having a presence in China sounded more of a viable idea having a partner who was willing to work with us.”

The duo, who met at a university hackathon in Strathmore five years ago, have also sold individual software applications to enterprises and even tried their hand at converting some revolutionary ideas into businesses.

Most of these were apps that could be replicated in other parts of Africa but none had a global focus like Ongair.

Stiff competition
They have also created mobile friendly versions of their systems allowing their teams to respond to client queries in wee hours of the night from their own phones and tablet computers because many of their clients are based in different time zones

While there are no local rivals, the startup faces stiff competition from international integration firms.

To deal with cases of Internet mishaps they currently subscribe to two different service providers switching from one to another when they are experiencing downtime.

One thing that they have not found a way around is the power blackouts Nairobi faces from time to time.

When push comes to shove the team, however, packs up their mobile laptop workstations and move to a local eatery which has standby power generators just to keep working.

A lot of businesses have taken to using instant messaging for their customer service because of the continued efforts by platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, We Chat to secure connections with end-to-end encryptions.

Instant messages are also cost effective and enable businesses to personalise the messages they send to their clients. The messages not only include the text but also emojis, photos and even documents.

It is a concise way of communicating enabling businesses to get to the root cause of their clients’ problems and solve them efficiently.

schao@ke.nationmedia.com