Getting customer feedback on mSurvey

Claire Munene, mSurvey Chief Commercial Officer

mSurvey is a mobile feedback platform that enables businesses to interact with their customers through short messaging. 

The firm, which has operations in Nigeria and eyeing other African markets, is headquartered in Kenya. mSurvey Chief Commercial Officer spoke to Financial Standard on the new method of getting customer feedback among companies as well as the prospects of growth in Kenya and the region.

Where else in Africa and globally is mSurvey looking at setting up operations?

Our global headquarters are in Kenya and from here, we see ourselves sprouting out of the country to the rest of Africa. Other than having a presence in Kenya, and Nigeria, we have clients that have reach in Uganda and Tanzania and service their operations as well.    

Our dream is to be able to fuel businesses in Africa in terms of offering them a customer feedback platform which drives their growth through operational efficiency and offering them insights that inform their strategic growth as well as commercial opportunity.   

There are plans to have a presence in other markets but not short term. Our current markets are actually keeping us busy in terms of delivering solutions to their needs which are rapidly changing; these will be the focus of our immediate attention.

What are some of the key growth areas for you in the Kenyan and regional markets?

We are still growing and I would say we are nowhere near our goal in terms of achieving presence in across Africa.   

We are looking at working with any business looking to connect better with their customers.  These would be all organisations that understand their customer is their business and are doing everything to ensure they are catering to the needs of their customers.     

Our experience has been that when a customer uses one of our systems, they tend to use more of our capability with time and that walk with different clients is also a growth area for us.

What are some of the challenges that you have faced in the years you’ve been operational?

A key challenge has been the aggressive rate at which we have had to grow.     The position where we find ourselves at the moment is different from where we had initially expected to be and the challenge was stepping up the pace so that we can cope with the growth. We have learned our lesson.      Moving forward, we have made sure we have the capability to quickly adapt to scale at the pace of growth and be way ahead by building capacity to take of such growth should it happen.

When mSurvey started about a decade ago, it was a relatively new way of doing surveys, was it a struggle getting client buy-in?

We came at a point where the market was ripe for this service where corporates were looking for efficient ways to get customer feedback. We embarked on that journey of being there.

Was it a challenge?

With any new service, you will be required to drive that process for the customer to understand.    It was not easy but expected.  

We offer businesses a platform to be able to connect to their customers and when I look at what we have done, I would say our only competitor is the traditional methods of getting customer feedback which is pen and paper.

mSurvey recently received Sh350 million from a number of investors including TLcom Capital. How does the company plan on using these funds?

The investment is going to be critical in ensuring that we continue to maintain our growth and ensure we can cope with unprecedented growth such as what we experienced in our earlier years.

Our investors and the capability they are bringing in are important for us to grow locally as well as in other markets. The technology is the core of our business and it is what drives and fuels us.   

These will a key area of investment now and in the future. We are continuously looking to make changes to our platform to meet the growing demands for the businesses that we work with and the opportunities that we see as we understand the businesses.

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