UAE-based Call Answering Startup Callix All Set for Global Expansion

Callix, a UAE-based intelligent cloud-based call answering solution providing 24/7 services and data analytics to businesses of all sizes, has announced its plans for international expansion starting with its launch in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the first quarter of 2020, with further plans already on the way to roll out in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The startup, having entered the market in 2017, is this year's recipient of the Best Digital Customer Center award at the Government Excellence Awards as recognition for its focus on bolstering its clientele's customer happiness agenda and supporting the SME sector with its ease of setup and system integration, affordable pricing packages, multilingual live agents, and most importantly, advanced data analytics.

According to Callix founder, Arif Saiyad, who also sits at the head of ASA Ventures, a Dubai-based venture capital firm that has been operating for the last 16 years across three continents, "Digital adoption is integral for survival in today's business landscape. With Callix, an entrepreneur takes his customer service game a notch higher without the need to hire people and take care of additional overheads. Another thing that is crucial for any company is data collection, analysis, and utilization. It's true when they say that knowledge is power, and with all the information gleaned from the dashboard, businesses are able to get actionable insights, make informed business decisions, and provide what the customer needs."

Apart from user interface and data analytics, Callix also utilizes sentiment analysis for agent training purposes. Call recordings are made available to the customer for quality assurance, allowing them to monitor how agents handle client calls.

Saiyad adds that the decision to make Saudi Arabia the next Callix base was grounded on recent developments in the kingdom's startup and VC ecosystem, and sees that the country has boundless market potential. As part of its Vision 2030 objective of becoming an "investment powerhouse," it also recognizes SMEs as the backbone of its economy, representing 99% of the private sector, according to the secretary-general of the National Entrepreneurship Initiative (NEI), Omar Bafeel. With Saudi undergoing a digital and economic transformation, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows increased in the first quarter of 2019 by 24%.

On the topic of human intervention, ASA Ventures Chief Marketing Officer, Nitin Nambiar, explains that in order to truly live up to customer happiness ideals, "one must inspire trust, and what better way to do that than to have a real-life human that knows how to effectively build rapport, show emotional intelligence, and creatively resolve an issue. While the call center industry has technology as its backbone, in order to have a human-centric approach to customer service, you still need humans to bridge the gap between doubt about a product or service and brand loyalty."