Nuno Sobral, TOOLTO
[FH]: What is the problem you are addressing at Toolto and how do you solve it?
[NS]: Mobility landscape is changing, new fully digital players are entering with multi business offerings with great impact in today’s industries of intangible services like insurance, banks, utilities, and automotive. Some examples: UBER, REVOLUT, N26, HIRO, LEMONADE. These companies are digitally from the beginning and are powered with great Customer Experiences and state of the art Client servicing.
With autonomous cars, digital players in finance, insurance, and banks entering markets in general, the service level will be decisive to guarantee that Clients are attracted and retained with great customer experiences from prospecting, onboarding, and servicing. Moreover, if convenience digital features are added beyond financial services 2 major wins are generated: 1. More touchpoints and data about the Client’s habits, 2. Additional revenue streams can be originated.
TOOLTO, your mobility tool, is the perfect solution that guarantees to exist and new players state of the art Customer service without losing the focus on their Core Business.
The solution includes a plug and play platform that can manage all Client needs from fully cloud Omnichannel Contact Center with Chat and Voice Automation and tailor-made flows and location-based service networks to manage simple and complex cases like calls or WhatsApp cases or roadside assistance requests, claims management, or multi-service marketplaces.
[FH]: How does Toolto address insurance as an experience?
[NS]: Customer experience is a key focus for TOOLTO. Insurance is an intangible service that needs, not only, to guarantee that in every interaction customers have a great experience, but also, to maximise touchpoints with customers, especially on everyday life non-negative and convenient interaction.
TOOLTO addresses this need with platforms that are fully secure and on the cloud, that are adapted in a tailor-made model to each Client, using technology to allow efficient, digital, self-service, automated, and omnichannel Customer Service. All interactions happen in 1 single platform that provides a single view of all Client interactions and is ready for analytics and embedded with AI.
Insurance as an experience is achieved by converting the most frequent touchpoints to the TOOLTO platforms, from Contact Center to Roadside assistance service and Claims Management service. Due to the Platform as a Service business model, multiple teams can interact with Customers and workflows are adaptable to multiple types of intervention creating the perfect insurance experience.
To conclude, it is very important to mention Transparency at the cost level, in opposition to the mutualization of costs with no full transparency that exists in most of the cases today.
In today’s most frequent cases, there is the outsourcing of key customer touchpoints, based on Cost (low) with minimum data gathering and no mutual win-win model, if usage is low, outsourcer wins, if usage is high-quality decreases and the insurer increases its costs to avoid issues with Customers. With TOOLTO model the goal is that Customer wins, with adequate means and in a model that each cost is evaluated based on real cost always with Insurer perspective, being this huge saving of cost of service and increase of Customer retention through adequate experiences.
[FH]: What differentiates Toolto from other competitors?
[NS]: TOOLTO has 3 types of Competitors: Assistance Companies, BPO Companies, and IT development Companies
Assistance Companies: TOOLTO is more focused only on Customer Service, lean/ agile (not an insurer), technology, and innovation-oriented with full transparency and with the platform as a service business model. The logic of dedicated teams, workflows, and platforms are fully tailor-made to each Client.
BPO Companies: TOOLTO platforms are fully tailor-made to each Client, incorporating multiple technologies, with the capacity of being placed inside the Client in a fully dedicated model. Optional platform as a service business model.
IT Implementation/ Consultant Companies: TOOLTO platform as a service and full service including operation and networks business model, service with continuous improvement and evolution, incorporating multiple technologies and fully functional use cases.
[FH]: How is your typical sales process?
[NS]: The typical sales process cannot be defined yet with accuracy because TOOLTO is recent, with Commercial activity kicking off in late 2019 followed by C19. So far, market acceptance is very positive, being all-in-one platform philosophy and embedded technology the most valued attribute.
The typical sales process starts with a presentation of TOOLTO’S product and uses cases DEMO. Then a 1st use case is defined and all focus is on the use case exploration, testing, and business case setup. After the business case is built up and validated, the next step is final concept testing, before Go Live.
[FH]: Being a B2B startup, what are the main challenges you face when connecting with mature players? What advice would you give to overcome those challenges?
[NS]: The sales process involving established companies with startups is always a challenge for both, however the perspective so far from TOOLTO is that the general market is open to collaborate with Startups.
The main challenge that startups face when connecting with mature players has been the speed! Being those companies not only mature but also bigger in complexity, the decision process involves multiple teams and perspectives originating a lengthy process.
The best advice is to adjust pipeline size in line with speed decisions and a focused step-by-step approach.
The pipeline needs to be bigger in proportion with lower speed decisions so that when a major roadblock happens, there are other existing options to be accelerated. If the approach is simple and step by step, in case multiple decisions happen simultaneously, with the effort the delivery is still possible and never breaks the confidence of any partner.
A final piece of advice is to try to start with small and simple use cases that can grow, instead of trying to start partnerships with full product range and complexity. The reduced level of complexity will reduce initiative risk and simplify the decision process. Cooperation with startups has huge potential, however being most startups recent companies, mature players need to manage risk. From a startup perspective, it is even more critical to control risk, and keeping initiatives less complex is key to reducing risk and accelerating decision process.
[FH]: Portuguese startups are required to think internationally from day one, did the same happen to Toolto? Which countries would you start looking at for potential expansion?
[NS]: In my opinion all startups are required to think internationally from day one, in all geographies and all types of business. World today is more global and most successful companies proved that global operating models work, are far more efficient, are valued by customers and generate more added value. Additionally, technology is ready to be parametrized so that it can work everywhere, in multiple time zones, language and currency. With this philosophy it is possible from day 1 to compete everywhere and increase success probability, limiting risks, with higher focus and more speed.
In TOOLTO all components and workflows were designed to be fully functional in every geography, and technology foundations selected granting minimal effort for international expansion.
TOOLTO is focused on Portugal, to do more with existing Partners and to close existing Prospect. Additionally, some Prospect in early stage exist in 3 markets, all for Platform as a Service Business Model.