“Our AI Chatbot TelebuPop has been developed specifically for SMEs.”- Mr Satya Yeramsetti, Founder and CEO Telebu

IT Voice:-Share details about the inception of Telebu?

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-In 2003, Satya returned from Australia with a degree and a dream – to start an online business, which would take India into the dotcom age. He soon gathered 7 people, and started SMSCountry Networks, which aims to make bulk SMS the marketing tool for Indian enterprises. Riding the SMS wave of success, we launched 160by2.com, an entirely new solution – ads in SMS.

After pioneering Bulk SMS and Voice SMS in India, we began thinking of a way to make conference calls easy. The process at the time entailed getting a bridge number, having to dial-in. It was tiring, difficult and time-consuming. Suffice to say, the experience was broken. And, this is where we entered the picture. The former CM of AP requested to create a unified application, which would allow them to send text and voice SMS, and initiate a conference call to citizens at any time.

During the HUDHUD Cyclone that ravaged the coast of AP, we deployed a fully functioning call center to help the AP Government in 12 days. Understanding the need for a call center setup that could be deployed quickly, we began working on our own cloud-hosted call center software that would unify all call center essentials and systems into a single-view software solution. This led to the development of Press3, now called TelebuHub. Today, it is used by many organizations across India and the GCC.  

Telebu is the one-stop shop for everything to do with enterprise communication.  We also developed Telebu Join, a video conferencing and webinar application that works admirably even in low-bandwidth conditions.  Our AI Chatbot TelebuPop has been developed specifically for SMEs, as a more economical alternative to other competitors.  Our most recent product, called TelebuPing, is by far the most exciting one yet. It allows you to initiate group chats, audio conferences and group video calls from the same app. We also offer our custom built APIs for SMS, Voice, Video and Chat through our product TelebuBlocks. Blocks is like the building blocks for enterprise communication applications.

IT Voice:-How Video Conferencing has helped businesses in Smooth Communications during Covid19?

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-Though Coronavirus certainly accelerated the future of video communication, the above video conferencing statistics prove that the majority of businesses were already using these tools. The video conference market share is expected to grow to $50 billion by 2026.

During the time of pandemic video conferencing has helped businesses: 

• Stay connected to their clients

• Offer on – demand support

• Educate & train employees

• On-board new customers

• Generate new leads via Webinars

• Ensure Mental Wellness of their employees by hosting fun session and activities

• Shorten project timelines

• Enable teamwork and collaboration

• Empowered students and helped educational institutions/ educators to impart knowledge.

• Helped patients have access to critical care, consultations via telehealth programs

• Continue with the Talent Acquisition and Hiring process etc

• Helped government administrators, bureaucrats and ministers of state/center stay connected with the ground realities, relay communication, strategies and collaborate on ways to tackle the pandemic and address the aam junta. 

TelebuJoin has helped businesses, educational institutions, Health Institutions, government organizations, ministers of state achieve all of the above. Over the past 3 months – TelebuJoin hosted more than 10,000+ meetings, hosted by more than 1,000 + businesses having more than 100,000 participants. 

IT Voice:-How Audio Conferencing Services have connected companies with customers in rural areas?

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-It has enabled communication without internet, offered complete control of the call and also connected users instantly at scale. Of the many industries that use grouptalk. None can underline the impact grptalk makes as a product like Agriculture & Farming. In rural areas Plague farming & agriculture industry has faced several challenges such as lack of expertise, poor planning and forecast and inconsistent support from private and government organizations.

How grptalk helps?

• Audio-Conference at scale helps these organizations reach out to farmers in the remotest locations at scale.

• Farmers don’t need to join a conference via PINS. They simply need to answer an incoming call to join.

• Surveys & Feedbacks via grptalk help organizations track progress made by each farmer and get an estimate on the impact made by these training sessions.

• A Toll Free number – is shared with all the farmers. Farmers are connected to representatives who listen and address their grievances, problems etc

• Auto – Dialers & voice broadcasts help these organizations send reminders, tips and best practices to farmers in the language of their choice. 

• SMS reminders & instructions sent out after each call is in local language, This ensures that the messages, instructions and tips are understood by the farmers as intended.

IT Voice:-How Artificial Intelligence Powered Chatbots have revolutionized growth for businesses. 

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-Chatbots have been around for about 8 years or more now. And, in the last 2 years, businesses have taken note of the impact they can make and have adapted to use them. As per reports by Business Insider the chatbot market is projected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7%.  Research shows that by 2023 – businesses will save 2.5 billion customer service hours using chatbots.

We can categorize chatbots into 4 key categories:

1) Q & A Chatbots or Support Bots ( They typically answer general user queries without human intervention and expedite the outcome they seek. Resulting in better Customer Effort Score for businesses). These chatbots help reduce friction and ensure 24/7 to the customers. 

2) AI based Chatbots – These chatbots typically ask a few questions to the users – related to the objective they are trying to achieve, the problem they are trying to solve etc and suggest the best way forward to them. These types of chatbots are typically used for shopping, quick disbursal of loans etc.

3) Smartbots – These bots learn from every interaction they have with the users and over time learn user behavior to equip themselves to predict it as well. Vis a Vis – Alexa, Google Homes etc

4) Conversational Bots – These bots are a mix of your typical Q & A Chatbots and AI – based Chatbots. These bots are typically used by B2B businesses to capture information about the users, nurture them, qualify them as buyers and move them down the purchase journey. 

So, yes the chatbots are here to stay. And, yes the Artificial Intelligence Powered Chatbots will truly revolutionize the way we interact, shop, sell, gather information and offer support in the next decade. At Telebu, we are developing POP to empower businesses to offer support to the users & nurture them, qualify them, as buyers and move them down the purchase journey. With Telebu POP we offer – Live Chat Options, process knowledge base requests, drive user interactions based on where they are in their buying journey. And, to improve the customer experience, reduce friction and improve CSAT scores of our customer – we are integrating our bots with Voice + Video Calling features. It’s true – Traditional way of selling B2B products is a passe. MQL is dead. And, soon having a larger voice support operation center to tackle customer queries will be a thing of the past.

IT Voice:-What are your Future Plans?   

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-The Future of Telebu is filled with possibilities. I would like to break them down for you into:

Product Plans

Telebu as an Organization constantly strives towards establishing a perfect, Product – Market Fit. In order to achieve the same goal, we will continue to iterate our existing products – Add Security features, VoIP calling facilities, Social Integrations, Scale, Speech to Text, Regional Language Operability, Location Tracking, Blur Background, Present Mode, Event Features, Moderation Rules, Filters etc to our Audio Conferencing, Video Conferencing, Business Collaboration & Contact Center Management platforms.

Newer Segments to Tap: 

Once Telebu establishes itself as a Market Leader in Audio Conferencing Space (expected to happen by Jun 2021) & Contact Center Software/Solutions Space (by Dec- 2021). Currently, we are focussing on breaking through the rural, semi – urban SME’s, MSME’s market in BFSI, Agriculture, Education and Government verticals.  

Parallelly, we are also working hard and are very close to tasting success with our Video Conferencing Platform (Join) & our Secure Business Collaboration Platform (Ping). Our timeline to breakthrough and build a niche for them is April – 2022. 

Once we set ourselves up to achieve these milestones, we look forward to venture into the newer market segments – CRM, Marketing Automation, Email Service Provider, ERP, Business Analytics & Reporting etc.

Markets to break:

All our enterprise communications products are built to address two key pain points most developing nations face: 

1) Infrastructure

2) Scale

Playing to our strengths – we plan to break through into the newer markets like – Srilanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia & Indonesia in South East Asia. And, set up our operations in untapped markets like – Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco in Eastern Africa. Also, we are set out to capture market 10% market share, which will amount to about 350 Million USD in the said segment in the next 5 years.

IT Voice:-What were the key achievements of Telebu in Year 2019?

Mr Satya Yeramsetti:-Last year, year and half have been eventful to say the least. At Telebu we celebrate even our smallest victories to keep ourselves motivated and charged up. A lot happened at Telebu in 2019. 

1) We opened up new offices in Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi. 

2) Consolidate our operations in the Middle East. 

3) Onboarded large enterprises in – BFSI, Retail, Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, and Government verticals. These enterprises contributed to the tune of 30% to our topline. 

4) Scaled up our team to 400+ people

5) Established Telebu as a preferred communication partner for leading political parties, state governments and government institutions. 

The list goes on. But what got us excited and made our hearts swell is:

1) grptalk – being used by 5 Chief Ministers of State to manage and run ground operations to tackle COVID-19

2) Our Teleconsultation Product –TABIIB winning the prestigious Bahrain Tech Award in 2019. 

3) Our Entertainment Platform – WANASATIME became the official ticketing partner for internationally acclaimed events like – Formula 1, Comic Con etc and turned profitable. Establishing itself as the Market Leader with over 70% market share in Bahrain & Qatar. 

4) Lastly, we achieved 2x growth in revenues for the FY 19-20 in comparison to FY – 18-19.