Startup Pyoneer.io uses artificial intelligence to help enterprises analyze customer feedback and service communication. The Munich-based entrepreneurs see demand rise during the Corona crisis.
Customer-centricity is essential to any business – and modern technology provides the means to constantly dive deeper into a client’s wants, needs or worries. Still, evaluating plethora of feedback in service or market research becomes increasingly difficult. With its AI-based Customer Intelligence Tool, startup Pyoneer.io facilitates this research. The tool is designed to prioritize options, aiming to increase customer satisfaction, promote loyalty and optimize processes.
Founders Christopher Schultes, Stefan Link and Taras Frank, with backgrounds in software development and design thinking, started Pyoneer in 2018, backed by an EXIST startup grant by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. In 2020 experienced tech-entrepreneur Eugen Kandakov and B2B-Sales expert Ronny Denk joined the team. Today the Munich-based startup can proudly refer to customers like Telefónica, Baloise and eBay.
Customer communications peaking in Corona times
“Our target customers mostly come from financial, insurance or retail – industries that are transforming their business towards online. With multiple touchpoints via website, email or social media, they receive a lot of relevant and interpretable feedback” says Stefan. During the Corona crisis, he explains, volume in customer communications has grown significantly, especially in the insurance and telecommunications industries, making the startup’s services even more relevant.
With the insights Pyoneer’s analytics solution provides, end-users like product owners or service managers can identify trends or issues with products and services early on. “A client of ours from the insurance industry was asked by its customers for a reduction of car mileage due to the reduction of driving time. With our solution they were able to identify this issue within one day, allowing them to automate the customer request.” The quantitative impact helped this client to prioritize and monitor improvements, thus reduce service costs by 21% and increase customer satisfaction by 41% in less than three months.
For Pyoneer itself, adapting to the “new normal” in times of COVID-19 isn’t exactly a challenge: The team has always cooperated remotely with Stefan working at Wayra’s Munich coworking spaces and Taras and Christopher being based in the Northern-Bavarian town of Würzburg. The three founders opted for participating in accelerators and innovation programmes early on: “This connects us to important decision-makers and enables us to gain a foothold in the industry”, explains Stefan.
Insurance is a field Pyoneer already is serving, but would like to explore further. “We are incredibly happy to be alumni of the ITHM Innovation Programme. Working with all these highly experienced mentors and experts has greatly helped us strengthen our sales strategy and deepen our industry expertise,” enthuses Stefan.
Text: Kristina Püschel