Russell Quirk’s pitch of his business eMoov to a panel of judges saw the online agent through into the last 80 in the ‘growth’ category of around 3,000 applicants.
Quirk was waiting at the weekend to hear if his business was through to the last 40 of the Virgin competition where Sir Richard Branson will be among the judges at the finals.
Quirk said of last week’s Virgin pitchathon: “I took along our robot friend to help explain that progress in the sector is gaining pace.
“It may not be that robots take over from human agents just yet, and in fact we believe that the correct blend of people and tech is vital in winning in this space.
“However, the technology that we have now built and deployed (and will continue to iterate) to radically improve customer experience and to also cut internal costs is pivotal to what’s to happening in our industry. And we’re leading that.”
Quirk added: “It’s long been held by the incumbency that the so-called ‘online’ beast is a purely price derived play. It so isn’t.
“Those that do not embrace customer empowering technology that promotes transparency and efficiency, and can build it correctly, will find it impossible to compete soon. And that applies to ‘online’ and ‘offline’ agents similarly.
“Once that box is ticked, then there’s the question of delivering absolute customer service excellence, and this is what I talked about to the Virgin judges.
“Yes, it’s about saving people money. And it’s about customer empowering technology that matches the functionality and ethos of other dis-intermediated industries.
“But above all it’s about customer experience that results in a demonstrable standard which then equates to lower customer acquisition costs too: 20% of our revenue now comes from customer recommendation.
“It’s my belief that a number of agents across the sector spectrum are a long way from achieving these things. Many simply won’t.”
What a job, constantly begging for money because you keep running out.
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Spot on. I can understand initial funding but for me you don’t have a ‘business’ if you can’t generate your own funding down the line.
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Please sir, I’d like some more?
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Fancy taking a soulless, inanimate object with negative personality and likeability with you in an attempt to impress on such a vital-to-survival pleading session at yer local Begathon.
There again, having it there seemed to have worked – to a degree.
Maybe it was the mismatched suit or the Corky the Clown shoes that swung the sympathy vote…
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I agree, poor robot. Would probably be in the final now if it was not lumbered with Quirk 😉
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