JustDial - the successful multi-channel search service

(via Business India, December, 13th, 2009 issue) First remember coming across the JustDial service, in the year 2000. We started using it extensively in Bangalore and continue using it after we have moved to Pune a few years ago. Always found the service to be very well run, with continuous improvements every few months and a prompt and courteous service. From giving information on the phone, as read out by the operator, they moved onto emailing answers to your queries, sending SMSes to both the enquirer and the businesses that were referred to the caller. A Caller database was added and they began to greet customers by name based on the caller-id.

We were once looking for a professional photographer for a book that we are working on. Called JustDial, got names and numbers of @ 10 photographers over email & SMS in a few seconds, started calling a few while we were called by a few of the photographers themselves in a matter of a few minutes. After some qualifications, reference checks and face to face meetings with two of the short-listed photographers, the deal was closed! I guess a committed and serious customer, a well qualified and hungry service provider and the (technological) swiftness with which a deal can be closed makes all the difference.

As I saw the progress of their service over the years, would always wonder how they were doing, here's how they have done over the years:

• 10 million monthly telephone callers seek information from their database of 4 million clients (up from 86000 in the early part of the decade)
• Now adding directions information to the business addresses through geo-coding
• Serves information over a number of service channels - telephone, SMS, WAP, Internet
• 100 Crore annual turnover
• Now ready to go global having acquired 1-800-JUSTDIAL in the US, Canada and Australia
• Has moved Indians who are not a predominantly DIY society to become one - now Indians do not hesitate to pick up the phone and ask for help
• SMEs have been big beneficiaries of their service and are ready to pay for the service
• They can answer pretty much any questions - sending flowers to friends, movies in town, nearest hospital, home delivery restaurants
• Available in 240 Indian cities
• Its website registers more than 5.6 million hits a day (up from 72,000/day in July 2008)
• Service also gets 700,000 SMSes and 300K WAP messages a day (up from 100K and 6K from a year ago)
• Dominates the 500 Crore SME market - directories, classifieds, ad-spends - providing SMEs a national platform with just a phone call
• Started with a seed capital of Rs. 50,000/- and Sequoia Capital is now investing $8 million; the company valued at Rs. 500 crore

Are they ready to take on the US market which has over 1000 telephone search engines? Keep following the progress of this company. They are the guys who (instantly) connect "seriously opted in customers who look for specific services" with "SME businesses that are hungry to close deals"!