Circles.Life and its plans on dominating the telco market
In this day and age, where the world is connected through digital services with millennials being constantly glued to their phones, it can be a disaster to suffer from bad reception or slow customer service.
It seems that Singapore-based telco company Circles.Life has figured out just how to take telecommunications to the next level by introducing a handful of new features, along with an OS (operating system) for telcos.
This has not just allowed consumers to gain flexibility and control but has also managed to cut operational costs by a whopping amount of 95 per cent.
“The actual problems of standing in queues or your bill being wrong, those real problems cannot be solved just by cutting the price,” says Gupta.
In this interview with e27, Gupta discusses the local telecom industry, competition, price wars, Circle.Life’s diversification plans and expansion strategies.
Circles Life is growing so fast. But as a co-founder, what is the one thing that drives you and gets you going?
A.G: I would say that the biggest thing is the global potential of what we are trying to do.
What we have done in Singapore is to give power back to consumers, which manifests itself when you look at the net promoter scores towards customer satisfaction between us and the rest of the telcos.
We are trying to solve a global problem that needs to be addressed in not just Singapore, but around the world.
People always say that we have millions of subscribers, but I reply saying that the path from there is to get to a billion subscribers one day.
There’s a long way ahead, but that is what gets us most excited.
Circles.Life has not just been growing, but also expanding at a substantial rate. Besides Taiwan and Australia, what are some other expansion plans for the company in the Asia Pacific -or even beyond?
A.G: If you look in the next two-to-three-year horizon, we are looking to expand to pretty much every country that you can think of in Asia.
So that will be every country … in Asia because we believe that customers in the immediate vicinity of Singapore should all get these digital services.
What we have planned outside of Taiwan and Australia is to hit up Indonesia, which is a market where we would be launching this year. Most probably in the last quarter of this year.
We have a few conversations going around, and at the right stage, we will be very happy to share.
Speaking of which, what are some strategies that you will be using to gain success in these new markets that you have been entering so rapidly?
A.G: While we are expanding, we are not expanding fast, if I may be frank. The reason is that we believe expanding indiscriminately is not the answer.
It has to be very strategic and has to be thought through because it is an essential service. It is like banking.
You know telcos are an essential service.
You really cannot get that flow wrong, and you do not want to trouble customers because we are all about giving power back to the customers.
So in that sense, I do not think two countries are too much if you’re looking at startups who are looking at fifteen countries in six months.
We are not those types.
In terms of strategy, the biggest thing that helps us is that we built the world’s first operating system for telcos.
This is an essential point because just as we have an operating system for computers like Windows and operating system for phones like Android and iOS.
There has never been an operating system for telcos, and that is just what we have created.
Just having that operating system that allows us to go from country A to B to C without having to flex our technological muscles every time, to do things that have been done before.
We can launch in a much shorter time. We can use the same power that we have provided to customers here to customers elsewhere very, very quickly. That I would say is the core of our strategy.
I notice that there have been added features in your app, such as booking movies and checking showtimes. Is it safe to say that Circles.Life is aiming to become a super app, similar to Grab?
A.G: I would say being a super app … is not the centre point of our strategy.
The most important thing is innovation. That may –or may not– mean that we are trying to be a super app.
We are launching many services, but those services are trying to address the same kind of pain points that customers had for telcos.
For example, in the case of booking a movie, the process is painful. For a user to see the booking platform, the movie playing, how many tickets are there etc is painful, it’s a different issue that a lot of people don’t watch movies in theatres these days.
So we want to change that and make it easy for people to go through the whole process.
You could say that we are going off to many services and that they are essentially divided between two or three major angles.
One of them would be financial services, another one is around entertainment and its discovery, and the third one would be around travel.
So there are specific things that you want to expand on.
A.G: That’s right, and there are things that people just like about us.
There is a polling game where people gets to decide which question goes to everybody. For example, is there anything tastier than Hainanese chicken rice?
It’s a fun thing, you know.
One of the things that intrigue me about Circles.Life is its bold marketing campaigns, which includes the vandalism of SG mobile and S$20 unlimited data. That was very bold. In your earlier years, have there been experiences where you did something bold and unexpected?
A.G: I think I have been adventurous in my life. I have tried different things.
When I came to Singapore with the choice between joining an English school and a Chinese choice, I picked the Chinese one despite being from a Non-Chinese background. So I went to Hwa Chong, a Chinese Junior College.
Most people told me that I had gone crazy and that I was not going to survive. But I think I had a blast and a really good time.
Apart from that, I have also tried learning eight different languages and failed five times.
Failing five times sounds like the life of an entrepreneur. Apart from that, there has always been growing tension in Singapore markets with the entry of numerous telco operators. While Circles.Life has remained undeterred, managing to secure five per cent of the market share. However, do you see price drops as a threat to the telco industry?
A.G: Firstly, we are of the view that customers like a better experience. The segment that we are after is solidly behind services that priorities better quality over just price cuts.
And we believe, in the long run, that it is the answer.
The actual problem for standing in long queues or your bill being charged wrongly … those real problems cannot be solved by just cutting the price.
Companies can keep cutting prices for telco services but only to a certain limit because beyond that they will not be comfortable. It will not have any return on the capital.
So we expect this to end at some point.
And up until now, we are unfazed by this because customers come to us despite the fact that our pricing is not the cheapest.
We pride ourselves in great services, and that is what we will continue to do.
What about countries such as Singapore, where things are moving relatively fast, and customer service is not a major factor in the success of a service?
A.G: I would say it is big enough that while we have not been the cheapest for the longest time, we continue to be the fastest-growing.
We are not for every segment. Like, young students who are trying to save every dollar that they can. We might not even be for retirees.
However, we are great for people who are working or are digitally savvy, who want to solve a telco-related issue with a click of a button, instead of “click 1 for this and click 2 for that.
People love the ease of the process, therefore we have not faced that challenge yet.
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Image Credit: Circles.Life
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