Most of the businesses haven’t been impacted by COVID-19 as severely as few others, there are some segments, like the live events space, cinema, retail etc., that thrive on human presence and have been majorly impacted.
However, Matrimony.com took up this challenge head-on and has been coming up with innovative solutions to make sure that people on the lookout for a life partner aren’t left stranded.
As a leading matchmaking and marriage services provider, we have been offering our services seamlessly to millions of customers over the last 20 years; also, we have learnt to manage disruptions pretty well.
Some businesses did not anticipate the impending nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19. At the same time, we at Matrimony.com formed a cross-functional team to focus on the key areas where we can provide our services without any interruption.
Following are the key areas which we focused to provide reliable services to our customers
- To develop a mobile application that can be used by our Relationship Executives to service our 4.5+ million customers.
- To ensure laptops, tablets reached our associates to enable them work from home.
- To configure VPN in all user devices roaming.
- To upgrade existing Internet Bandwidth at the Branches so that users can connect to the Branch network without any issue.
- To leverage collaboration tools.
Everything went as per the plan, and we were ready days before the first lockdown.
- The application was rolled out to our associates across India.
- Most of our associates were equipped with laptops and tablets.
- Critical resources were provided VPN connectivity.
- Internal applications hosted on cloud in a VPN environment were tested to avoid hassles.
- Bandwidth capacity at our branches was increased.
- Additional video conference licenses were procured.
Our technology team managed the tasks effectively with the help of project management tool. Also, our application support team processed the customer service requests efficiently with the use of ticketing software.
Challenges
Building a scalable technology that is accessible across the globe was a significant challenge, which we overcame as a team.
Invigorating an adaptive mindset among our techies to face the technology disruption happening around was another challenge.
Incorporating a large amount of data into the Big Data architecture without any interruption is the most crucial aspect for the project’s success.
Few associates (working from home) based in tier 3 cities or remote locations had data connection issues. But they overcame this by switching to the broadband connection.
Technologies that Influenced the Business
While Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings incredible performance for our business, Big Data enables processing an enormous amount of data easily and quickly. AI and Big Data both provide useful insights for the business that helps to make crucial decisions on time.
With the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI), potential customers for your business can be identified with ease. AI also recognizes the fake profiles based on its in-built parameters.
Additionally, Big Data helps us manage a mammoth of organized and unorganized data easily. By implementing the Big Data technology, it is easy to process the data, and you can save time. Big Data gives horizontal scalability -- when data grows, we can scale quickly by adding additional servers to the existing cluster.
Primary Technologies Matrimony.com Implemented
Matrimony.com always strives to enhance the main areas of technology. This is done to strengthen our business value through innovation and engineering initiatives.
We have implemented our AI capability in mobile app services to enrich the customer experience and that drives out more revenues.
Our cloud service enables us cater to our customers’ needs seamlessly. Matrimony.com has the world’s largest distributed computing platform for content delivery.
Forthcoming Technology Plans
We are primarily focusing on AI/ML-based solutions to provide a better user-friendly experience to our customers. This technology will also improve efficiency and gather actionable insights for business.
As automation has become a buzzword in today’s business world, we are looking for an efficient RPA tool to automate our business.
We are also looking forward to move into Hybrid cloud to provide high availability. Also, we are focusing on incorporating DevOps practices.
Revival strategies for post-COVID
We saw an increase in the number of registrations by about 30%. Young professionals, currently working from home find more personal time since they need not have to commute to the office and could not go out socialising.
To help our customers, who found it challenging to meet prospective matches at a coffee shop or home, we launched the “video call” feature to help premium members initiate a video call with their partner to take the matchmaking conversations forward. The video chat feature provides privacy controls to individuals. It allows matches to connect via video call without exchanging phone numbers. This was developed within a few weeks with our engineers working from different locations (home), some of them remote.
As far as wedding services is concerned, we launched a new service “HomeWeddings” that helps organise weddings at customers’ homes for 50 guests, while following all lockdown rules and regulations laid down by the respective governments.
Overall, we rolled out exciting technology solutions to handle the COVID disruption.
About the Author
Chandrasekar R, is the Chief Technology Operation and Infrastructure Officer at Matrimony.com. Chandrasekar is a senior technology executive with over 29 years experience.