Khadim Batti Of Whatfix On 5 Ways To Create a Wow! Customer Experience

Emphasize product adoption by organizing quarterly user group sessions and monthly customer meetups for market success. This will affirm the increasing trust of existing customers.

As a part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Khadim Batti.

Khadim is the Co-founder and CEO of Whatfix, who started up Whatfix, the global leader in Digital Adoption Platforms, in 2014, with Vara Kumar, the Co-founder and Head of R&D and Pre-Sales. Together, they embarked on a mission to empower individuals and organizations to freely use and experience the maximum benefits of technology. Under Khadim’s leadership, Whatfix has become a trusted partner for enterprises navigating digital transformation, and change management, earning recognition as the top DAP in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list for the last three consecutive years. An entrepreneur at heart with an engineer’s mind, Khadim has dedicated over fifteen years to nurturing aspiring talent in the startup community through his passion, knowledge, and mentorship.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

My co-founder, Vara Kumar, and I were colleagues at Huawei Technologies. In 2010, we embarked on our startup journey with SearchEnabler, an on-demand (SaaS) platform for all SEO needs. Coming from engineering backgrounds, we focused extensively on creating a superior product but neglected the crucial aspect of engaging with customers. Upon launch, we realized that many of the amazing features were unused by customers, and onboarding them was challenging.

The customers needed more technical know-how or assistance to utilize all the product features effectively, which we provided in the form of the “Fix It” button. As considerable effort was invested in guiding customers through the process, it prompted a reassessment of the product-market fit for SearchEnabler. Recognizing the universal need for “Fix It” support from all customers catalyzed the creation of Whatfix, a digital adoption platform, as it stands today.

This is when we pivoted to a new product aligned with the new problem statement: how can we enable the adoption of software for users? As it was a different domain and a new problem statement from our first enterprise, we focused on creating a compelling narrative, precise buyer personas, and a deeper understanding of the competition. This clarity strengthened the concept of Whatfix and enhanced the effectiveness of the go-to-market strategy. Since its inception, Whatfix has garnered significant traction and maintained steady growth as it continuously hones its focus on target segments.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

Taking a bet on our pivot — Whatfix — we emptied our pockets to participate in Dreamforce, one of the largest software conferences in the world organized by Salesforce in the US, to explore the global market fit. There, I had a moment I’d never forget while pitching our offering to a big enterprise executive. When asked for the product pricing, I boldly quoted $8,000. “Boldly” because I thought the pricing was ambitious, considering the most we had ever billed a single customer in a year was $2,000 till then.

But much to our shock, the potential buyer didn’t flinch at the price. He seemed delighted at the $96,000 annual quote! Our hearts skipped a beat as I realized the mistake. I clarified that it was $8,000 for a whole year, not a month. The executive, accustomed to spending $5–6 million on a CRM, exclaimed, ‘Man, that’s cheap. It’s damn cheap’.

It was a humbling lesson for us. I realized the importance of pricing and positioning our product accurately. Despite the initial shock, the Dreamforce event turned out to be a success, with hundreds of leads generated. However, the real lesson came from understanding the value the product could offer and pricing it accordingly.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

At various forums, I got asked about the key to success or whom they should emulate to achieve success. I could not have answered this lightly. This recurring question prompted me to reflect on my own experiences and the remarkable individuals around me, particularly Vara, my co-founder. Observing Vara’s disciplined approach, ethical conduct, and unwavering perseverance has inspired me deeply. From this reflection, I developed a model for success that emphasizes Discipline, Perseverance, Curiosity, and Intellectual Honesty — qualities that Vara exemplifies and have significantly contributed to our achievements at Whatfix.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience (CX) is essential for success in business?

1. There is a direct correlation between customer satisfaction and business growth. Great customer service and experience (CX) gain customer loyalty, enhance brand reputation, create competitive differentiation, and strengthen sales and marketing efforts, ultimately resulting in increased revenue. Happy customers become your partners and also brand advocates.
2. At Whatfix, our customers’ success is our obsession. We partner with them and this is why their direct feedback fuels over half our product roadmap, guaranteeing solutions that genuinely address our customer challenges. We have a Whatfix Customer Club program through which our customer advocates earn value added services. Additionally, we have established a vibrant customer community and conduct in-person customer user groups globally, where members share their experiences and learn about what’s new at Whatfix. These platforms foster a sense of community and provide direct channels for feedback and shared learning, further enhancing the value we deliver. Moreover, with our DAP certification courses we upskill our customers to become DAP experts, enabling them to lead their digital transformation and change management initiatives more effectively.
3. The positive outcomes of our customer-centric initiatives are clearly evident in being recognized as the only customer’s choice vendor in the voice of customer report by Gartner in 2024. It is also reflected in our financial performance. We achieved a second consecutive year in the top decile for Year-over-Year annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth, along with a substantial 35% year-over-year increase in new revenue from our existing customers. We closed six deals each valued over $1 million, demonstrating the strong demand for our solutions. Our Average Revenue Per Account increased by 40%, signaling growing trust among our existing customers, a testament to our platform’s enduring value and its positive impact on user experience. Today we support 79 Fortune 500 companies, bringing the total to 700+ customers.

We have all had times, either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

As companies expand, the customer experience (CX) often risks deterioration due to increasing complexity. Firms cater to broader markets and more diverse use cases, complicating user interfaces as they aim to meet specific demands across multiple departments or personas. Moreover, in the enterprise sector, customization is critical due to the need for integrating various products and tailoring solutions to meet unique organizational requirements. As the user base grows into the thousands or millions, maintaining a standardized interface that satisfies every user becomes a formidable challenge. Additionally, as demand increases, business priorities often shift, and some companies mistakenly lose sight of the importance of maintaining good customer experience and the long-term benefits it brings.

To manage and improve UX at scale, implementing solutions like Digital Adoption Platforms (DAP) and embracing Userization techniques are essential. A DAP helps simplify complex processes and ensure consistent user experiences across different functions, while Userization tailors interactions to individual needs and preferences. Bridging these gaps requires a concerted effort to align internal processes, prioritize customer needs, and foster a culture of continuous improvement within organizations. Customer-centricity should be deeply ingrained in the organization’s DNA, ensuring every new employee embodies and champions these values daily. It has to start from the top — expecting the last employee to be customer-obsessed without it being modeled by leadership is unsustainable, akin to a house of cards, ready to collapse at any moment.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

At the core of our approach to customer experience (CX) is a commitment to providing the best solutions, achieved through a deep understanding of our customers’ needs. We focus on analyzing usage patterns across different customer cohorts, which offers us valuable insights into enhancing user experience (UX). This strategy allows us to continuously innovate and tailor our solutions to meet real user needs effectively.

In practice, we integrate customers directly into our development process. For every new product or major feature, we collaborate with design partners — typically 3–5 key customers — to refine and perfect our offerings. Our UX team conducts thorough user interviews and user experience tests before finalizing any design, ensuring that our solutions are not only innovative but also precisely aligned with customer requirements.

Moreover, our commitment to differentiation is twofold: leading with innovation and delivering unparalleled customer service. This focus keeps us ahead in a competitive industry. Whatfix has consistently been recognized as a leader in the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) space by respected analysts like IDC, Forrester, Gartner, and the Everest Group. Notably, we are the only DAP to receive the ‘Customer’s Choice’ recognition from Gartner Peer Insights’ Voice of Customer 2024, and we have been the top DAP on the Deloitte Fast 500 list for three consecutive years.

Our strategy centers on understanding and delivering what our customers truly need. By maintaining a rigorous focus on innovation and customer-centricity, we not only carve out our niche but also continue to set ourselves apart in the eyes of those we serve.”

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

Our differentiated initiatives for customers start at re-sales with value engineering and are continued through their life cycle with our customer enablement, regional support across various global markets, and value realization and center of excellence. These, alongside other programs, have helped us maintain high customer satisfaction scores and strong year-on-year growth. Moreover, our focus on making technology user-savvy — what we call ‘userization’ — ensures that our customers can leverage the full potential of their tech investments, adding real value to their business operations.

Customer Wow Story:
Sophos is a global leader in advanced cybersecurity solutions, including managed detection and response (MDR) and incident response, with a broad portfolio of endpoint, network, email, and cloud security technologies. As one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity providers, Sophos defends 500,000+ organizations and over 100 million users globally. Their Firewall platform is a flagship product line, safeguarding customers’ data from active adversaries, ransomware, phishing, malware, and more.

Sophos’ challenge was to guide users through the complexities of firewall configuration, deployment, and maintenance. Accurate configuration was vital, as adversaries only needed to be lucky once to bypass a customer’s firewall and gain access to sensitive data, networks, and devices. Many customers relied on Sophos’ technical support, as they lacked the expertise and engineering resources of a dedicated in-house security operations center to manage the firewall implementation. This resulted in a high volume of support inquiries (about 74,000 in one year) about firewall implementation and deployment for new customers.

Sophos used Whatfix DAP to enable its customers to find instant answers to its XG Firewall implementation questions, accelerate cybersecurity deployments for new customers, proactively stay ahead of complex security threats, and provide self-help support for users. The results were exceptional — reducing IT support tickets by 12,000 annually, saving 1,070 hours on employee training and support-related time, and engaging Sophos’ salespeople with 116,000+ in-app smart tips in the first year of its Whatfix implementation. Additionally, Sophos saved $390,000 annually in case and support ticket deflections. A Sophos customer survey discovered that 87% of its Firewall users found Whatfix’s interactive in-app guidance and contextual support helpful.

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

Our customer-first strategy was instrumental in the implementation and success of the project with Sophos. In September 2023, we expanded from Sophos firewall platform to include their central application, which involved 9 additional apps, resulting in a user base expansion of approximately 200,000 users.Our Customer Success team’s ability to listen, collaborate, and care about the customer’s business goals accelerated Sophos’ customer experience strategy. In time, Sophos will roll out a Center of Excellence to help accelerate the use of Whatfix across other security applications.

Our customer obsession is evident in our remarkable B2B SaaS Customer Net Promoter Score (NPS) at 47, outstanding Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) averaging 99.8%, double the industry standard, and an impressive 4.5/5 rating on Gartner peer sites. This was recently spotlighted in the 2024 Gartner® Voice of the Customer Report for DAP, where Whatfix named the sole Customer choice. We’ve been recognized as a “Leader” in the DAP Forrester New Wave™ as well as named a Leader in the inaugural IDC MarketScape: worldwide DAP 2024 vendor assessment. We consistently strive to surpass customer expectations. We dominate Everest Group PEAK Matrix® Reports: Workplace Employee Experience Management and DAP.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience.

1. Apart from what I have shared above, here are the five recommendations:
   1. Implement a clear customer success plan across operations so all team members are educated on the company’s customer-centric values. This will help build a strong company culture and equip employees with the right tools to ensure customer success. Provide continuous product knowledge training and support through 1:1 coaching sessions, webinars, on-demand training videos, and courses.
2. Use customer feedback tools to help product teams get an unfiltered view of the user’s interactions with the product and learn what their customers think, including what works and what doesn’t. These tools help engage customers at scale with surveys, forms, ratings, comments, and community conversations to what they like about the product/service and what needs more work.
3. Prioritize customer onboarding and trust building with quarterly business reviews and a dedicated Customer Success team.
4. Emphasize product adoption by organizing quarterly user group sessions and monthly customer meetups for market success. This will affirm the increasing trust of existing customers.
5. Adopt the concept of a customer-first strategy and adhere to your specific customer’s needs. All our innovations at Whatfix align with userization, a concept we pioneered, focusing on adapting technology to users’ unique needs rather than expecting users to become tech-savvy. Userization-inspired technology creates inclusive, integrated software experiences to maximize ROI in technology investments.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

At Whatfix, we understand the pivotal role that ‘Wow!’ moments play in inspiring others to engage with our brand. We ensure every interaction exceeds expectations to build loyalty and increase recommendations. While leveraging platforms like G2 and Gartner Peer Review to showcase customer testimonials is paramount, there are additional strategies that can amplify these experiences and foster a strong pull for prospective clients.

Leverage Peer Review Platforms: Prompt content customers to share their experiences on platforms such as G2 and Gartner Peer Review to bolster social proof and enhance credibility. Positive reviews build trust, boost search ranking, and can be the key differentiator driving higher revenue for an organization. Whatfix garnered an impressive 52 reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, surpassing all others in its field and earned the prestigious title of Customer Choice for DAP in 2024 in the inaugural Gartner® Voice of the Customer report.

Turn Satisfied Customers into Vocal Champions: Positive reviews on G2 and Gartner build trust and boost search ranking. But empowered advocates go a step further, when customers become champions for your organization, they’re open to sharing impactful case studies and testimonials, adding powerful social proof to your sales pitches and marketing materials. For example, at Whatfix, we have a customer advisory board to help us grow together. Our several customers such as Experian, AbleTo, Sentry, ICICI Bank, are among many cherished customers who have consistently championed our customer service and products.

Engage with User-Generated Content: Encourage customers to share their experiences on social media to amplify your brand’s reach.

Implement a Partner Referral Program: Establish a partner referral program where businesses can collaborate, benefiting from mutual referrals and shared success.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would initiate a movement aimed at universal access to health and education. These two foundational elements are crucial for individual and societal development, and ensuring their availability in every nook and corner of the world could bring transformative benefits to countless lives. The focus would be on maximizing investments and contributions in these sectors, leveraging my influence to engage policymakers, communities, and global resources. By empowering individuals with health and educational opportunities, we can trigger a cycle of positive change and uplift entire communities for generations.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

To learn more about Whatfix and its solutions, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!