Isidoros Sideridis is the CEO and co-founder of Pobuca, the customer experience company. He has been driving forward the vision, strategy, and growth of the business since 2016. He has a background in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Patras. His mission in life, as he puts it is to empower businesses to succeed in sales, marketing, and customer service by using cutting-edge technology and data-driven insights.

We met with Isidoros to discuss Pobuca and his own lessons from his long and successful journey. Here's what he told us. 

Tell us a few things about Pobuca. How did it all start? How did you discover the market opportunity for your technology, and where are you today?

Our journey began in 2016, when we realized that our legacy business (Sieben) needed a major transformation to keep up with the changing market demands. We had a wealth of experience and expertise in CRM, and we wanted to leverage that to create a new product that would be relevant and innovative for the modern era. That’s how we came up with the idea of Pobuca Experience Cloud, a Customer Experience and Loyalty platform that enables retailers and B2C businesses to enhance the digital experiences of their customers. Pobuca Experience Cloud is not just a CRM tool, but a comprehensive solution that helps you measure, design, and improve your Customer Experience strategy, using powerful AI-based technologies and consulting services. With Pobuca Experience Cloud, you can access a 360° view of your customers, engage them with personalized campaigns and journey mapping, create tailor-made loyalty programs and rewards, offer omnichannel customer service with human and virtual agents, and boost your collaboration and productivity with Employee Experience technologies. Pobuca Experience Cloud is the ultimate single point of truth for your customers and their interactions with your business.

How do you differentiate from other similar offers in the market? What value does Pobuca bring to the clients and partners?

We offer turn-key solutions regarding Customer Experience, CRM, and Loyalty for brands and retailers, while AI is embedded in our software.

In a few words, we first measure, then design, and finally improve, creating a CX-driven, ongoing optimization loop for your business.

This is why we like to think in Pobuca that we can make a real difference with CX and Loyalty in your business. With Pobuca Experience Cloud you can measure CX, design the right strategy based on KPIs, and most importantly improve it with the following features:

• Customer 360: a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that offers profiling and a single point of truth of your customers. It segments them based on certain characteristics, their transactions and buying behavior, and their sentiment about your brand.
• Customer engagement with personalized campaigns: customers expect you to know them in your communications and provide them with personalized content, across all digital platforms and touchpoints.
• Loyalty programs: reward your customers based on their loyalty and turn them from satisfied to brand ambassadors. In Pobuca we consider loyalty as part of the broader Customer Experience, much more than just "points and rewards".
• Omni-channel Customer Service with virtual agents: poor customer service can undermine all your efforts to increase CX. Empower your agents with the proper tools and insights, while adding bots as 24x7 front-liners for your customers.

Pobuca Experience Cloud helps you set your CX and Loyalty priorities in the right order and stop "putting the cart before the horse”. We first measure, then evaluate the results and design your strategy, to finally start the optimization of the experiences you offer to your customers.

We are used to relate CX (customer experience) primarily with online shopping. But, CX is linked with other traditional businesses and services that become digital and get online. Could you share with us examples and experiences with such markets?

CX is not only about online shopping and retail. It also affects traditional businesses and services that have gone digital. For example, in Healthcare, a smooth digital experience is key for patient satisfaction and access to healthcare. In Banking, a 24/7 virtual agent is essential for customer loyalty and trust. In the automotive industry, CX is important too. Customers want a seamless online experience when they look for, customize, and buy vehicles. Online tools and customer support are vital.

At Pobuca, we have helped various industries improve their CX. In every project, we focus on the customer’s needs and expectations at every touchpoint. We also embrace change and innovation to transform traditional processes.

Finally, we are excited to introduce a new tool that is unique for the Greek market. This tool can measure the Economic Impact and the ROI of using Pobuca Experience Cloud for your business. This tool helps you focus on the most effective CX actions and avoid wasting your energy on the ones that don’t work.

What would you consider to have been (or are) your biggest challenge so far?

Our legacy business was a technology integrator in Greece. In 2016, we decided to pivot and become a global product-first vendor in Customer Experience and Loyalty. It was a huge challenge to transform and perform simultaneously. We completed the transformation in 2019. Now we are a SaaS company with our product, Pobuca Experience Cloud.

What are the biggest learnings from your journey so far?

I learned how to be resilient and persevere through challenges and failures. How to be innovative and entrepreneurial, as I created and launched new products several times. I learned how to be culturally aware and respectful as I worked with customers and partners from different countries and backgrounds.

Finally, I learned how to be a good listener and a learner while simultaneously a leader and a mentor, as I inspired and supported my team and co-workers.