Jaideep Jain, CEO, TapClassifieds is taking Digital Marketing to Great Heights

Today the ever-changing world of automotive advertising is evolving at a dizzying rate. While the more tech-savvy competitors are shifting strategies, other car dealerships are falling behind. TapClassifieds’ Digital Marketing Platform gives car dealers all the tools they need to succeed in today’s hectic and changing online marketplaces. TapClassifieds knows how to display cars in front of the ever elusive millennial demographic. Rapidly this generation is no longer hitting the pavement, but rather typing on their phone keys in their search for a new car. TapClassifieds’ digital marketing platform channels all the communications between the car dealership and customers into a single interface making it easy for the dealerships to stay connected.

In such a competitive business landscape, Jaideep understands the current market scenario well. TapClassifieds has risen to great heights in the digital marketing space under his leadership, and the company continues to be a dominant name in the market.

In talks with Jaideep Jain, CEO, TapClassifieds

What according to you are the most important skills to be a successful business/IT leader?

Customer Focus: Understanding and solving customer needs while providing excellent customer service is critical to business success. It is important to build a long-term relationship with the customer. A happy customer is an effective brand ambassador.

Curiosity: One should never be satisfied with the same old way of doing things. It is important that we always ask questions on how every step can be improved or optimized. Curiosity is key!

Technology Focus: Technology is evolving rapidly. A business leader should remain knowledgeable of the latest changes in the industry, and use this knowledge to adjust their strategies for the future. This allows the company to stay ahead of the competition and bring innovative solutions to the market. A great way to build strong customer relationships is converting a few customers into strategic partners. Having strategic customer partners serves multiple purposes. These partnerships offer a controlled environment to test solutions before releasing rollouts to the public. It also helps establish trust and solidify a long-term relationship with the customer.

Enlighten us on how TapClassifieds was started? What were the biggest initial hurdles in building your business?

In 2013 TapClassifieds began working with media companies to build a digital marketing platform for car dealerships to post their inventory on classified sites like Craigslist. Since then, the platform has continued to expand to include a variety of social media and classified sites across the web. Our solution now includes lead management, qualification, and a messaging platform. The platform channels all incoming leads into a single interface for the dealership. Dealer’s customers can connect with the dealer via any method they want including calls, SMS, IMs, etc.

For any business, getting the first few customers is the biggest hurdle. When first launched, the product is far from perfect and unproven in the industry. For TapClassifieds, we focused on one customer and worked hard to make the platform perfect for them. Our responsiveness and dogged persistence to meet all of our customer’s needs were the key ingredients to our customer success. In the early years, we grew alongside this main customer using this technique. We apply the same approach now towards all of our clients, and since then we have expanded to over 500 customers.

Every dream is questioned by some kind of fear. What is your greatest fear?

My greatest fear is a dissatisfied customer. A bad review from a dissatisfied customer hurts the business more than any other single event. Any time a customer reports a problem, we focus on doing whatever it takes to make our customers happy. The best way to manage fear is to have a plan of action in case the fear comes true. Our company culture centers around customer focus and transparency while delivering solutions that customers want.

What other leaders do you look up to, and why?

I have always admired Herb Kelleher. Under his leadership, Southwest Airlines persevered the initial years and always differentiated itself by not following the status-quo. Their intense focus on customer satisfaction even in a very competitive industry has always caused them to stand out. Although they are a low-cost airline, they are ranked amongst the highest in customer satisfaction.

I also look up to Satya Nadella, who has led a complete transformation at Microsoft. His focus has always been on two critical constituencies i.e. customers and employees. Happy employees and the right company culture are critical to customer satisfaction. Nadella’s leadership style set the tone from the top.

What are your company’s future focus areas?

We want TapClassifieds to become the de facto standard for digital marketing and lead delivery. Our Company makes it easy for businesses to market their inventory across the internet and to communicate with their customers. Our clients spend less “marketing dollars” and connect with more shoppers through better targeting.

Meet the Dynamic Leader

Jaideep Jain, CEO: Jaideep is an industry veteran with experience in growing technology businesses and managing large cross-functional global teams developing complex, highly available, and scalable systems. His areas of expertise lie in creating compelling new products and experiences in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Data Analytics. He is passionate about new technologies, maintaining a fast-paced product environment while following good processes and practices. Jaideep has an outstanding track record growing businesses that use data to provide customer value.

Jaideep has strong business and technical qualifications with over 25 years of experience in managing businesses, technology development, PaaS, SaaS deployments, startups, and M&A.

“Our Digital Marketing Platform helps Car Dealers reach and engage the modern car shopper, grow their business, and become the envy of their competitors.”