AI Solutions Boom During Pandemic Times

Gianluca Pereyra, founder of Visor.ai tells us about automatic customer management and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Gianluca Pereyra: Fortunately, we are doing well. We are lucky to have the chance to work remotely and managed to transition just fine to this new “meanwhile normal.”

Tell us about you, your career, and how you founded Visor.ai

Gianluca Pereyra: I am the CEO of Visor.ai, and I Co-founded this company together with Gonçalo Consiglieri (COO) and Bruno Matias (CTO) in 2016. Before Visor.ai existed, we had founded Jesbee, a company with a chat solution in which users could receive credits or products if they heard or watched ads that fit their conversations. However, this project was not as successful as we had hoped.

When we participated in a hackathon organized by Beta-i and Lisbon City Hall, we began to understand which path to follow. In 2016, Visor.ai was born with a chatbot solution that brought customers and large companies together. Since then, we have already optimized the chat solution and, in 2020, we expanded our automation with Artificial Intelligence to the email channel with our email bots.

How does Visor.ai innovate?

Gianluca Pereyra: Visor.ai is always looking for new ways to innovate, and you can see that in our email automation solution. Besides increasing our service offering, we are always looking to respond to our customers’ needs, whether it’s platform updates or solution functionalities.

How does the coronavirus pandemic affect your business finances?

Gianluca Pereyra: At the beginning of the pandemic, we had some challenges with a sales downturn in the first quarter of 2020. We had planned investments that did not happen, and prospects backed out due to the instability felt in all economic sectors. Both investors and companies had to reorganize and figure out where they could invest. However, as companies adjusted and adapted to the new reality with COVID-19, we started to see more openness to our solutions. Our solutions are cloud-based, which allows access to them from home, which benefits remote work, and this is one of the most sought-after aspects by the companies that come to us.

Did you have to make difficult choices regarding human resources, and what are the lessons learned?

Gianluca Pereyra: We are still a small team, and fortunately, we haven’t had to make any hard choices regarding human resources in these pandemic times. On the contrary, since the beginning of 2020, we have already hired eight more people to join our team.

How did your customer relationship management evolve? Do you use any specific tools to be efficient?

Gianluca Pereyra: We are very close to our clients and are always trying to improve our channels of communication with them. Since the team grew and the number of clients as well, we made available to our customers a web portal where the customers can submit their requests (as for new features, improvements, help in troubleshooting) and then follow up with it.

Did you benefit from any government grants, and did that help keep your business afloat?

Gianluca Pereyra: We have benefited from some incentives for hiring people. This helps both the team members that joined our team and us.

Your website?

www.visor.ai