Chess Gaja: An Indian chess academy with global reach, powered by Bigin.

The company

In 2016, Priyadharshan Kannappan earned the title of "Grandmaster," and in 2018, after a brief stint in the corporate world, he decided to leave his job to pursue his passion for chess. In 2019, he and his mother, Meenakshi Kannappan, founded Chess Gaja with the goal of providing top-notch chess training to children who are passionate about the game and bringing joy to parents globally. Chess Gaja operates online and serves students worldwide, having trained over 5,000 students in over 20 countries globally with the help of 30 dedicated coaches.

AdventNet (now named Zoho) played a small yet impactful role in supporting a certain talented chess player. In 2008, an article in The Hindu highlighted a gifted chess player from Madurai who needed a laptop to enhance his game. Sridhar Vembu, the CEO of AdventNet, responded by gifting him a laptop, which became instrumental in his journey. That young player was Priyadharshan Kannappan, who later won a gold medal for India in the World Sub Junior Chess Olympiad. Vembu expressed immense pride in Zoho's small but significant contribution, and highlighted the abundance of talent in India waiting to be discovered and nurtured—not just in software, but across various fields.

The challenge

The Chess Gaja team initially adopted Google Sheets and WordPress to manage their operations. While this satisfied their initial needs, a growing lead and coach base resulted in scattered data. Challenges arose in tracking individual versus group classes, domestic versus international classes, managing coach schedules, and monitoring payments. They needed a centralized system to capture all details relating to their business.

The solution

It turns out the world really is a small place! A video case study for a company called Cystercare caught Priyadharshan's eye. Serendipitously, Cystercare's CEO is a school junior of Priyadharshan. This chance encounter led Chess Gaja to Bigin.

Bigin's forms are embedded on Chess Gaja's company website and help with lead generation. Leads are automatically assigned either to a "Domestic" or "International" pipeline based on pre-set workflows. They've also integrated Bigin with their company email system for seamless communications. If a lead doesn't respond via email, the team follows up with them via WhatsApp.

Sub-pipelines are handy for tracking students who convert from trial classes to the class packages. Tracking this provides visibility into what works and what doesn't with respect to trial classes, and thereby helps them advance their classes.

With over 30 coaches, tracking performance and assigning the right coach to each student is crucial. Here's where Bigin's custom filters enable Chess Gaja to analyze internal coach ratings and assign them to students based on suitability.

Benefits and ROI

• Before adopting Bigin, Chess Gaja's turnaround time for responding to customers was three hours. Now, it has decreased to one hour, which has led to improved customer satisfaction.
• New lead capture has increased by 20% using built-in forms.
• Bigin's WhatsApp integration has decreased turnaround times, which in turn has resulted in a 10% increase in inquiries.
• The company uses Bigin's analytics to assess coach performance, identify areas for development, and implement targeted improvement plans.
• Dashboards provide insights to pinpoint which courses (trial or starter class) require increased attention.

Looking forward

The team is excited to implement Zoho's loyalty and affiliate management platform, Zoho Thrive, for their business operations. They've implemented Bigin's WhatsApp integration to connect with customers all around the world and provide the best customer experience possible, all while centralizing their operations. They intend to utilize this feature to its fullest potential in the near future.