U of O students provide offline businesses with customer feedback solution
Spencer Van Dyk | Fulcrum Staff
Photo courtesy of Martin Kratky-Katz
TWO UNIVERSITY OF Ottawa students have created a way for offline businesses to enjoy some of the perks of an online model.
Martin Kratky-Katz and Artem Abramov founded a new business called MicroMetrics in May. The company helps other businesses receive instant customer feedback by offering survey software and tablets to stores. These businesses are able to reward customers on-site for filling out the questionnaire and also provide instant customer feedback to their business partners.
“I was working on my second degree and was working at a local company at the time, so I was dealing with online survey software a lot,” Kratky-Katz said. “What I realized is that a lot of the customer feedback polls were for brick-and-mortar businesses—offline businesses with physical locations. We thought that if we could allow them to collect feedback on the spot and then provide rewards to their customers on the spot, they’d have a lot better response rate.”
The company is largely funded by Startup Garage, a U of O initiative geared toward supporting Ottawa’s student entrepreneurs. This summer, Startup Garage awarded a total of $60,000 divided amongst selected projects.
“It’s basically an incubator,” Kratky-Katz said.
After graduating from the U of O in 2008 with a major in Russian and a minor in German, Kratky-Katz took time off to figure out what he wanted to do. In that time, he realized his love for technology and returned to the U of O for a second degree in computer science. He and Abramov came up with the idea for MicroMetrics back in February. Kratky-Katz manages the sales, business development, and project development, while Abramov handles the finance and business aspects.
“We’re building a new program from scratch,” Kratky-Katz said, “but it’s modeled after an existing model.”
MicroMetrics places tablets in stores along with a software program to create and administer surveys. Questions are drafted in large part by the businesses themselves, but templates are available. Once customers complete the surveys, feedback is available to the business instantly. The company also provides customers with rewards by entering their names into draws and offering discounts.
Kratky-Katz said it will take some experimentation to decide which businesses MicroMetrics caters to, but that the company is hoping to work alongside major franchises in the future
MicroMetrics is online at micrometrics.co
