For this Businessing Magazine feature interview, we talked with Fiona Dai, Account Manager at CouponBirds, a company that provides visitors to their website with coupon codes. CouponBirds was launched in 2015, with a mission to provide users with real-time and effective coupon codes, and also boost sales for their merchant partners. The company has an aggressive goal to occupy the leading position among online coupon platforms in terms of brand coverage, coupon accuracy, and diversity.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Fiona. Can you give us a little bit of the history behind CouponBirds?
CouponBirds was first created in 2012. The idea of CouponBirds was generated because it was frustrating and time-consuming for online shoppers to search for coupon codes. Even though there were already tons of existing coupon sites, they weren’t satisfying all of the users’ needs. The team at CouponBirds has dedicated themselves to creating a coupon platform where shoppers can find free and high-quality coupons with widest brand coverage.
After much exploring, learning, and testing, the first version of CouponBirds was launched in 2015 with the purpose of displaying real-time valid offers and deals. Back in 2015, there were only a few people on the team. After 4 years of development, CouponBirds has become one of the leading coupon sites with more than 100 talented and passionate specialists gathering and reviewing coupon codes and deals. To date, CouponBirds has served more than 40 million customers from all over the world and brought millions of dollars in profit to a great number of our business partners.
What were some of the early challenges you faced as a company and how did you overcome them?
In the early stages of the company, we did encounter several challenges. As a coupon site, the biggest challenge is how to improve brands coverage, and at the same time ensure the accuracy of coupon codes. CouponBirds uses machine learning technology plus human operation to make sure we are offering the best deals from the brands we cover. We have a world-class engineering team focused on improving coupon accuracy for all dimensions of how a coupon code being used. We also have one of the biggest Coupon operation teams in the world. These talented specialists collect and validate coupons on the internet and also review those coupons submitted by customers.
There will certainly be more rigorous challenges in the future, but we are very optimistic about our development because we have built a highly transparent, inclusive, and collaborative team.
What makes CouponBirds different from the other online coupon sites? In other words, what niche do you fill?
CouponBirds aims at becoming the leading site of the industry. The main factor differentiating CouponBirds from other online coupon sites is that we care about our customers and we always put their needs as our top priority.
The team has been working hard to improve user experience and has made a lot of progress in this area. Recently, CouponBirds launched a user system, which allows users to get access to exclusive offers, be notified with the latest functionalities, and also earn points for rewards.
Apart from this, we have updated our algorithm to better recognize users’ needs automatically. Customers can be led to the corresponding pages after searching, even with little information. In addition, our support team always collects and responds immediately to all the feedback from users and strives to serve our customers well.
We also have our own unique data channels, which make CouponBirds totally exclusive. Led by Victor Wang, the Data Scientist of CouponBirds, our engineering team dedicates themselves to acquiring and analyzing data and is also constantly optimizing our website to enhance user experience. For instance, CouponBirds has updated the coupon recommendation algorithm, which is based on aggregated data from different channels to best predict visitors’ needs and use customized solutions to improve the matching rate.
On your website, you call yourselves a “socially responsible company”. What does that mean to you and how does this play out in your everyday business practices?
Corporate social responsibility is a core value in CouponBirds’ company culture. We take pride in the fact that we spare no efforts to repay society and help those who are in need. In addition, equal opportunities are given among employees and they are rewarded fairly for the work.
Providing good quality coupons online for free is a great way to give back and serve customers. Additionally, in order to better repay society and realize corporate value, we initiated the “savings” scholarship program for college students, which can help these students who have difficulties in life to finish their studies. Since 2016, we have been working with many universities and offering scholarship every year to relieve students from financial predicaments.
In everyday practice, we are encouraged to take public transportation to and from work, keep the office clean and organized, and join in many other community sports and charity activities.
Social responsibility is an essential quality of a good company. As CouponBirds grows, I do believe that we will do more for the communities in which we work and for society in general. It’s my great honor to part of such a warm team, and I’m influenced to try my best to help others in daily life.
What do you believe is the key to being successful in the online coupon business?
I deem the key to being a successful online coupon business is to have group of like-minded people working under one standard and toward the same goal, like we are doing at CouponBirds.
There are a hundred energetic and professional people working in CouponBirds in multiple cities. Though we are not living in the same city, all of us are trying our best to make CouponBirds a better site together. Fostering a type of encouraging and collaborative environment allows us to grow as a team and to deliver the best work. And this is one of the reasons why CouponBirds has grown to be one of the top companies in this space, despite facing intense competition.
What are the company’s plans and goals for the future?
CouponBirds aims to be the number one coupon website for users, and we are well on our way. We will always adhere to our original goal of providing customers with real-time valid offers and we are committed to being the best coupon site with qualified coupons. In addition, CouponBirds is also working toward being the bridge between customers and merchants to create a win-win shopping scenario.
Also, CouponBirds will take on more social responsibility. We will do what we can to give back to society, including running more charitable programs and helping those in need.
CouponBirds will scale to be the leading online coupon site, with highly recognized expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness in the near future.
We want to thank Fiona for taking the time to give us some insight into this innovative business. If you have an interesting small business, or are an entrepreneur with a story to tell, we want to hear about it! Contact us at Businessing Magazine for more information.
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