This digital astrology portal aims to reach out to a billion people by 2022 with its tech-powered astrology services

Most people have certain milestones and aspirations that they seek to accomplish in order to lead a fulfilling life. These include: pursuing higher studies, getting married, buying or building a house, owning a vehicle, career advancement, building a business, among other life goals.

For centuries, astrology has been used as a signpost for making decisions around these aspects, not just in India but also in other parts of the world. Whenever we are in doubt about the future, we seek out support systems that help us make the right decision. For some, it could be talking to friends and family, or visiting a place of worship, or talking to a counselor, while some seek out astrological guidance. Urbanisation and the break-up of the joint family system have resulted in the younger generation losing touch with many traditional sciences like Ayurveda and astrology.

Clickastro was founded in 1984 and offers ancient Vedic astrology services through a tech enabled platform. It was started with a strong belief that astrology can be a guiding light, and with a vision to spread positive astrology-based guidance.

“While some consider astrology as a frivolous and fun pastime — something that you read in the newspaper and laugh about, some believe in it totally, forgetting that appropriate action is their responsibility. The truth lies somewhere in between — astrology can act as road signs, guiding and encouraging you, thus boosting your self-confidence,” says Arjun Ravindran, Managing Director.

The Beginning

The company had its humble beginnings as a small partnership firm in Cochin in 1984. Around that time, personal computers were slowly entering the Indian market, and the internet was decades away from being the popular medium of information exchange that it are today.

Nonetheless, the team at Clickastro sensed an opportunity to leverage technology to share varied astrology services in ways never seen before. “As an organisation, we always believed in learning with time to enhance and empower not just the products, but also our people,” says Arjun Ravindran.

This reflects in the multitude of digital astrology services that Clickastro has offered in the past three decades, including stand-alone applications, online apps and astro content services.

Combining the power of new-age technology with age-old practices

Clickastro’s unique features includefree daily and weekly predictions, dynamic horoscope generation, premium online reports on career, marriage and other aspects of life, astro blogs, astrology lessons, and consultancy services by renowned astrologers.Clickastro is also available as a mobile app that offers various astrological services in multiple languages. Till date, over 100 million horoscopes have been generated and the website draws an average daily traffic of 60,000 visitors.

Powering these offerings are some of the latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and voice-based services. Ever since its inception, the team at Clickastro have been steadily adapting to the needs of its users by using the latest developments in IT to provide a range of astrology solutions.

“We have used industry standard cloud infrastructure to make sure the users get the best experience, even during the busiest hours of the busiest days. We also use robust language validation steps for ensuring the proper grammar, context, and accuracy in our reports in various languages. For this, we use various in-house developed technologies and multi-level proofreading,” says Arjun.

Ensuring customer trust remains at the center of the business

For the team at Clickastro, its long-standing relationships with its customers and employees are what matters the most. “We believe it is the experience of our customers that defines the life of the business,” says Arjun Ravindran.

This approach is reflected in the way Clickastro positions its offerings. According to Arjun, in the services industry in general, the toughest challenge is that the user often finds it difficult to evaluate and compare services offered by competitors.

To that end, Clickastro provides consumers with a free version of their own personalized astrology report. This allows them to evaluate the service before making a purchase decision. It helps them judge whether Clickastro’s premium astrology reports are the right choice for them.

Clickastro’s revenue has seen a 70 percent increase in Q3 2020, as compared to last year during the same time period. It also saw a 140 percent increase in its app revenue during the same time period.

Clickastro’s strategic tie-ups with major brands to provide IT-enabled astrology services and solutions also stands testimony to this approach. Major portals such as Shaadi.com, Matrimony.com, MalayalaManorama and Mathrubhumi use Clickastro’s astrology engine. Recently, online matchmaking company, Matrimony.com acquired a stake in Astro-Vision.

Keeping in line with the aim of expanding the reach of its services, the team at Clickastro continues to expand its offerings across various distribution platforms, such as Alexa-based voice skills and podcasts. The team has also developed an astrology chat bot to have a conversational dialogue with their consumers while delivering astrology content.

“By 2022, we aim to positively guide and inspire a billion people to lead a better life,” saysArjun.

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