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Invoca, a company that specializes in conversation intelligence for revenue teams, has announced its acquisition of DialogTech, an AI-powered call tracking and analytics solution for marketers. With this acquisition, a combined cash and stock deal, Invoca extends its reach into the $4.8 billion conversation intelligence market. The company, which is on track to exceed $100 million in revenue, now has over 2,000 customers, more than 300 employees, and serves consumer brands in considered purchase industries that include ADT, AutoNation, DISH, Mayo Clinic, TELUS, and The Home Depot.
This acquisition comes at a major inflection point for the conversation intelligence category. With brands no longer able to rely on third-party cookie data to drive their marketing campaign strategies, due to recent policy changes from Apple and Google. As call volume is surging due to changes in buying behavior brought on by the pandemic, brands are increasingly relying on robust first-party data from conversations to better understand those consumers and make critical business decisions.Invoca's acquisition of DialogTech will enable more investment in product innovation, and expertise in key industries. The end result: a broader ecosystem of technology partners, agencies, and digital consulting firms.
Contentsquare Raises $500M Series E, Increasing Valuation to $2.8B
A year after its $190 million Series D, Contentsquare has closed on $500 million in Series E financing, bringing the value of the company to $2.8 billion.
Leading the funding was SoftBank Vision Fund 2, joined by existing investors Eurazeo Growth, Bpifrance, KKR, Canaan Partners and Highland Europe. Funds and accounts managed by BlackRock Private Equity Partners also participated in the round. According to the company, the Series E brings Contentsquare’s total funding to $810 million since its formation in 2012.
As part of the investment, Michel Combes, president of SoftBank Group International, will join Contentsquare’s board of directors.
Contentsquare’s area of concentration is a cloud-based platform for businesses to enhance customer experiences by analyzing customer behavior. Using anonymous web, mobile and app interactions, it provides intelligent recommendations that endeavor to increase user conversion, revenue, engagement and growth.
BlueOcean Announced Sentiment Analytics API
BlueOcean, a company known for its platform for analyzing brand sentiment, has announced plans to release an application programming interface (API) that will let third-party applications access analytics data. The API will be available later this year.
The immediate goal, according to an example given by BlueOcean co-founder Grant McDougall in a statement, is to make it easier for financial services firms to employ a public BlueScore API to incorporate brand sentiment analytics created in real time within their financial forecasts.
The BlueOcean platform aggregates data from hundreds of sources, including social media platforms, business and financial data, forums, product review sites, and website traffic. The company then analyzes this data using a set of proprietary sentiment algorithms it has developed. The Brand Genome at the core of the platform is based on a data collection method that is enabled by various psychological models that are used in AI algorithms. That Brand Genome platform can be accessed today via a graphical interface dubbed Brand Navigator, which incorporates more than 1,100 types of data inputs, McDougall said.
Magic Data Tech Won Intel AI 100 Acceleration Program: Supporting AI Industry from the Basics
Intel has published the 5th issue of its AI 100 Acceleration Program List at the 2021 Shenzhen (International) Artificial Intelligence Exhibition. Magic Data Tech, a company that provides clients worldwide with professional AI data solutions, was selected for the program.
The Intel AI 100 Acceleration Program aims to promote 100 excellent AI innovation teams in three years, and is based on Intel's complete AI product portfolio and unique advantages of innovative collaboration of software and hardware. So far, 78 AI companies have joined the Intel AI 100 Acceleration Program.
During the exhibition, Qingqing Zhang, founder and CEO of Magic Data Tech, introduced three main products and services of Magic Data Tech to the media and guests. Magic Data Tech provides more than 150,000 hours of datasets of over 60 languages for conversational AI, covering data processing solution design, training/testing datasets, data labeling, and the private deployment of data processing systems, among others. Magic Data Tech also provides one-stop and customized data labeling services while fully ensuring data security for enterprises.
In response to the demand for data, Magic Data Tech recently launched an open-source data community - MagicHub.
New Study: Rising Customer Expectations Drive Demand for Messenger-Based, Conversational Support Experiences
A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Intercom has found that conversational experiences are fueling customer retention and business growth for major companies, particularly after a year of irreversible digital transformation. The study surveyed more than 500 global customer support leaders on the changes seen in delivering support and how they're adapting their strategies.
71% of support leaders say that conversational support will allow them to either stay competitive or become an industry leader, yet many businesses don't have the technology they need to deliver this type of personalized support at scale. 54% of respondents say they don't believe they can deliver conversational support at scale with their current technology stack, and 50% find their teams waste time jumping between tools and platforms to solve customer issues.
"There has been significant growth in how businesses and customers prefer messaging as a support channel. This makes conversational support, support delivered through messengers, an essential offering for every business," said Des Traynor, Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder at Intercom in a statement. "Customers clearly expect conversational experiences now, so businesses must meet these rising expectations and offer great customer support that is fast, friendly and personal."
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With superior customer experiences more critical than ever, 69% of support leaders believe that strong customer relationships are built through personalized support experiences. What's more, the way that businesses deliver customer support has changed. Messenger-based support has risen from the fifth most used support channel pre-pandemic to now second, overtaking both phone and in-person support.
HubSpot Introduces App Accelerator Program To Create Built-for-HubSpot Apps
HubSpot has launched the App Accelerator program which enlists HubSpot partners to build solutions to solve known customer pain points that the HubSpot product team doesn’t have the bandwidth to cover.
HubSpot partners have built 25 apps for the HubSpot marketplace to solve customer requests to bolster HubSpot’s CRM and Sales Hub.
“The App Accelerator program is as much a benefit for HubSpot customers and partners as it is for HubSpot,” said Caitlin Siegrist, HubSpot’s App Accelerator manager in a statement. “As much as our product team wants to solve every single customer problem, they just don’t have the time. By joining with trusted partners that understand HubSpot’s customer-first mindset, the App Accelerator program enables us to provide the solutions customers need to take their business to the next level.”
The CRM and Sales Hub App Accelerator collection is available now on the HubSpot Marketplace.
Chorus.ai Announces Momentum To Transform Relationship Visibility Inside the CRM
Chorus.ai, a Conversation Intelligence Platform for high growth revenue teams, has announced Momentum, a new native Salesforce experience that enhances the way enterprises understand their customer relationships. Momentum by Chorus aggregates every interaction from emails, calls, and video meetings to highlight key moments across the relationship history. Leveraging AI, Momentum empowers revenue teams to identify and mitigate deal risks, while enabling sales leaders to forecast pipelines accurately.
According to an industry study, 50% of sales leaders believe their CRM system is challenging to use, and 18% believe it's caused them to lose opportunities or revenue. While CRMs aggregate important customer data points, these systems may provide outdated data and lack actionable information on the key indicators impacting deal velocity, such as deal risks.
"Momentum is the culmination of years of work to solve a fundamental problem for Revenue leaders — the ability to make smart decisions based on the limited relationship context available in the CRM," said Jim Benton, CEO of Chorus.ai in a statement. "We're excited to put the "R" back in the CRM by harnessing relationship insights from real customer interactions across the entire buyer's journey. Momentum leverages the voice of the customer to know where deals stand and project where they are headed so leaders can forecast accurately and impact deal outcomes."
TTEC's VoiceFoundry Uses Amazon Connect to Enhance Customer Experience Excellence
TTEC Holdings, Inc., a global company that provides customer experience (CX) technology and services for end-to-end digital CX solutions has announced that VoiceFoundry, a TTEC Digital Company, will enter the Canadian market in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its cloud contact center service Amazon Connect.
This collaboration combines cloud technology and human expertise to deliver positive customer experiences for companies across Canada.
Amazon Connect provides omnichannel cloud contact center technology which is designed to allow clients to enable personal, dynamic, and natural business interactions with flexibility, at reduced costs and increased speed compared to on-premises technology.
"VoiceFoundry has been helping AWS customers move and operationalize their contact centers in the cloud since Amazon Connect launched in 2017," said Eric Gales, Country Manager for AWS Canada in a statement. "We recently launched Amazon Connect in the AWS Canada (Central) Region, and we know the demand for more implementation is accelerating especially for organizations with data residency requirements."
Among the first to utilize this service in Canada is CI Financial, known for its products and services in investment management and wealth management.
