AWS launches Amazon Connect, productizes Amazon’s in-house contact center software
AWS continues to add yet more software and services to build out its revenues and touchpoints with businesses that already use its cloud infrastructure for storage and to host and administer services and apps. The latest product, launching today, is Amazon Connect, a cloud-based contact center solution. AWS said it is based on the same tech that Amazon itself has built and uses in-house… Read More Continue reading AWS launches Amazon Connect, productizes Amazon’s in-house contact center software
Samanage, makers of customer service software in the cloud, had a couple of major announcements today. For starters, they got a $20 million investment, and they also announced a major step: the launch of their enterprise product on the Salesforce platform. Let’s start with the funding. The round included money from Carmel Ventures, Gemini Israel Ventures, Marker LLC, Salesforce Ventures… 
Keenon Werling would be the first to agree that conversational AI is regularly overhyped. So instead of taking the traditional approach and gloating about a glitzy new deeper learning algorithm to pitch his new venture Eloquent Labs, Werling instead opted to differentiate by optimizing something far more low-tech, people. The startup’s special sauce is embracing a mix of AI,… 
As more and more people use SMS and messaging apps like Facebook Messenger to interact with friends, it’s only logical that they want to interact with business that way too — and today Salesforce launched LiveMessage, a tool that helps customer service reps manage messaging traffic just like any customer interactions in Service Cloud. For starters, it supports SMS/MMS and… 
Cogito, a real-time feedback platform for customer service agents, added $15 million to its coffers today in the form of a Series B. This brings the company’s total fundraising to $22.5 million.
Zendesk has always been known as a customer service cloud application, and while its focus remains on the customer, it is attempting to expand the mission using data to drive communication and understanding about the customer. The company wants to make sure that everyone involved has the whole picture of the customer experience and hopes to provide assistance whenever and wherever people… 
The need to contact customer support is the bane of many a modern consumer’s existence: not only is it likely that you are doing it because you have a problem that needs fixing, but you are inevitably sucked into a vortex where you have to sit on the phone for ages (or wait in stasis for emailed replies), repeat your details several times to subsequent assistants, and potentially… 
Customer support powerhouse Zendesk is broadening its ever-expanding number of support channels today, as the company announced a brand new native channel for customer service over the text messages. SMS may be 20-year-old technology, but there’s a lot to be said for short bursts of asynchronous exchange of information. 
Bots seem to be all the rage this week, thanks to the release of Facebook’s Messenger Bot program at F8, but not everyone sees bots as the way to keep up with the customer service glut. DigitalGenius, a former TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield finalist, thinks there’s a better way using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company released an entirely new product this…