Zendesk is acquiring Cleverly, a provider of artificial intelligence-powered customer support solutions with insight-driven automation. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Zendesk will integrate Cleverly's technology across its platform, according to Shawna Wolverton, executive vice president of product at Zendesk.
"While Zendesk has invested in AI to help our customers achieve better, faster, and more reliable customer service, we believe there is still so much untapped potential. Today, our AI-enabled capabilities help businesses automate the conversations they have with customers, boost agent productivity, and increase operational efficiency with features like Answer Bot, macro suggestions, and Content Cues. With Cleverly, we will deliver a range of capabilities that automate key insights, further reduce manual tasks, and improve workflows, and overall lead to happier, more productive support teams," she said in a blog post.
Zendesk today also introduced a number of new capabilities in its platform, including the following:
- Proactive messaging tools to help companies offer assistance up front to clarify customer needs.
- Reporting tools that offer insights on the performance of automation, such as the number of bot interactions escalated to an agent.
- Improved agent workspace tools with improved routing for social channels;
- Integrated live chat and voice;
- Content cues, which use machine learning to help improve knowledge bases, are now available in more languages, including Spanish, German and Portuguese.
- Suggested macros for recommending ticket responses.
- Integrations for collaboration tools like Slack, Monday.com, and Microsoft Teams.
"In today's business environment, where change is the only constant, organizations are investing in solutions that promote agile collaboration across teams and get rid of rigid legacy processes that aren't fit for a digital-first world," said Tim Marsden, senior director of the technology partner ecosystem at Zendesk, in a statement. "Our partnerships with leading collaboration tools like Slack, Monday.com, and Microsoft Teams can help companies of all sizes stay in sync within one platform, connecting information across the business to better understand and support their customers, no matter where they may be working."