Zendesk Acquires Cleverly.ai For Better Automation
Zendesk recently announced that it has acquired Cleverly.ai, a Lisbon, Portugal-based platform that finds answers to customer’s questions by creating a knowledge layer on top of apps. Zendesk says it will integrate Cleverly’s technology across its existing products, enabling teams to automate more processes while keeping up with customer demand. With conversation volume increasing by more than 20 per […]
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Zendesk recently announced that it has acquired Cleverly.ai, a Lisbon, Portugal-based platform that finds answers to customer’s questions by creating a knowledge layer on top of apps. Zendesk says it will integrate Cleverly’s technology across its existing products, enabling teams to automate more processes while keeping up with customer demand.
With conversation volume increasing by more than 20 per cent year-over-year, customer support teams are struggling to keep up. As a result, businesses are increasingly turning to AI to provide faster and more reliable service. A 2020 IDC survey found that automated customer service agents are a top priority for companies with over 5,000 employees. Indeed, technologies like chatbots are expected to save customers and enterprises over 2.5 billion hours by 2023.Skip Ad
Cleverly, whose customers include Vodafone, Dashlane, and Decathlon, taps machine learning to classify, prioritize, and route customer support tickets based on intents. The platform can classify content in over a dozen languages, integrating with help desk, FAQ, and customer relationship management software to identify knowledge gaps and automate replies for common customer queries — on either the agent or self-service side.
“Cleverly and Zendesk share a vision of democratizing AI, as well as a passion for creating practical applications that make it possible for businesses to get started with AI right out of the box — without a team of data scientists required,” Zendesk EVP Shawna Wolverton wrote in a blog post. “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.”
Zendesk’s purchase of Cleverly comes after the company snatched up eCommerce customer service startup Smooch in 2019 for an undisclosed amount. Prior to that, Zendesk bought San Francisco-based Base, which develops software for analysing large volumes of sales data.
Also Read: Is Automation Killing the Contact Centre?
New features
Alongside the acquisition, Zendesk added new features to its software-as-a-service ticketing system, including workflow automation on social media customer service channels. Now Zendesk can report on the performance of a brand’s automation strategy, like the number of conversations engaged with bots and interactions escalated to an agent. It also suggests macros that leverage machine learning to recommend a response based on ticket context, employing prebuilt integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Monday.com to keep teams connected.
“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,” Wolverton added.
Zendesk, which was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2007, went public in 2014 after raising about $86 million in venture capital investments. In recent years, it has leaned heavily into automation, introducing a chatbot that has conversations with customers and attempts to help them find useful information, with algorithms that better predict answers.
