Top 10: Customer experience platforms

2023. Ushur, which aims to automate aspects of the customer experience, raises $50M



Ushur, a startup specializing in automating various aspects of customer experiences, has successfully raised $50 million in a Series C funding round. The startup offers dashboards that empower users to create AI-driven workflows for tasks such as claims processing, customer support, and appointment scheduling. This allows organizations to automate both their business processes and customer-facing tasks in the front-office (according to the sales pitch). Ushur primarily targets enterprises operating in highly regulated industries like insurance, healthcare, financial services, and banking. Their tools are specifically designed to simplify the adoption of technologies like conversational AI and intelligent document processing. For instance, Ushur provides a chatbot-like plugin that delivers automated customer support across web, mobile, email, and live chat channels. It proactively engages with customers by providing tailored information based on their specific needs and effortlessly manages transactions across multiple channels.


2021. Customer experience startup Clootrack raises $4M



Customer insight startup Clootrack has successfully raised $4 million in Series A funding. Clootrack offers a real-time customer experience analytics platform that allows brands to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, helping them understand the reasons behind customer retention or churn. With the proliferation of communication channels, customers now express their opinions and feedback across multiple platforms. Digital word-of-mouth has become crucial, necessitating mastery of online selling techniques. Clootrack transforms customer experience data from various touchpoints such as website feedback and chatbots into detailed qualitative insights. By providing brands with timely and granular insights, Clootrack enables them to stay ahead of rapidly evolving trends and drivers of customer experience, empowering them to make informed business decisions.

2020. Сommerce experience platform Salsify nabs $155M



Salsify, a leading provider of a unified platform for brands and their associated companies to monitor product inventories, oversee consistent descriptions and sales across various online and offline channels, and leverage data analytics to inform strategic decisions, has successfully concluded a Series E funding round, raising $155 million. Salsify stands out as a market leader, catering to renowned global brands and retailers, including esteemed companies like Coca-Cola, Rubbermaid, and Mars, among many others.


2020. Customer experience platform Sprinklr raises $200M



Sprinklr is in the process of raising $200 million with a valuation of $2.7 billion for its customer experience platform. The growth of customer experience management is comparable to the past growth of CRM. The company boasts a clientele of 1,000, with some clients spending millions of dollars annually. With 1,900 employees spread across 25 global offices, Sprinklr is well-positioned to lead the Customer Experience Management market, which is already substantial and expanding rapidly. Enterprises are increasingly recognizing the critical importance of incorporating CXM into their digital transformation strategy.


2020. Episerver to acquire Optimizely, the world’s leading Experience Optimization platform



Episerver, recognized as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms, has made an official announcement regarding its agreement to acquire Optimizely, the leading provider in experimentation and optimization solutions. This strategic union results in the formation of the most advanced digital experience platform, enabling the optimization of every customer interaction throughout the entire user journey. By combining Episerver's expertise in creating digital experiences through content and commerce with Optimizely's capabilities in experimentation and optimization across touchpoints, marketers gain the power to develop experiences that continually improve and evolve over time.


2020. Medallia acquires voice-to-text specialist Voci Technologies



Medallia, a customer experience platform renowned for its ability to analyze online reviews, social media content, and other sources to offer valuable insights regarding a company's strengths, weaknesses, and areas requiring attention, has announced its acquisition of Voci Technologies, a startup specializing in speech-to-text technology. The cash acquisition is valued at $59 million. By integrating Voci Technologies' AI-powered capabilities, Medallia aims to include voice-based interactions, such as calls made to call centers, as part of the data analyzed by its analytics platform. Despite the growing prominence of social media, messaging channels, and the increasing shift towards online interactions, voice-based communication continues to dominate the majority of customer interactions for businesses. Therefore, addressing this aspect represents a crucial step for Medallia in its quest to provide comprehensive customer insights.


2020. Customer Experience monitoring startup Anodot grabs $35M



Anodot, a startup that specializes in assisting customers with monitoring business operations based on key performance indicators (KPIs), has announced a successful $35 million Series C funding round. Anodot's innovative platform allows users to automatically track and report on changes in any type of data that is essential to their company. This means that the platform can promptly alert users about significant events such as declines in business, conversions, cost spikes, and more. The specific data to be tracked depends on the industry and the unique priorities of each business.


2018. Zoho CRM enables to convert website live-chats to phone conversations



Zoho has introduced significant updates to its integrated customer experience platform, Zoho CRM Plus. The latest version not only allows customers to engage with businesses through their preferred channels but also enables seamless channel switching for internal teams. Sales representatives can effortlessly transition from website live chats to phone conversations, support agents can handle calls directly from their ticket interface, and marketers can convert social media interactions into tickets for expedited issue resolution. With the new ASAP plug-in for Desk, customers gain access to quick answers from the company's knowledge base, the ability to create support tickets, and the convenience of chatting with support agents directly on the company website or mobile app. The introduction of Blueprint empowers businesses to build and automate processes that span sales, marketing, and support teams. For instance, a sales order Blueprint can involve both sales and support teams, automatically creating a ticket in Desk when a sales order is approved in CRM, and updating the sales order status to "Delivered" in CRM upon completion of the delivery process in Desk.


2018. Zendesk launched customer service app builder



Zendesk has introduced Zendesk Sunshine, a new platform designed for developing customer-centric applications utilizing Zendesk's toolset. This platform enables companies to create custom apps, primarily focused on customer experience and relationship management, which are hosted on AWS and have access to a wide range of AWS services. All applications built on the Sunshine platform rely on it for seamless information sharing. The primary goal of this approach is to empower Zendesk customers to leverage the data they collect within Zendesk as a natural outcome of their workflow. While initially targeted towards Zendesk customers, independent developers may also have the opportunity to work on the platform in the future. Zendesk Sunshine aims to enhance customer service capabilities by providing a flexible and scalable platform for building tailored applications and harnessing valuable data within the Zendesk ecosystem.


2011. CEM - in center of Adobe's strategy



How do you think, what is the foundation of Adobe's business? Design programs (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Premiere ...). Maybe Flash? Perhaps PDF? It turns out that all these technologies - are only means to achieve a higher goal. Adobe's strategic spheres of competence are shown in the picture above, and the central object in this scheme is CEM - Customer Experience Management. Indeed, the multimedia content created in Adobe's design software: graphics, websites, videos ... - is primarily intended to impress customers. Flash and PDF form the platform to deliver this multimedia content via any computer or mobile device. Adobe LiveCycle solutions help to engage customers in business processes. But recently Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen recognized that there is a missing part in this puzzle: "This creative job is worthless without analytics and tracking revenue and statistics." ***


2010. RightNow: CRM is dead



Surprise! Jason Mittelstaedt, CMO at RightNow (the company that for a long time has been among leaders of the CRM industry) says that nobody wants to hear about CRM anymore, because they have heard it all and no longer believe the promises of CRM vendors. According to Jason, last year, the annual CRM Conference, which was held by Gartner and sponsored by RightNow - was the dead event and attracted minimal public interest. Vendors were showing the presentations that they have given seven years ago. Jason argues that CRM is a bit old hat, and it is time for a new generation of software that RightNow calls CX (Customer Experience). RightNow is not a pioneer in Customer Experience theme. Industry players have been talking about CEM (Customer Experience Management) already for a couple of years. So, what's the difference between CEM and CRM? ***