Hootsuite has continued its expansion plans with the acquisition of Heyday Technologies in a deal said to be worth $48 million.
Montreal-based Heyday is a specialist in customer service automation support, which enables businesses to handle everyday questions from customers, alongside assisting with order tracking.
The purchase could prove to be an ideal compliment to Vancouver-based social media experts Hootsuite. It already offers the ability for companies to monitor their social-network channels and keep tabs on what consumers are saying about their brand while providing a real time response system.
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Acquiring Heyday Technologies will enable Hootsuite to make better use of artificial intelligence (AI) due to the increasing demands of e-commerce systems and the need for more one-on-one messaging contact with customers. Hootsuite has already purchased digital customer support software-as-a-service company Sparkcentral at the beginning of this year.
Both acquisitions will allow Hootsuite to offer an increased level of automated services, such as chatbots that can be employed to handle numerous levels of customer service automatically.
Chatbot growth
Indeed, the use of chatbots has been increasingly steadily, with a recent Salesforce report highlighting the growth. It noted that 38% of companies were using chatbots in 2020, which revealed a 23% rise compared to 2018. The move by Hootsuite indicates the requirement for businesses to harness several technologies, including AI, in order to offer a more rounded customer service experience.
“You really can do the entire customer life cycle now, all the way through selling and support, on the social and messaging platforms,” Tom Hootsuite’s chief executive told the Wall Street Journal. “With the acquisition of Heyday, we get a really strong base of AI capabilities that we’ll be able to use in social care and across the other aspects of our business."
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Via: Wall Street Journal
