Conversocial has been around since 2009, but only recently has the team decided to infiltrate the U.S. market with its social customer service software, which brings the social media response team into the call center.
The company has just secured a $4.4 million A2 round led by Octopus Investments, including a $3.2 million investment alongside a previous $1.2 million convertible note. The investment is aimed toward powering the UK-based company’s expansion into the U.S., as well as further product development and hiring.
This latest A2 round comes on the heels of a $2.4 million Series A round in May of 2011, bringing the company’s total funding to just under $7 million.
Conversocial is a social media management software that is pioneering in the third wave of CRM social tools. Founder Joshua March explained that the first wave of big brands and social media was the act of monitoring what was being said. Very soon, that monitoring turned into ways to push information out to customers, in the form of deals, contests, or promotions.
Now, however, the focus is on customer service powered by the immediacy of social networks. “Users have learned that tweeting a complaint or question, or posting it on Facebook, is a lot faster and easier than calling a customer service line or sending an email,” said March. “Plus, it adds a level of transparency to the conversation because everything is public.”
Conversocial is trying to capitalize on the social media conversations happening all over, by offering software that works inside a company’s call center to help employees prioritize complaints and questions, and answer with speed and care.
The company is now adding two new platform upgrades to its system, a real time management dashboard (which lets users see incoming social complaints and questions, and a Conversations workflow, which will prioritize incoming inquires.
Though Conversocial’s presence is mostly focused in the UK, it has some impressive clients including Barclaycard, GoDaddy, Hertz, JackThreads, and Sephora. In fact, the company has tripled revenue over the past twelve months, and internal projections say this growth rate will continue on.
See, whenever a new customer service tool is made available, it usually results in more overall customer service inquiries, as opposed to a migration from one mode of communication to the next. For example, when the phone was introduced as a way to contact companies, people didn’t stop writing letters. There was just a truckload of new people who felt their problem warranted a phone call, whereas it maybe wasn’t worth the inconvenience of sending a letter.
The same has been true for the introduction of email, and now social media, meaning that Conversocial is fielding more and more CRM inquiries every day.
via TechCrunch » Startups http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/startups/~3/lbMyHJdAzls/
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