Zendesk acquires conversational platform Smooch

Customer service software provider Zendesk revealed that it has acquired Montreal based Smooch the company behind an eponymous business-to-customer messaging platform, for an undisclosed sum. Zendesk also took the wraps off WhatsApp and Slack integrations and announced new apps available through its Zendesk Marketplace.

For the uninitiated, Smooch’s AWS-hosted suite collates messages across web, mobile, and social messaging and combines user activity and existing profile data, enabling admins to create more tailored experiences. With Smooch’s embeddable software development kit and APIs for Android, iOS, and the web, a hotel, for instance, could give guests the ability to ping staff on-property, and an online retailer could manage issues like incorrect shipments and returns across channels.

Smooch supports speech on popular voice assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, along with text on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter DM, Viber, Kakao Talk, SMS, and Rich Communication Services (RCS). Zendesk notes that Smooch has the distinction of being one of the largest providers of WhatsApp Business integration, which allows organizations to manage and send non-promotional automated messages to customers — like appointment reminders, shipping info, or event tickets — for a fixed rate.

Thanks to Smooch, Zendesk says that customers in its early access program can now reach users directly through Chat, its live chat solution for mobile and the web. Smooch brings real-time push notifications, as well as standard messaging features, like typing indicators, timestamps, cloud message storage, media support (for emojis, GIFs, images, videos, and file attachments), and read and delivery receipts.

Twitter to acquire ZipDial

Micro blog and social network service Twitter is in talks to buy Bangalore based startup ZipDial. The deal is said to be closed to $30 Million- $40 Million. ZipDial offers a unique marketing solution where consumers can give missed calls to a number to engage with an advertising brand. If the deal works out, ZipDial would be Twitter’s first acquisition in India.

The basic functionality of this startup revolves around people who call numbers, but hang up before the call is answered. This simple alert then becomes the basic for a number of other, commercial actions, and analytics to track everything. This proves beneficial to Twitter, who can try to engage with users who do not log into Twitter. ZipDial founded by Valarie Wagoner, Amiya Pathak, and Sanjay Swamy in 2010, has been working with Twitter for a while.

In past, it entered into a partnership with Twitter India to allow those without the Internet or smartphone to follow superstars by giving a missed call to a particular number. User could later engage with the actor by “tweeting” through SMS. It offers a service for users to dial/hang up on a number to activate receiving a tweet stream from a specific Twitter account. Last year, Facebook also announced the use of missed calls for generating leads from their ads for customers. The entire service was run and design by ZipDial.

It could be data play for Twitter, as mobile advertising becomes a big revenue earner for the company. ZipDial brings in user preferences for brands in tier 2 and tier 3 cities where smartphones are yet to make an entry. Earlier Twitter had acquired mobile advertising startup Namo Media last year. The combined platform will improve the social media power’s ability to deliver ‘native ads’ promotional material that blends into mobile apps and mobile websites.