Khoros has announced that it has acquired enterprise customer experience (CX) analytics software maker Topbox. The global leader in digital-first customer engagement software has also closed on an additional equity investment from existing Khoros investors, including leading global technology investment firm Vista Equity Partners (“Vista”), to help accelerate the Company’s momentum in the CX market.
What Khoros’ Acquisition of Topbox Means for CX Journeys
Leading brands use Khoros to power approximately 500 million daily digital interactions and create customers for life. Khoros has over 10 industry awards from TrustRadius, Stevie Awards, G2, and more. Khoros, built from Spredfast and Lithium, has 9 offices globally and Vista Equity Partners is its lead investor.
Khoros recently partnered with Medallia (MDLA) to enhance the effectiveness of CX management campaigns in omnichannel marketing. Together, the integration will give brands the ability to capture rich customer feedback directly from Khoros’ offerings providing a more expansive, 360-view of customers, empowering better customer engagement, and delivering the ability to have even more personalized service. Earlier in 2020, Katherine Calvert, CMO at Khoros had spoken to me at the MarTech Interview. Katherine had said, “Khoros is the only customer engagement platform that brings together best-in-class solutions for social marketing, care, and online communities under one umbrella, making it easier for companies to effectively engage with their customers across all channels in an authentic and efficient way.
Our vision of helping companies create customers for life is really about drawing insights from those conversations and sharing them across all departments — to give companies the ability to be “All-Ways Connected” and run their business with their customers, anticipate their needs, and accelerate sales, loyalty, and innovation.”
The latest development proves why Khoros continues to be a leader in the digital CX management software industry.
The acquisition of Topbox brings an innovative omnichannel CX analytics solution to Khoros’ award-winning digital customer engagement platform to create a powerful new standard for artificial intelligence (AI)-powered customer experience management. Khoros with Topbox, backed with additional funding from Vista and other existing investors, will deliver the CX industry’s most comprehensive solution that provides a unified, actionable view of the customer and enables enterprises to create and deliver next-level customer engagement and experiences.
At the time of this announcement, Jack Blaha, CEO of Khoros said – “Topbox is an incredible company with a great product, and I’m excited to welcome Topbox to Khoros. Last year accelerated the push toward digital transformation and amplified the criticality for brands to be better connected to the voice of the customer. With the insights Topbox delivers, and the continued support from Vista and our other investors, Khoros’ platform is strongly positioned to empower more brands to communicate with their customers more effectively. Our vision is to help companies create customers for life, and that starts with great customer engagement — Khoros combined with Topbox makes that vision a reality.”
Omnichannel Messaging Powered by AI and NLP Applications
Topbox uses what Forrester Research calls “agnostic aggregation” of disparate data from customer touchpoints such as call recordings, chat transcripts, emails, social media, surveys, reviews, in-app communications and web feedback, and applies proprietary Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI technology to power a comprehensive CX analysis. Those insights become actionable through the power of the Khoros platform, where companies can engage with customers in the channel of their choice with more insight and intelligence than ever before.
“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for Topbox, where we will further our mission in providing businesses with innovative technology to listen to their customers, when and where they talk about their experiences,” said Chris Tranquill, CEO of Topbox.
Chris added, “There are thousands of organic conversations happening every day that contain business-changing insights, and we’re thrilled to join forces with Khoros to deliver actionable insights and even more value to customers.”
In addition to funding the Topbox acquisition, the new equity investment from Vista and other existing investors will be used to advance product innovation and accelerate organic growth, with a continued focus on Khoros’ Engineering, Support, and Go-to-Market capabilities through 2021.
“We believe Khoros is uniquely positioned to win the massive CX market, which is expanding rapidly as enterprises realize the urgent need to transform the way they listen to and engage with customers,” said David Bonnette, Managing Director at Vista. “We are pleased to continue our partnership with Khoros and to support organic growth and innovation as well as strategic opportunities to incrementally augment capabilities as the Company continues to lead the next revolution in digital CX.”
Currently, Khoros builds enterprise software and offer expert services for digital customer service, messaging, chat, online brand communities, and social media management, serving 2-000+ brands. — differentiated by award-winning services with 20+ years of experience.
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