Freshworks acquires Bot Startup Joe Hukum – A Snap Analysis from Down Under
A few days ago Freshworks announced the acquisition of startup Joe Hukum, making it its eighth acquisition. Joe Hukum builds a chatbot platform that enables companies to quickly build their own chatbots for sales-, service-, or marketing purposes. In contrast to the technologies built by Frilp (acquired October, 2015) and Chatimity (acquired October, 2016) that rely on NLP (Natural Language Processing, as opposed to Neuro-Linguistic Programming) technologies, these bots are built using a Decision Tree technology. In order to be able to provide more advanced speech recognition they can connect to services of the Stanford Natural Language Processing Group, wit.ai, or api.ai. The created bots can be connected to websites, apps, or Facebook. The press release got published on July 20, 2017, but you can read it right here, before moving on to My Take. Freshworks acquires chatbot platform startup, Joe Hukum Company enhances capabilities to help businesses build and deploy bots San Bruno, July 2017 — Freshworks, the leading provider of cloud-based business software, today announced the acquisition of Joe Hukum, a platform that enables businesses to build their own chatbots based on logical workflows. This acquisition marks Freshworks’ eighth in just under two years, as it further bolsters capabilities to strengthen its business software suite. Freshworks had earlier acquired Chatimity and Frilp, key acquisitions that are enhancing neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) based Artificial Intelligence capabilities, while Joe Hukum’s decision tree based frameworks complete key capabilities to launch chatbot-powered solutions. Joe Hukum was founded in July 2015 by Arihant Jain, Ajeet Kushwaha, and Rahul Agarwal, who were the founding team behind two of India’s most prominent...
Salesforce brings Einstein to Field Service – A big Move?
On July 12, 2017 Salesforce announced its new, Einstein-enhanced version of Field Service. This release brings mainly three innovations to the already strong Service Cloud, which is the leading Customer Service solution according to Gartner Group. Here the complete wording of the press release, in case you did not want to follow the link but still are interested in it: Salesforce Delivers Einstein AI and Analytics For Field Service Lightning Built on the Service Cloud Platform, new innovations for Field Service Lightning arm the mobile workforce with image recognition technology, smart equipment management and deep analytics to bolster productivity and efficiency Companies including Atlantic Energy are harnessing the power of Field Service Lightning to deliver insight, onsite SAN FRANCISCO—July 12, 2017—Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, today introduced Einstein AI and Analytics for Field Service Lightning, empowering companies to deliver a smarter onsite customer experience that is built on the world’s #1 customer service platform. Field Service Lightning now brings together the insights and intelligence mobile workers need to increase productivity, boost onsite efficiency and drive revenue. The Salesforce Service Cloud has redefined customer service across every major technological shift—cloud, mobile, social, messaging and more. And last year with the introduction of Field Service Lightning, Salesforce extended the power of Service Cloud to create a full service platform for managers, dispatchers and mobile workers. However, as the multi-billion dollar field service market expands into new industries—including finance, healthcare, manufacturing and retail—there is even more demand to deliver onsite service. Field service technicians have to deal with complicated equipment, don’t always have the right parts and often lack...
Customer Service in a World of Ambient Computing
Soon there will be an additional in-app customer service channel. So far we have a bunch of service channels, most of them requiring the user to leave the app to Pick up the phone for a call Browse for self support Open up an additional chat window Take on the social media channels Move on to messenger applications How about getting into your car to get to a store? … And then a customer may be moving back and forth between these channels with all the potential of losing track of the incident status and the friction that cross channel customer service still causes. There is no doubt that providing in-app support is the best possibility to offer fast issue resolution. It can provide telemetry information from within the app, identify the user and therefore provides a lot of relevant context that makes it easier for a service agent to help the customer without unnecessary delays. The customers’ shift to emphasize on the “Now” is also seen by Google research. Not Every Device is a Smartphone But what if the customer cannot pick up the phone to engage in a typed conversation? The customer might be engaged in a VR game, or driving a car, or in any number of situations without having a free hand. Maybe the customer simply doesn’t want to pick up a phone? What if the app doesn’t offer a user interface at all beyond a little light that indicates ‘I am available’? This would e.g. be the situation in an ambient environment that senses the presence of a person and acts accordingly. An environment...