24/7 Customer

[24]7 Inc.
Private
Industry Information Technology services
Predecessor 24/7 Customer Service
Founded April 2000
Headquarters Campbell, California, USA
Key people
 PV Kannan, CEO
S. Nagarajan, COO
(Co-founders)
Products [24]7 Assist, [24]7 Social, [24]7 Vivid Speech, [24]7 Speech, [24]7 Mobile, [24]7 Virtual Agent
Number of employees
 12000
Website www.247-inc.com

[24]7 is an information technology service company with headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, United States.

History

[24]7 was founded in April 2000 by P.V.Kannan and Shanmugam Nagarajan.[1] Kannan previously founded Business Evolution, a software company, which was acquired by Kana Software in 1999.[1] This company, headquartered in Campbell, California, provides cloud-based customer engagement solutions.[2] [24]7 works with brands within the financial services, retail, telecommunications, technology, and travel industries.[2]

In 2003, [24]7 was privately funded in part by Michael Moritz and his venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.[3] The total venture funding was estimated at about $22 million. The company reportedly was profitable by the end of 2003.[4]

Product

The current product offering is developing sales and service-oriented software that encompasses big data, predictive analytics, virtual agents and real-time decisioning. It integrates different channels of communication, including web chat, mobile devices and interactive voice response, which incorporates the company's proprietary natural language technology.[2] The company also operates contact centers that outsource both voice and chat agent services, for sales and support, to companies worldwide. Its largest customers are in telecommunications, financial services, retail, insurance and travel industries. Its early offerings were contact center services with voice contact center agents.[1]

The company is headquartered in Campbell, California. Other offices are located in London and Sydney. Contact centers were originally located in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India, and in the Philippines, but by 2007 (with about 7,000 total employees) expanded to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Colombia to support Spanish-language customers.

In February 2012 a deal was announced in which [24]7 and Microsoft would combine technologies for natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale. Microsoft made an equity investment and transferred about 400 employees of the former Tellme Networks to [24]7.[5] At the same time, [24]7 acquired the call center automation developer Voxify, which had been based in Alameda, California, and was funded by investors such as Intel.[6][7] In 2012 the company rebranded its business, adopting a new logo dropping the word "Customer" and putting square brackets around the "24".[8] In January 2013 it announced it would market some internally developed software products for combining chat with analytics.[9]

In November 2014, [24]7 acquired IntelliResponse, a provider of digital self-service technology including virtual agent solutions[10]

In August 2015, [24]7 acquired Campanja, a leading Search Engine bidding platform with offices in Stockholm, London, Palo Alto, Chicago and New York, adding realtime marketing capability to the [24]7 offering.

Awards

In July 2015, the company announced it had become the world's largest provider of chat agents, with more than 5,000 dedicated chat agents operating in its contact centers.[11] [24]7 was listed on Forbes list of America's Most Promising Companies in 2015.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "[24]7 on the Forbes America's Most Promising Companies List". Forbes. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  2. 1 2 3 "24/7 Inc.: Private Company Information - Businessweek". Businessweek.com. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  3. ↑ "Notice of Sale of Securities". Form D. US Securities and Exchange Commission. August 6, 2003. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  4. ↑ Fred Vogelstein (November 24, 2003). "24/7 Customer". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  5. ↑ Mary Jo Foley (February 7, 2012). "Microsoft offloads some speech-focused assets, employees to 24/7". All About Microsoft blog (ZDNet). Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  6. ↑ Deborah Gage (February 7, 2012). "In Customer Service Push, Microsoft Invests In 24/7, Which Acquires Voxify". Venture Capital Dispatch (Wall Street Journal). Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  7. ↑ Chris Morrison (February 13, 2008). "Voxify raises $15M for voice recognition systems". Venture Beat. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  8. ↑ "Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. Join Forces to Deliver the Future of Customer Service for Large Businesses". Press release (24/7 Customer). February 7, 2012. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  9. ↑ Ayushman Baruah (January 23, 2013). "[24]7 makes product debut with live chat solution". Information Week India. Retrieved October 23, 2013.
  10. ↑ "[24]7 Makes Strategic Acquisition of IntelliResponse to Complete the Suite of Self-Service and Assisted Service Offerings for Customer Engagement -". www.intelliresponse.com. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  11. ↑ "[24]7 Rises to the Top of the Chat Agent Provider Field". call-center-services.tmcnet.com. Retrieved 2015-12-03.

External links

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