Assistly Launches Customer Service Application To The Public

Leena Rao

Leena Rao is currently a Senior Editor for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

After over a year in development and private beta, Assistly is now making its SaaS customer support platform available to the public. Assistly provides companies with a easy-to-use platform to engage customers on everything from email to Facebook and Twitter.

Assistly helps companies collect and organize all of their customer conversations into a prioritized actionable list and equips support staff with the tools to respond to customers. The application allows businesses to filter conversations, access customer histories, automate processes and even tap into social media conversations on Facebook, Twitter and other sites. And Assistly provides users with key metrics and analytics, such as case volume, interaction volume by channel, response time, service levels, agent performance and more.

In terms of pricing, Assistly offers a per seat pricing model, which ranges from $39 to $99 per seat. The company has also developed a “Flex” pricing model, that allows users to buy usage time for users who are not full-time agents (ie execs, developers, marketing, etc.). You are able to create Flex seats at no charge per seat. Assistly then tracks total Flex login time for the month and bills based on usage.

Even while in private beta, Assistly was able to attract a number of high-profile customers. Currently 100-plus companies using Assistly as part or all of their customer support environment including Twitter, DirecTV, Vimeo, Disqus, Stocktwits, Bonobos, Ticketfly, Mochi Media, Fitbit, Rd.io, Grooveshark, and Brightscope.

As we’ve written in the past, the team behind it speaks to Assistly’s potential. The site was founded by Alex Bard, Gary Benitt, Jeremy Suriel, and Brad Birnbaum, each of whom previously worked together in building customer service-based companies back in the 90′s. The first, called eShare, was acquired in 1999; the second, called eAssist Global Solutions, was eventually acquired in 2004 after stumbling through the dot com bubble burst. Following the eAssist acquisition three of the team members left the space to start Goowy, a Flash widget maker. The teamreunited to develop Assistly in the customer service space.

And Assistly counts Mark Cuban and David Liu as advisors. The startup, which faces competition from Zendesk, has received $2.2 million in funding from True Ventures and Howard Lindzon’s investment fund Social Leverage.

Assistly Story from Assistly on Vimeo.

Company: Desk
Website: desk.com
Launch Date: 2009
Funding: $5.7M

Desk.com makes it easy for teams and Whole Companies to support customers right from the browser, via email, phone, chat, web, Facebook and Twitter. The company provides hosted, cloud-based customer service platforms for delivering what the company calls “awesomely responsive” customer service. The company’s all-in-one system helps businesses of all sizes listen to and support customers in real time via email, self service FAQs, chat, and social networks like Twitter. Founded in 2009 by customer service automation veterans Alex Bard, Gary...

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