Customer service is making and breaking companies over the past two years as shopping moved online and consumers wanted more out of the traditional service companies were offering.
Zingtree provides interactive contact center software that guides agents to the next best action so that they can cater to even the most discerning customer.
To continue developing its product, the company raised $15 million in Series A funding. Conductive Ventures led the round and was joined by Storm Ventures, Madrona and angel investors like Hilarie Koplow-McAdams. Existing investors participating in the round included Rally Ventures, Parade Ventures and Vitalize Ventures. The new investment brings the company’s total funding to $18.5 million.
Zingtree was founded in 2014 to make business information actionable for teams so that agents could quickly make decisions during complex service calls. Users leverage no-code “decision trees” to create detailed agent scripts, guide customers to solve their own issues and manage their internal processes at scale. As a result, agents are able to improve their average handling time, resolution and consumer satisfaction, Juan Jaysingh, CEO of Zingtree told TechCrunch via email.
“Unlike our competitors, business users can build and maintain Zingtree agent scripts without any IT or engineering development resources, and we have ready-built integrations for CRM systems so agents work out of one place, and our interface is so easy to use for agents that it requires little to no training,” Jaysingh added.
The company is the latest in the customer service sector to attract venture capital. For example, in the past few months, we’ve seen companies like Thankful, Sanas, Zendesk, Level AI and Goodcall announce similar news.
Several drivers affected business and customer care processes over the past two years. For example, employee shortages due to COVID cases rising and “The Great Resignation.” Contact center agents now working at home could no longer rely on in-person subject matter experts, managers or experienced peers.
Jaysingh explained that the global pandemic, in particular, has put more onus on companies to improve their customer service capabilities. They are having to manage customers that become frustrated quickly and will leave a brand or enterprise quickly if they don’t get high-quality service at speed.
“This is negatively impacting companies’ revenues if they don’t solve for providing consistent high-quality service to their customers,” he added. “Not only has the pandemic accelerated remote-first culture, it is now seen as a competitive edge to acquire top-notch global talent.”
Zingtree’s enterprise annual recurring revenue grew three times in 2021 after growing two times in 2020. The company “is in striking distance” of profitability, but decided to prioritize growth in taking the latest capital raise, Jaysingh said. It was bootstrapped for six years before taking its first institutional seed funding in 2020 to scale the business.
It is working with more than 600 customers in 50 countries to make more than 15 million human decisions every month. Among the list are consumer brands and enterprise customers like SharkNinja, Groupon, Getty Images, Ricoh, Fossil and Experian.
Zingtree Salesforce integration. Image Credits: Zingtree
Though Jaysingh did not give a specific valuation, he did say the new funding round was almost a five-time lift from the previous round a year ago.
He expects to invest heavily in building the Zingtree ,team with plans to double headcount across all departments. It has 46 employees currently after having 10 employees at the end of 2020. The new funding will enable the company to get to 70 by the end of the first quarter.
The company will also deploy funds in product development to add enhancements like artificial intelligence and machine learning and data insight solutions and features, as well as build integrations and partnerships with even more contact center core technologies, like current partner Talkdesk.
As part of the investment, Carey Lai, founder and managing director of Conductive Ventures, is joining Zingtree’s board of directors, along with Vikram Verma, former CEO of contact center communication platform 8×8.
Lai told TechCrunch via email that Zingtree’s no-code solution was a differentiator from competitors due to its ease of use, while also offering sophisticated features and functionalities. He also was impressed by the company’s early customer traction in attracting top-tier customers and its experienced management team.
“Interesting companies are built when you combine the market opportunity paired with the experience, commitment and vision of the executive leadership team,” he added. “Zingtree is helping enterprises deliver on the promise of great customer support. Over the past seven years, businesses have repeatedly come to Zingtree to help their employees make better and faster decisions daily while still being able to follow standard operating procedures. That’s a game-changer for contact centers and support teams with complex products, strict compliance and the need to scale.”