Conversocial, a digital customer experience platform, is acquiring Assist, an enterprise chatbot platform, to improve its ability to offer scalable, conversational customer experiences to retailers and brands. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The combined company seeks to enable brands to transform sales, marketing and customer service with dynamic customer interactions that can seamlessly integrate bots and live agents.
As part of the acquisition, Assist CEO Shane Mac, who launched the company with Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens, will become Chief Automation Officer of Conversocial. Conversocial will retain all of Assist’s current staff and will immediately begin hiring for additional positions.
1-800-FLOWERS.COM, which has made significant investments in conversational commerce since 2016, when it launched a shopping bot for Facebook Messenger, was one of Assist’s first customers.
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“Innovation is in our company’s DNA and we are committed to always being at the forefront of where consumers are going next,” said Arnold Leap, CIO of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM in a statement. “Assist pioneered the intelligent automation that has helped us successfully streamline and get to common platforms for our many conversational commerce initiatives. Customers choose the channel through which they want to engage with us and we are able to create meaningful interactions on a personal level, at scale.”
Both Conversocial and Assist already serve numerous Fortune 500 companies and name brands across e-Commerce, retail, hospitality and sports, including Sephora, Google, Tostitos, Aer Lingus and Audi, among others.
