Cisco set to acquire CloudCherry to enhance its contact centre portfolio
Cisco and CloudCherry will together help companies transform their contact centres and move from delivering reactive care to providing predictive support, and offer cohesive, engaging experiences for improved business outcomes.
Cloud Cherry, founded by Vinod M, went from being a Chennai-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup to becoming a global enterprise SaaS business. Now, Cisco has announced its intent to acquire the company, which moved to the US in 2016 and has since then won marquee customers such as Puma, Vistara, Microsoft, and Cisco.
Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, CloudCherry is a customer experience management (CEM) company that provides customer journey mapping, out-of-the-box integrations, and predictive analytics. Predictive analytics help contact centre agents make real-time journey modifications such as up and cross-selling, discounts, service modifications and more, to meet customer needs and improve loyalty. Sources pegged CloudCherry’s ARR at $5 million.
The acquisition reflects Cisco's vision of how tools and technologies are collectively forming a new approach to work and productivity, called cognitive collaboration. This new approach integrates intelligence and context throughout all collaboration experiences, including the contact centre.
Together, Cisco and CloudCherry will help companies transform their contact centres from delivering reactive care to providing predictive support, and move from isolated customer interactions to cohesive, engaging experiences for improved business outcomes.
The new cognitive and collaborative contact centre uses artificial intelligence and machine learning, which empowers agents to provide more personalised customer experiences, allows companies to use data to its fullest extent, and extends the power of cloud to hosted and on-premises deployments.
CloudCherry's open API platform facilitates this by simplifying how customer data is ingested from systems of records, transactional data, and other data sources – all in real time – to help contact centre agents close the feedback loop and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.
"We're thrilled to add CloudCherry's market leading customer experience management technology to our collaboration portfolio," said Vasili Triant, Vice President and General Manager, Cisco Contact Center Solutions.
“This is the next step in realising our vision for cognitive collaboration in the contact centre, enabling the delivery of the best, most personalised customer experiences, ultimately improving customer loyalty and lifetime value.”
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco's FY20, subject to customary closing conditions and required approvals.
Upon completion of the transaction, the CloudCherry team will join Cisco's Contact Center Solutions business, led by Vasili Triant.
“With CloudCherry, Cisco will augment their contact centre portfolio with advanced analytics, rich customer journey mapping, and sophisticated survey capabilities that all our customers can use – whether they’re using Webex Contact Center in the cloud, or our hosted and on-premises solutions. And with more than 17 integrated feedback channels available, CloudCherry can help Cisco better understand and enrich the agent and employee experience.”
Cisco’s collaboration customers include 95 percent of the Fortune 500.
(Edited by Teja Lele Desai)
