Zendesk buys Smooch to support customer messaging across multiple platforms

Customer service software provider Zendesk announced Wednesday it had acquired Smooch Technologies, a messaging platform focused on conversations between businesses and their customers. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Zendesk SVP Shawna Wolverton told TechCrunch that Smooch’s entire team is being offered positions with Zendesk.

Why we should care

Zendesk’s acquisition of Smooch is a sure sign more businesses are aiming to connect with their audiences via messaging on sites and apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Smooch was one of the original platforms that offered the WhatsApp Business API integration when it launched last August. Now, with this acquisition, Zendesk users will be able to engage with WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion users via the Zendesk Chat platform.

“As long-time partners with Smooch, we know first hand how much they have advanced the conversational experience to bring together all forms of messaging and create a continuous conversation between customers and businesses,” said Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane in the acquisition announcement.

In addition to WhatsApp, Smooch’s technology will allow Zendesk to further its messaging capabilities via a variety of messaging platforms, including Facebook Messenger, LINE, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter DM, Viber, Kakao Talk, SMS text, RCS and via native web iOS and Android apps.

More on the news

• Smooch’s messaging solutions will continue to be supported for all current customers and available directly to new customers.
• Zendesk also announced a new integration with Slack for sales and customer support to collaborate on customer issues as well as the addition of seven new partners to the Zendesk Marketplace: Atlassian Statuspage, Lessonly, Maestro, Stella, Tymeshift, Geckoboard, and Ada.
• Zendesk reports it has more than 145,000 paid customer accounts, offering service and support in more than 30 languages.