Maybe it’s the cold weather. Maybe it’s the approach of Valentines Day. Whatever the reason, compatible firms are hooking up at an alarming rate. First, B2B data compiler DiscoverOrg announced it is buying fellow compiler ZoomInfo. The B2B data space is getting crowded as firms like Radius, DemandBase and LeadSpace compete with traditional providers. You may also recall that Dun & Bradstreet was sold to private investors last August.
Customer success system vendor Gainsight has added a platform to support product managers. Features include product analytics, customer feedback reporting, personalized experiences, and key performance indicators. Gainsight calls its system a Product Experience Platform, which would yield the cheerful acronym of PEP.
Does customer service need more attention? Digital asset management vendor Bynder found that excellent service was rated as the most effective brand differentiator by 29% of decision makers, far ahead of marketing campaigns (15%) or product (13%). The same survey found that 23% of marketers are struggling to find the right personalization technology, which has nothing to do with customer service but might still come in handy. You’re welcome.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.