Top 10 Self-Service software

Important news about Self-Service software

2024. Beamer buys Userflow to build a consolidated product engagement platform



Beamer, a plucky company that specializes in helping businesses send helpful (and occasionally nagging) push notifications to their users, has just cheerfully declared that it’s acquiring Userflow for a tidy sum of $60 million. Now, if you’ve never heard of Userflow, it’s the kind of startup that probably spends most of its time thinking about how to gently nudge users through product onboarding with checklists, polls and whimsical little tours. Their platform is rather handy, letting both developers and people-who-pretend-to-be-developers build in-app guides and announcements using a shiny content editor. This marvelous contraption supports all sorts of multimedia delights—links, live chats, images and even videos (because, really, why not?). And with the magic of automated triggers, developers can sit back as their users are subtly herded from one step to the next. As a final flourish, Userflow collects all manner of metrics, perfect for anyone obsessed with dashboards and tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel. All in all, it's exactly the sort of thing you'd want if you were a company that liked to engage with users but didn’t want to do all the heavy lifting yourself.


2021. NICE acquires smart digital self-service platform MindTouch



NICE, the provider of the CCaaS platform CXone, has acquired MindTouch, a knowledge management software firm based in San Diego. Founded in 2005 and funded by its founders until 2016, MindTouch received $12 million in a Series A round that year. MindTouch positions itself as offering “mid-size to large organizations an enterprise-grade, AI-powered knowledge management (KM) platform designed to enhance customer lifetime value.” Its solutions include KM for customer self-service, agent support and departmental knowledge. The company has 100 employees and over 300 customers globally, including major brands (and some NICE CCaaS competitors) such as 8x8, Cisco, Land Rover, Samsung, Verizon and Whirlpool. Besides direct sales, MindTouch technology is integrated into SAP Service Cloud as SAP Knowledge Central.

2020. Customer feedback software GetSatisfaction is shutting down



Sprinklr, the company that offers a Unified-CXM platform for all customer-facing functions, has discontinued the well-known customer community and feedback service GetSatisfaction. A decade ago, the service was one of the most successful SaaS startups and provided paid service plans to companies such as Method Products, Timbuk2, Twitter and Digg. Several additional companies later joined the platform, including Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Comcast, Mozilla, Mogo Money, Microsoft Hohm, AMC Theatres, Qantas, Apple Inc., Dell and Facebook. However, it appears that small businesses are no longer willing to pay for such software (or simply can't maintain customer communities), while large companies have transitioned to more sophisticated CX platforms. GetSatisfaction's primary competitor, UserVoice, has recently shifted focus to a more specialized area—product feedback management software for growing SaaS companies.


2020. Microsoft introduces Customer Voice, a real-time customer feedback tool



Microsoft introduced Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, a real-time customer feedback tool that could rival Qualtrics. It's a feedback management solution, designed to enable businesses and organizations to create better products, enhance customer experiences and strengthen relationships through the feedback management tool. The data is integrated with Microsoft’s customer data platform (CDP) and is built on Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. The latter offers a way to tailor the Customer Voice tool to the specific needs of each company.


2020. Freshworks acquires AnsweriQ



In a move that might be described as a rather cunning step in the never-ending quest to give customers answers before they've even realized they need them, the customer engagement platform Freshworks has, with the enthusiasm of a galactic hitchhiker finding a rare towel, acquired AnsweriQ—a plucky little startup with AI tools designed to either give customers the answers directly or make agents look far cleverer than they actually are. AnsweriQ, known for its fondness for supporting both Freshworks and rival platforms, will carry on with its current offerings for now, though it might eventually feel the gentle gravitational pull of Freshworks' ambitions. Naturally, Freshworks hopes to lure some of these users into its own orbit and, in due course, add AnsweriQ’s tech to its own Freddy AI engine, making it all just that little bit more intelligent—at least, one hopes.


2020. Chattermill raises $8M to enable companies to gain customer feedback insights



Chattermill, the London-based startup offering what it refers to as a “customer understanding” platform that utilizes machine learning to provide scalable insights into customer feedback, has secured $8 million in Series A funding. Chattermill emerged from a frustration that it can take weeks or months for customer research to generate any valuable insights, which would then be outdated by the time it reached decision-makers and actions could be implemented. Like many scaling issues, the developers believed that machine learning could be a key part of the solution, combined with an intuitive user interface that presents customer feedback from various channels in a practical manner.


2015. Sprinklr acquired social customer support service Get Satisfaction



Sprinklr, the social media management provider, is acquiring Get Satisfaction, creators of a platform that allows businesses to engage with customers online and gather feedback on their sites. Get Satisfaction will be incorporated into Sprinklr’s larger cloud-based social media management operation — referred to as “Experience Cloud” — which assists businesses in monitoring individuals wherever they are providing feedback about a company, whether on social media platforms or directly on their own websites, encompassing around 25 different possible feedback channels in total. Additionally, it is somewhat of a supplementary acquisition: currently, Get Satisfaction already collaborates with 1,000 businesses, Sprinklr reports, with clients including P&G, Rabobank, SugarCRM and Service Rocket.


2015. Google to shut down community tool Google Moderator



Google's spring cleaning begins. Google will discontinue its idea and feedback collection service Google Moderator on July 31. Launched in September 2008, Google Moderator ranked user-submitted questions, suggestions and ideas. The crowdsourcing service managed input from a large number of individuals by allowing them to not only submit their own questions but also vote for the top questions they believed should be addressed. Moderator users—and there shouldn’t be many given how inactive the project has been—will be able to download their data from Google Takeout starting on March 30. This data will be accessible for at least two years. The final day to create new content on the service is June 30 and Moderator will be fully discontinued on July 31.


2012. Zoho Commentbox - almost new customer support community app



We still recall the time when Zoho introduced a new SaaS application each month. However, it couldn't continue indefinitely. After reaching nearly 30 apps, Zoho has recently been primarily focusing on updating them occasionally. But the ambition to innovate hasn't diminished. Consequently, Zoho developers chose to take an existing service, enhance it with additional features, rename it and present it as a new offering. They incorporated Twitter, Email and CRM integration into Zoho Discussions, rebranded it as Zoho Commentbox and voila - the new app is launched! Even the pricing and descriptions remain unchanged. Moreover, the previous service - Zoho Discussions - is still available (meaning Zoho now has more apps). For context, Zoho Discussions (or Zoho Commentbox) facilitates the creation of an online customer community for support and idea collection. Previously, such communities were built on phpbb or vBulletin forum platforms, but now they are managed through specialized services. The most prominent example of this category is Get Satisfaction. Additionally, Zoho provides data import from phpbb and vBulletin forums to Zoho Commentbox. It supports multiple interface languages and is free for one forum without sub-forums.