Member Article

Hootsuite acquires conversational AI leader Heyday for £35 million (CAD$60 million)

Hootsuite builds the future of social commerce, providing brands the opportunity to drive more sales via their social channels by leveraging the power of AI.

3 August 2021 – Hootsuite today announced its acquisition of Heyday, a Montreal-based conversational AI platform that enables brands to deliver personalised customer experiences through 1:1 messaging conversations. Commerce is rapidly moving onto social and messaging platforms. Hootsuite, a pioneer in the social media management category, has the largest customer base in the industry and with this acquisition will now allow brands to fully leverage conversational AI to create a better customer experience.

Heyday offers an enterprise-grade customer messaging platform that integrates seamlessly with e-commerce platforms and works with leading brands such as Lacoste, Decathlon, Cirque du Soleil, Danone, Rudsak, and Jack & Jones (Bestseller) to deliver more personalised and rewarding customer experiences via chat and video.

“Social is the new interface of commerce and customer care,” said Tom Keiser, CEO, Hootsuite. “Modern day brands have to manage a multitude of daily interactions and conversations at scale—which is impossible to do without AI automation. With the acquisition of Heyday, Hootsuite will now give AI capabilities to marketing, sales and support teams globally so they can deliver exceptional experiences at scale.”

The adoption and use of social media has increased dramatically since the start of the pandemic. Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 Report found that over 4.2 billion active social media users are spending on average two hours and twenty five minutes a day on social and messaging platforms.

A study by Edison Research found that 39% of social media users expect a reply from companies within sixty minutes, yet the average response time is five hours. Through Hootsuite’s combination of automation and AI, brands can now, for the first time, respond intelligently, with personalised responses at scale in real-time. Hootsuite’s acquisition earlier this year of Sparkcentral, and now Heyday, provides brands the tools to foster more meaningful customer relationships through all stages of the buying journey.

“Hootsuite believes in the power of personalised marketing and frictionless customer experiences that build trust and relevance,” said Keiser. “The new generation of shoppers want to engage with brands by making purchases and receiving real-time customer service on social. The relationship starts and ends on social, so we’re excited to offer brands a better way to deliver successful customer experiences at scale.” Hootsuite’s expanded ability to enable brands and organisations to meet customers on social media and 1:1 messaging apps will create an opportunity for deeper relationships.

“We created Heyday’s conversational platform to make buying from a brand as easy as messaging a friend,” said Steve Desjarlais, Co-Founder, Heyday. “Together with Hootsuite, we will bridge the gap between physical and digital brand experiences by leveraging social and messaging channels as the anchor and golden thread of the customer journey.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by J M Larsen .