Hootsuite Announces the Acquisition of Heyday
On the 9th of August 2021, Hootsuite, a social media management provider, announced the acquisition of Heyday, a Montreal-based conversational AI platform, in a deal anticipated to be worth $48 million. Heyday has been designed to prepare brands to deliver phenomenal personalized customer experiences through messaging conversations. The enterprise-grade customer messaging platform from Heyday integrates with eCommerce platforms and aims to deliver personalized 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 with 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 use of social media and its proliferated adoption is a norm since the start of the pandemic. The Digital 2021 Report from Hootsuite found that over 4.2 billion active social media users are spending on average two hours and twenty minutes a day on social and messaging platforms.
A study by Edison Research established that 39% of social media users expect a reply from companies within 60 minutes, yet the average response time is 5 hours. As Hootsuite brings automation & AI together, brands can now for the first time be able to respond intelligently with personalized responses at scale in real-time.
With this acquisition, Hootsuite will be able to enable brands and organizations to meet customers on social media.
Keiser said, “Hootsuite believes in the power of personalized marketing and frictionless customer experiences that build trust and relevance.” “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.”
Steve Desjarlais, co-founder of Heyday accentuated that the conversational platform from Heyday will complement Hootsuite’s offering by bridging the gap between physical and digital brand experiences leveraging social and messaging channels as the anchor of the customer journey.
Steve said, “We created Heyday’s conversational platform to making from a brand as easy as messaging a friend.”
According to a report by Crunchbase, Hootsuite has made 14 acquisitions and has reached nearly $300 million in funding. Its last acquisition came in January when it acquired Sparkcentral, a digital customer engagement provider.
About Hootsuite
Hootsuite is trusted by more than 18 million customers and employees at more than 80% of the Fortune 1000. Their unparalleled expertise, customer insights at scale, and collaborative ecosystem help people and organizations succeed with social.
About Heyday
Heyday is an AI-powered customer messaging platform designed to enable brands to deliver personalized customer experiences. The platform engages the customers through 1:1 conversations on various social and messaging apps. Heyday integrates seamlessly with branded websites and apps, e-commerce platforms, product feeds, and other tracking management systems to meet customers with always-on virtual support and personalized recommendations that help boost engagement and conversion. The conversational platform of Heyday is powering the brands like Lacoste, Decathlon, Cirque du Soleil, Jack & Jones, Rudsak, and many more.
