Category: Company

AI Gold Rush: How Quiq Won the Land Grab for AI Contact Centers (& How You Can Benefit)

Posted on Michael Hartsog

There have been many transformational moments throughout the history of the United States, going back all the way to its unique founding.

Take for instance the year 1849.

For all of you SFO 49ers fans (sorry, maybe next year), you are very well aware of the land grab that was the birth of the state of California. That year, tens of thousands of people from the Eastern United States flocked to the California Territory hoping to strike it rich in a placer gold strike.

A lesser-known fact of that moment in history is that the gold strike in California was actually in 1848. And while all of those easterners were lining up for the rush, a small number of people from Latin America and Hawaii were already in production, stuffing their pockets full of nuggets.

176 years later, AI is the new gold rush.

Fast forward to 2024, a new crowd is forming, working toward the land grab once again. Only this time, it’s not physical.

It’s AI in the contact center.

Companies are building infrastructure, hiring engineers, inventing tools, and trying to figure out how to build a wagon that won’t disintegrate on the trail (AKA hallucinate).

While many of those companies are going to make it to the gold fields, one has been there since 2023, and that is Quiq.

Yes, we’ve been mining LLM gold in the contact center since July of 2023 when we released our first customer-facing Generative AI assistant for Loop Insurance. Since then, we have released over a dozen more and have dozens more under construction. More about the quality of that gold in a bit.

This new gold rush in the AI space is becoming more crowded every day.

Everyone is saying they do Generative AI in one way, shape, or form. Most are offering some form of Agent Assist using LLM technologies, keeping that human in the loop and relying on small increments of improvement in AHT (Average Handle Time) and FCR (First Contact Resolution).

However, there is a difference when it comes to how platforms are approaching customer-facing AI Assistants.

Actually, there are a lot of differences. That’s a big reason we invented AI Studio.

AI Studio: Get your shovels and pick axes.

Since we’ve been on the bleeding edge of Generative AI CX deployments, we created called AI Studio. We saw that there was a gap for CX teams, with the myriad of tools they would have had to stitch together and stay focused on business outcomes.

AI Studio is a complete toolkit to empower companies to explore nuances in their AI use within a conversational development environment that’s tailored for customer-facing CX.

That last part is important: Customer-facing AI assistants, which teams can create together using AI Studio. Going back to our gold rush comparison, AI Studio is akin to the pick axes and shovels you need.

Only success is guaranteed and the proverbial gold at the end of the journey is much, much more enticing—precisely because customer-facing AI applications tend to move the needle dramatically further than simpler Agent Assist LLM builds.

That brings me to the results.

So how good is our gold?

Early results are showing that our LLM implementations are increasing resolution rates 50% to 100% above what was achieved using legacy NLU intent-based models, with resolution rates north of 60% in some FAQ-heavy assistants.

Loop Insurance saw a 55% reduction in email tickets in their contact center.

Secondly, intent matching has more than doubled, meaning the percentage of correctly identified intents (especially when there are multiple intents) are being correctly recognized and responded to, which directly correlates to correct answers, fewer agent contacts, and satisfied customers.

That’s just the start though. Molekule hit a 60% resolution rate with a Quiq-built LLM-powered AI assistant. You can read all about that in our case study here.

And then there’s Accor, whose AI assistant across four Rixos properties has doubled (yes, 2X’ed) click-outs on booking links. Check out that case study here.

What’s next?

Like the miners in 1848, digging as much gold out of the ground as possible before the land rush, Quiq sits alone, out in front of a crowd lining up for a land grab.

With a dozen customer-facing LLM-powered AI assistants already living in the market producing incredible results, we have pioneered a space that will be remembered in history as a new day in Customer Experience.

Interested in harnessing Quiq’s power for your CX or contact center? Send us a demo request or get in touch another way and let’s talk.

Quiq Is Honored To Be A 2023 Bronze Stevie® Winner

Posted on The Quiq Team

Quiq is proud to announce that it has been honored as a 2023 Bronze Stevie® winner in the Best Technical Support Solution – Computer Services category!

The Stevie Awards for Technical Innovation and Technology Industry recognizes organizations that demonstrate excellence in technology innovation, product development, and technical support services.

At Quiq, our team is committed to bringing solutions to market that empower our clients to improve their customer care, service, and experience operations. As a team, we pride ourselves on rapid innovation that delivers business-changing results for the world’s best brands.

Winning the 2023 Bronze Stevie is a humbling recognition of the work our team loves doing every day. Thank you to the American Business Awards® for the honor!

About the Stevies

The American Business Awards stand out as the most prestigious business awards program in the United States.

Known as the Stevies, a nod to the Greek term “crowned,” these awards acknowledge outstanding achievement in business for organizations and individuals across over 60 countries.

If you’re interested in learning more about The American Business Awards or all the 2023 Stevie winners, check out their website.

Does Your Chatbot Sound Robotic? 7 Ways to Fix It

Posted on Lauren Winder

Does your chatbot sound like a robot?

Okay, chatbots are robots (hence the name), but they don’t have to sound like something out of a 70s sci-fi flick.

Chatbots have come a long way and are getting better at understanding and mimicking human interactions. According to Zendesk’s CX Trends 2023 report, 65% of leaders believe the AI/bots they use are becoming more natural and human-like.

It turns out customers agree. Sixty-nine percent who seek support find themselves asking bots a wider range of questions than before. But companies are still struggling to keep up with customers’ AI expectations.

Seventy-five percent of customers think AI should be able to provide the same level of service as human agents, and 75% expect AI interactions will become more natural and human-like over time.

So if your bot is still sounding a little wooden (or metallic), your customer satisfaction could be taking a hit. Here are some ways to make your chatbot sound more human.

But first, should chatbots sound human?

We think so. Yet, there’s a difference between making your bot sound human and pretending your bot is a human. No matter how advanced your chatbot is, we always recommend full transparency to our customers.

While chatbots can be as much a part of your team as your human agents, there are definitely limits to what they can do. If you don’t introduce your chatbot as such, customers might feel like you’re trying to trick them. And in today’s landscape, customer trust is everything.

Now back to the fun stuff.

1. Name your chatbot.

Amazon has Alexa, Apple has Siri, and Iron Man has Jarvis (and Friday). Chatbots and AI are instantly more relatable when you stop calling them bots.

 

We worked with Daily Harvest to develop their chatbot, aptly named Sage. Sage fields common questions and gathers data for conversations with human agents. Sage also helps minimize the stress on the Daily Harvest customer service team by containing 60% of conversations. While containment (where customers’ conversations aren’t transferred to a human agent) isn’t the goal, it’s good to know customers are gaining enough valuable information for Sage to resolve their own questions.

2. Consider putting a face to your AI.

Admittedly, this tip is controversial. Do Alexa and Siri have faces? No, that’d be weird. But they’re associated with objects already. Since your chatbot lives on the screen, giving it a face isn’t a bad idea.

Consider giving your bot a friendly avatar. It doesn’t have to be a literal face. It can be an icon, an inanimate object, an animal, or whatever represents your brand. Go with your gut on this one—it can really go either way.

Here’s a bad example:

3. Give your chatbot some personality.

What’s the first thing human agents do when they start a new chat? They introduce themselves! Your chatbot should do the same. On the first message, have your chatbot introduce themselves, say they’re a chatbot/virtual assistant/virtual agent/etc, and ask how they can help.

Beyond introductions, include some casual language in your chatbot’s script. Instead of “What’s your question?” say, “How can I help you today?”

Remember that your chatbot is an extension of your brand, so its personality should reflect it. If your brand is quirky and whimsical, infuse that language into your chatbot.

4. Teach your chatbot empathy.

Typically, low-tech chatbots can only repeat preprogrammed phrases. However, humans adapt to mood, personality, and behavior. To make your chatbot really feel more friendly and human-like, it needs to be able to do the same.

Look for a chatbot that Interprets questions through natural language processing (NLP) to determine how to answer it. NLP allows bots to pick up on human speech patterns in a much more sophisticated way.

You can also add empathetic language to various points in the chatbot script. Phrases like “I understand” and “I’m sorry to hear that” go a long way in soothing customer frustrations.

5. Give your chatbot context.

Start with the customer’s name. Whether the customer already has a profile or you program the chatbot to ask for it, have your chatbot use the customer’s name in conversation. But don’t stop there.

Context makes conversations go a lot smoother, whether with a chatbot or with a human agent. Program your bot to pull in context from your customer’s web behavior into the conversation. For example, if a customer has been looking at Hawaiian vacations, have the bot ask if they need help with their trip to the islands.

Context will make the conversation flow more naturally and give your customers a better overall experience.

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6. Make your chatbot and human agents a team.

The human-like quality of understanding shouldn’t be underestimated in a chatbot. Having a bot that understands what a customer is asking—and knows when to bring in reinforcements—is key to a great customer experience.

Instead of trying to replace your human agents, make your chatbot and agents a team. Jewelry retailer Blue Nile is a great example of how chatbots and humans can work together to elevate the customer experience.

Blue Nile’s initial chatbot attempt routed customers all across the company without considering what they were asking. Customers looking to buy were sent to service reps instead of sales, and vice versa.

So the dazzling diamond dealer worked with Quiq to create a much more intuitive and human-like chatbot. A better chat experience led to 70% more sales interactions and a 35% conversion rate.

7. Combine logic and rules for a more responsive experience.

Low-tech chatbots might ask you to write responses for a specific chain of events. For example, your customer mentions a return, the chatbot pulls up return directions, the problem is resolved. That’s chatbot logic.

But one thing a human has that many chatbots lack is the ability to pick up on queues and respond accordingly.

With AI-enhanced chatbots, you can also define specialty rules for your chatbot to follow. Going back to our return example, most are simple and straightforward. Sometimes, however, a customer is extremely unhappy with the product or service and needs extra attention. AI chatbots, like Quiq’s, can use sentiment analysis to pick up on customer behavior to identify an unhappy customer (or whichever other sentiment you choose) and reroute to a human agent.

This way, you don’t have a cheery chatbot irritating your already irate customer.

Embrace AI to humanize your chatbot.

Humanizing your chatbot comes down to two factors:

  1. A dedicated effort to give your chatbot personality
  2. The AI technology to make it happen

With both those components, you can make your chatbot sound more human and embrace it as part of your customer service team.

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Unleashing the Power of Quiq Insights: Your Data’s New Best Friend

Posted on Tyler Larson

👋 Hi, I’m Tyler, a Sr. Software Engineer at Quiq helping to enhance our Quiq product with data…Lots and lots of data.

On behalf of the team at Quiq, I am proud to introduce you to our latest product offering, Quiq Insights!

In this blog post, I’ll share with you what Quiq Insights is, why we built it, and what sets it apart from other analytical offerings.

What is Quiq Insights?

Quiq Insights is a data analytics tool that provides a powerful lens to view your customer interactions, journeys, and more. With Quiq Insights, you can analyze and optimize every aspect of your customer journey, from conversational AI effectiveness to agent performance. Quiq Insights equips you with the data needed to confidently identify trends and patterns in order to improve the products and services you offer.

Bot Insights

Conversational designers rejoice, your prayers have been answered. With Bot Insights, both usage and natural language understanding (NLU) learnings are integrated directly within our bot designer. You’ll be able to verify your bot is doing the right thing and if not identify any pain points. You’ll be better enabled to confidently make changes and measure improvements. Bot Insights will empower conversational designers to deliver first-class customer service through conversational AI.

Here are some of the best parts:

  • See conversation usage and flow right from the designer:

See conversation usage and flow right from the designer

 

  • Visualize flows between behaviors and measure abandonment and drop-off:

Visualize flows between behaviors and measure abandonment and drop off

 

  • “Drill” into conversation transcripts from either usage connectors or usage flows:

“Drill” into conversation transcripts from either usage connectors or usage flows

  • Iterate and improve on your Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models:

NLU insights

Funnel Insights

Let’s put the “fun” in funnels! A funnel is a visualization of a series of steps in a business process. The shape of a funnel can quickly convey the health of that process and identify any inefficiencies. Have you ever wanted to measure the result of an outbound campaign? What about identifying poor survey responses? Or maybe gain a better understanding of the resolution rate for your conversational AI? Well look no further, with our funnel designer you can create custom funnels for both simple and complex scenarios.

Here are the highlights:

  • Use our predefined funnel templates to get the ball rolling:

 

  • Review drop-off between steps and drill into conversation transcriptions:

Review drop-off between steps and drill into conversation transcriptions

  • Powerful filtering and segmentation by platform, contact point, or even custom field value

Powerful filtering and segmentation by platform, contact point, or even custom field value

  • Build steps from our catalog of 30+ system events
  • Even incorporate your own data with custom events for things like “order created” or “appointment booked”

Why Quiq Insights?

We understand that making informed business decisions requires data-driven insights. However, not every company has a team of data scientists and programmers to help them analyze their customer interaction data. That’s why we built Quiq Insights, tools designed to be easy to use for business users who need to quickly and easily analyze their data. With Quiq Insights, you’ll never have to fly blind again.

The Journey

Quiq Insights was created with a mission to optimize conversational AI and contact center performance with integrated and easy-to-use data analytics. We understand that the goal of delivering a more efficient contact center while still providing world-class customer service is accomplished in part with better insights. We feel like Quiq Insights can help accomplish that goal. Plus, this is just the start!

Learn more about Quiq Insights here!

Quiq Announces $25million in Series C Funding

Posted on Mike Myer

We are thrilled to announce that Quiq has raised a $25M Series C round of funding. The round was led by Baird Capital, with participation from existing investors Venrock, Foundry Group, and Next Frontier Capital.

We started Quiq for a simple reason: The huge gap between the way consumers were forced to communicate with their favorite brands and how they preferred to communicate with family and friends. Phone calls are disruptive and time consuming. Email is slow and impersonal. Sending a text is how people get stuff done with family and friends. Quiq was founded to make it just that easy to communicate with businesses, too.

Over the past year we’ve made huge strides towards accomplishing that vision. Our business has doubled as we’ve broadened our solution to handle conversations occurring between brands and consumers across the entire customer lifecycle—from pre-purchase to post-sale, both with human agents and Conversational AI.

Customers don’t want to make purchases or interact with customer service like they did even a year ago. Phone and email volumes continue to decline, replaced by mobile messaging. In the new digital marketplace, brands are engaging shoppers in conversation to help find the right product and then completing the purchase within the same conversation. Later, when a customer needs support, brands are available 24/7 with conversational AI that achieves high customer satisfaction scores.

Our customers include more than 200 leading enterprise brands across many industries and around the globe. From retail/e-commerce and consumer services to consumer finance, and travel/hospitality, we continue to uncover high-value use cases across new industries every week.

Since the beginning our course was clear, to build the next generation of B2C communications. Quiq’s AI-powered Conversational Platform enables brands to engage customers on the most popular messaging channels with bots and human agents. With the additional capital we will grow our organization to meet the increasing demand for digital messaging and we’ll continue to invest to maintain our technology leadership. And it guarantees to our customers that we’ll be here to support them for the long term.

A special shoutout to all of our customers, whose success drives Quiq’s success. And thanks to all of the Quiq team for your exceptional work and tireless drive. Building a great company is never easy, but I am confident we are on the right track.

Sound exciting? We’re hiring across many open roles. Over the past year, our team has nearly doubled, all geographically distributed while remaining connected to our company values. Come join us!

If this news has sparked your imagination about what you can build with Quiq, please get in touch. We’d love to talk with you about how Quiq can accelerate your business and drive a better customer experience.

– Mike Myer, CEO and Founder

Press Release: Quiq Raises $25 Million Series C Funding Led by Baird Capital

Posted on Mike Myer

Quiq helps innovative brands like Overstock, Spirit Airlines, Brinks Home Security and Blue Nile increase e-commerce revenue, reduce customer service costs and improve customer satisfaction; New funding

BOZEMAN, MT and NEW YORK CITY — APRIL 12, 2022 — Quiq, the AI-powered Conversational Platform that enables brands to engage customers on the most popular messaging channels with bots and human agents, today announced it has closed a $25 million Series C funding round, which brings the company’s total funding to date to $47.5 million. Baird Capital led the Series C round, with additional participation from existing investors Venrock, Foundry Group and Next Frontier Capital. The new funding will be used to extend Quiq’s leadership position in Conversational AI and asynchronous messaging and to invest further in emerging Conversational Commerce solutions. Quiq will also expand its marketing and sales teams to address increasing demand from B2C enterprise brands, both in the U.S. and globally. View a short video of how Quiq works here.

“Our business has doubled in the past year as we have broadened our solution to handle conversations occurring between brands and consumers across the entire customer lifecycle from pre-purchase to post-sale, both with human agents and Conversational AI,” said Mike Myer, CEO and founder of Quiq. “Customers don’t want to make purchases or interact with customer service like they did even a year ago. Phone and email volumes continue to decline, replaced by mobile messaging. In the new digital marketplace, brands are engaging shoppers in conversation to help find the right product and then completing the purchase within the same conversation. Later, when a customer needs support, brands are available 24/7 with Conversational AI that achieves high customer satisfaction scores. I am so proud of what we have developed so far in our journey to the next generation of customer engagement and I am excited to be able to use the new funding to accelerate our progress.”

Quiq currently works with more than 200 leading brands across many industries — retail/e-commerce, consumer services, travel and hospitality, consumer finance and online gaming — demonstrating the applicability of the Quiq Conversational AI Platform for every B2C enterprise. When using Quiq in pre-purchase e-commerce settings, clients’ sales have increased by 35% and average order values increased by 20%. In customer care, Quiq clients have automatically resolved up to 85% of inquiries, agents are three to five times more efficient and CSAT increased by 15%. Quiq has standard connectors for Salesforce, Zendesk, Microsoft and Oracle, enabling brands to utilize existing processes and customer data while modernizing the ways they communicate with their customers.

Recently named one of the fastest growing companies in the Rocky Mountain region by Inc. Magazine, Quiq’s “land and expand” approach to large enterprises demonstrates the value of Quiq’s platform and the power of messaging — an approach that has led to expansions of three to 70 times the value of the initial engagement. The volume of conversations on Quiq has increased rapidly as well, with a six-fold increase since early 2020 and conversations per client increased by 300%. Quiq has developed strong strategic alliances with business process outsourcing (BPO) and system integrators (SIs), contact center consultants and chatbot vendors, with 40% of new business now driven from alliance partners.

The investment in Quiq highlights the “Consumerization of the Enterprise,” a core thesis of Baird Capital’s technology investments and the firm’s history with related customer experience and marketing technology platforms. “Quiq is not just changing how businesses interact with their customers; they are transforming Customer Experience from something static to something dynamic that makes customers feel valued and heard,” said Benedict Rocchio, Partner at Baird Capital. “Baird Capital is excited to be part of this transformation and to watch the Quiq footprint grow through this partnership.”

“Consumers in the US are increasingly comfortable using conversational interfaces — including chat and messaging — to get information, communicate with brands, and even make purchases,” according to a March 2022 report by analysts at Forrester Research. Additionally, according to Forrester’s 2021 Moments Map, “50% of U.S. online adults use chat to make purchases, and the level of use only increases among younger demographics, peaking with 25- to 34-year-olds at 62%. Beyond a desire to shop from the convenience of a device, consumers are also turning to chat to receive real-time clarifications on questions they may have around the product, shipping, and more.”

About Quiq
Quiq is the AI-powered Conversational Platform enabling businesses to engage with customers across the most popular digital messaging channels. Trusted by leading brands and boasting a 56 NPS score, Quiq’s enterprise-grade Conversational Platform supports SMS/text, Apple Messages for Business, Google’s Business Messages, webchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, call-to-text, and more. Quiq provides the leading solutions for business communications for the world’s best commerce and care teams. Quiq for Commerce and Quiq for Customer Care combine Conversational AI and digital contact center to help commerce and service teams increase efficiency, drive revenue, and improve customer satisfaction.

Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, with an office in New York City, Quiq is a privately held company backed by Baird Capital, Foundry Group, Venrock and Next Frontier Capital. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or learn more at https://quiq.com.

About Baird Capital
Baird Capital makes venture capital, growth equity and private equity investments in strategically targeted sectors around the world. Having invested in more than 330 companies over its history, Baird Capital partners with entrepreneurs and, leveraging its executive networks, strives to build exceptional companies. Baird Capital provides operational support to its portfolio companies through teams on the ground in the United States, Europe and Asia, a proactive portfolio operations team and a deep network of relationships, which together strive to deliver enhanced shareholder value. Baird Capital is the direct private investment arm of Robert W. Baird & Co. For more information, please visit BairdCapital.com.

All trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Press Release: Quiq Launches Conversational Commerce Payments and Surveys

Posted on The Quiq Team

Quiq Launches Conversational Commerce Payments and Conversational Surveys 

Secure, in-conversation payments allow brands to complete transactions seamlessly while chatting with customers on SMS, web chat, and other channels; Surveys inform retailers with a multi-channel, real-time customer feedback loop

BOZEMAN, MT and NEW YORK CITY — SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 — Quiq, the AI-powered conversational platform that enables businesses to engage with customers across the most popular digital messaging channels, today announced the addition of two new product features to its cross-channel Conversational AI platform: payments and surveys. Built to deliver superior customer experience by enhancing the quality of every customer interaction, Quiq’s new payments and customer survey features help brands enhance the quality of every customer interaction, drive higher sales within every conversation, and reap the benefits of real-time customer feedback.

“The ability for retailers to quickly and securely accept payments in Conversational Commerce is a game changer. Customers no longer need to share their sensitive credit card details with an agent on the phone and consumers can interact with their favorite brands at the exact time and place of their choosing, which is increasingly on the go via SMS, text, or other messaging platforms,” said Quiq CEO and Co-Founder, Mike Myer. “In addition, Quiq’s in-conversation surveys give retailers the core functionality of a traditional survey tool with the flexibility to design, distribute, and analyze customer survey responses across multiple text channels. Both new product features deliver a superior customer experience that drives higher customer satisfaction and retention through timely feedback, makes payments easy, and ultimately generates significantly more revenue for brands.”

Conversational Commerce Payments

Quiq’s Conversational Commerce Payments enables brands to safely and securely accept payment across all Quiq supported channels including SMS/text messaging, Apple Business Chat, Google Business Messages, webchat, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and more — in 170+ languages. Conversational Commerce Payments enables seamless, secure payment from multiple communication channels, including SMS and text messaging. Quiq has standard support for Stripe and Braintree payments platforms and integrates with any brand’s payment processing platform, through the Quiq Payments API.

In-Conversation Surveys

Quiq’s In-Conversation Surveys enable a short survey to be sent immediately following the end of a customer interaction regardless of the channel (e.g.  SMS/text messaging, Apple Business Chat, Google Business Messages, webchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger and more), empowering retailers with a multi-channel, customer feedback loop that delivers real-time insights. Easy to design and simple to implement — with no coding skills required — the surveys are event-based and triggered at specific customer interaction points, such as the end of a conversation. The ability to converse with clients immediately following a conversation about their customer experience allows brands to quickly and effectively remedy dissatisfaction. For example, if a customer responds that their issue was not resolved or provides a low rating, Quiq automatically re-engages the customer in the same channel and escalates the customer’s feedback directly to a customer service manager for white-glove handling. A reporting dashboard allows customer service agents and their managers to see a survey report card that scores each agent on multiple metrics, such as the number of surveys received, average survey score and average sentiment score.

According to a recent report from Gartner, “Customer Experience (CX) is critical to maintain loyalty and 87% of companies expect to compete on CX in 2021, yet 57% of customer-facing employees say they aren’t ‘set up to succeed’ in interactions.” Trusted by globally recognized brands like Overstock, Blue Nile, Lane Bryant and Nespresso, Quiq is every brand’s wingman and ally, empowering customer service agents to become so effective at client communications that they become key drivers and components of a brand’s sales strategy.

Contact info@quiq.com to schedule a product demo of Quiq’s payments and/or survey features or learn more at https://www.quiq.com.

About Quiq

Quiq is the AI-powered Conversational Platform enabling businesses to engage with customers across the most popular digital messaging channels. Trusted by leading brands and boasting a 56 NPS score, Quiq’s enterprise-grade Conversational Platform supports SMS/text, Apple Business Chat, Google’s Business Messages, webchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, call-to-text, and more. Quiq provides the leading solutions for business communications for the world’s best commerce and care teams. Quiq for Commerce and Quiq for Customer Care combine Conversational AI and a digital contact center to help commerce and service teams increase efficiency, drive revenue, and improve customer satisfaction.

Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, with an office in New York City, Quiq is a privately held company backed by Foundry Group, Venrock, and Next Frontier Capital. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or learn more at https://www.quiq.com.

All trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Quiq Has Acquired Snaps, A Leader In Conversational AI

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq Has Acquired Snaps, A Leader In Conversational AI

I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce that Quiq has acquired Snaps! Together, the Quiq and Snaps teams have unsurpassed experience in asynchronous messaging and deep expertise in Conversational AI. We will be an unstoppable force in the digital transformation of customer communications!

Often the word “synergy” is used to describe acquisitions. In this case, it’s more than that. I think “perfect fit” sums it up more succinctly. Like two pieces from different puzzles that miraculously fit together like they were cut from the same sheet of cardboard, Quiq and Snaps are a perfect fit.

From my initial meeting with Christian Brucculeri, Snaps CEO, I was impressed with the business he and the Snaps team had built helping automate customer interactions using Conversational AI (think chatbots, but smarter!). When deployed in an ecommerce use case a Snaps bot had helped a brand increase their purchase conversion by more than 300%. When used to help customers answer questions, the bot resolved 85% of inquiries. Clearly these results weren’t any ordinary chatbot! We have architected Quiq so that bots and agents are both first class citizens, each capable of handling any part of a conversation and seamlessly passing the conversation between them. Quiq also has a super powerful graphical tool that allows our clients to design their own bots, but Quiq’s bots today don’t match the level of Natural Language Understanding that Snaps provides. By adding Snaps Conversational AI to our bot framework, Quiq will now offer our clients AI Automation that delivers unmatched outcomes and is consumable by a business user. This is the first way we fit together perfectly.

AI isn’t any good without humans. The amazing results of Snaps AI Automation isn’t due only to great technology, but much of the credit lies with the conversational design savvy that the Snaps team injects into their bots and the on-going tuning that they deliver. This is the second way that Quiq and Snaps are a perfect complement to each other. While we have been working on growing Quiq’s services capacity, conversational design is a special skill and we haven’t been able to develop it as one of our core competencies. By joining forces with Snaps we now have a team of experts ready to assist our clients when they need help designing and building impactful Conversational AI.

Today the majority of Quiq’s clients use our messaging platform to interact with customers to solve issues in a customer service context. Conversely, Snaps has been very successful helping marketing organizations attract new customers and convert shoppers to buyers. From a customer’s perspective the internal organizational division shouldn’t matter. They want one seamless, long running conversational interaction with their favorite brand. Enterprises need a solution for digital engagement across the complete customer lifecycle, from marketing to conversational commerce to customer service. The union of the Quiq and Snaps teams combines the knowledge and the technology to power digital conversations throughout the customer journey.

The final area of perfect fit that I will call out is Quiq’s and Snaps’ unwavering commitment to client’s success. From that first meeting with Christian and in every interaction since, Christian and the Snap’s teams passion for their customers has been apparent. At Quiq, we share that same passion. The people that buy our solution are practitioners of great customer experiences. It’s their job to deliver great experiences to their own customers, so their standards for the experience that they get from their vendors is high. I’m confident that our combined team will exceed those expectations.

The world has changed as a result of COVID. We’re not going back. The momentum behind consumer’s preference for digital interactions is only going to accelerate. The new Quiq, formed by the combination of those two perfectly fitting puzzle pieces, is uniquely positioned to help businesses transform and meet their customers demands for the next generation of digital conversations!

Quiq CEO & Founder

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Introducing Quiq Translate

Posted on The Quiq Team

We’re excited to announce the launch of Quiq Translate, a new feature that translates multi-language exchanges between customers and agents. With Quiq’s language translation services Quiq Messaging is enhanced to support the automatic translation of incoming and outgoing messages in a conversation.

Quiq’s digital conversation platform drives operational excellence in digital customer support and service with features that teams can use to manage and measure cross-channel messaging in a single intuitive workspace. With Quiq Translate, companies can translate over 100 languages making messaging even more accessible and convenient.

Why Translation Matters To Your Business

For many companies, providing service and support In their customers’ preferred language can seem daunting. How do you communicate in multiple languages and provide excellent customer service without hiring a native customer support agent for every language out there? Let’s start with another question – why should you?

There are a lot of great reasons our clients use Quiq Translate, not the least of which is making support more accessible to the people they serve. Let’s discuss a few of the more common driving factors that make multilingual customer support key for businesses to provide positive customer experiences. The kind of experiences that build trust and loyalty.

  • Your company’s growth

Customers become more linguistically diverse as businesses gain international buyers, or expand to new markets. As your company expands, you’ll need to remain sensitive to your customers’ needs. A global company with operations or offices in many different countries, has to communicate in multiple languages to provide excellent customer service. But the need to offer support in a customers’ native language isn’t just for big multinational companies. Even if you’re doing business in the US, the changing market requires multilingual customer service and support.

  • Changing demographics 

Every year, the U.S. Census asks survey recipients if they speak a language other than English at home. If the respondent answers “yes”, they are then asked “How well does this person speak English?”. Any answer other than “Very well” defines the respondent as Limited English Proficient (LEP).

Of the total US population, LEP individuals now account for about 9%. The consumer buying power of Limited-English proficient populations will continue to show considerable growth. Hispanic and Asian-American populations alone represent 70% of LEP consumers in the United States, and providing excellent language services means not missing out on the opportunity to connect with and serve new markets.

  • Security

Interacting with customers means highly sensitive data can be shared during the support interaction. When engaging with Limited-English speaking customers, companies may give agents the freedom to use free online translation tools, this can leave the door open to data leaks and not give the organization full view of the engagement.

<>If you think you need to hire agents with language specific skills, customer service interpreters, or professional translators, think again. It’s possible to enable fast, cost effective translation services with Quiq Translate to deliver superb customer service.

Translating Your Digital Conversations With Quiq

Agents specify which languages they can handle. The language of the conversation is detected based upon the customer’s message. If the agent doesn’t speak the customer’s language, incoming messages are automatically translated. The agent can still see the translated message and the original untranslated message.

Outgoing messages from the agent are automatically translated, so customers receive responses in their preferred language. Both the original and translated messages are stored as part of the saved message transcript.

Better Agent and Customer Experiences

Working as a customer service representative can be challenging, especially when managing multiple customer queries and claims. One of the most compelling reasons our clients choose to shift to digital channels is that asynchron

ous engagement makes it easy for agents to handle multiple conversations at one time.

A boost in productivity is just one advantage that messaging has over other methods like phone calls and emails. Add to that the absence of noisy environments that make it difficult to carry on a phone conversation, the ability for the customer to pick back up on a conversation when it’s convenient for them, and automation features like chatbots that make routing, queuing, and self service faster and more accurate and you see why messaging makes for good communication.

But language barriers can get in the way of good communication. Providing your teams with the right tools will enable them to better handle customer requests and keep them motivated. The benefits for support teams are both quantitative

, with less calls and substantial time saved, as they are qualitative: the dialogue with customers is also improved.

More Languages, One Workflow

Quiq Translate is a native feature of Quiq Messaging and available on all messaging channels. Messages are automatically translated in over 100 languages across the most popular digital messaging channels, including SMS/text, Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Messages, webchat, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Quiq Messaging Administrators have the ability to enable or disable the Quiq Translate feature with a quick toggle in the Admin UI. Once enabled, agents can set their preferred language, which is the language messages will be translated to. Quiq automatically detects the customers’ language or agents can manually select the customer’s preferred language, or the customer can select and set their preferred language from a list.

Once preferred languages are selected, Quiq Translate does the rest. For example, an agent has their preferred languages set to English. If they accept a conversation and the messages are in Spanish, Quiq Translate will automatically translate Spanish messages to English for the agent and any English responses will be translated to Spanish when the customer receives it.

The agent can view all messages as they were originally sent. The ability to toggle between the original message as it was written by the customer and the translated messages ensures that nothing, quite literally gets lost in translation.The conversation history can be viewed by agents, and managers within the systems they already use. Our platform integrates with the CS tools you already use such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Oracle Service Cloud, and Shopify, so you can get started quickly. Or simply use our APIs to build custom integrations for what you need.

The City Of Knoxville, Quiq Translate In Action

The City of Knoxville, which has been piloting the technology, said that Spanish speakers are one of the fastest growing groups in the Knoxville area. The City is eager that its services reach this population, many of whom prefer mobile devices and text and messaging as their preferred method of communication.

“We’re trying to reach people where they are and speak to them in the language they’re most comfortable with,” Russ Jensen, director of the 311 Center for Service Innovation, said. “We want them to feel safe asking for help.”

The City has been working closely with Quiq for nearly a year. In April 2020, they launched a Covid-19 chatbot to help residents get important information related to Covid-19, such as a symptom checker, or to access services such as food banks.

Knoxville’s 211 service now has a chatbot available in English and Spanish with more languages on the way. Carter Hall, with the City of Knoxville, says that Rundia, an East African language is next.

Ready For Multilingual Customer Service and Support?

The world is getting smaller and more connected, and businesses are growing on a global scale. Language can no longer be a barrier to this. You can easily deliver exceptional customer service regardless of your customers’ preferred language with the help of Quiq’s Messaging Platform and Quiq Translation.

Schedule some time to speak with one of our conversation experts to learn how you can serve more consumers in their preferred language using Quiq Translate.

Press Release: Quiq Announces New Multilingual Support Feature

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq’s New Multilingual Support Feature

Quiq: “Ahora hablamos español”

Quiq debuts multilingual support; organizations can expand support in the U.S. and globally

With up to 350 languages spoken in the U.S., it’s a big challenge for organizations to be able to offer great service to everyone who contacts them in need of assistance. And with over 40 million native Spanish speakers here in the U.S., Spanish must be an option for customer service phone calls, chat or text. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Quiq Translate, a new feature that translates multi-language exchanges between customers and agents.

Quiq’s digital conversation platform drives operational excellence in digital customer support and service with features that teams can use to manage and measure cross-channel messaging in a single intuitive workspace. With Quiq Translate, companies can translate over 100 languages making messaging even more accessible and convenient.

Agents specify which languages they can handle. The language of the conversation is detected based on the customer’s message. If the agent doesn’t speak the customer’s language, incoming messages are automatically translated. The agent can still see the translated message and the original untranslated message.

Outgoing messages from the agent are automatically translated, so customers receive responses in their preferred language. Both the original and translated messages are stored as part of the saved message transcript.

The City of Knoxville’s 311 Center for Service Innovation, which houses Eastern Tennessee’s 2-1-1- and has been piloting the technology, said that Spanish speakers are one of the City’s fastest-growing groups. The City is eager that its services to reach this population, many of whom prefer mobile devices and text and messaging as their preferred method of communication.

“Working with Quiq, we’re making sure that those that need services can access them, regardless of the language they speak,” said Russ Jensen, director, the City of Knoxville’s 3-1-1 & 2-1-1. They have been working closely with Quiq for nearly a year. In April 2020, Knoxville launched a Covid-19 chatbot to help residents get important information related to Covid-19, such as a symptom checker, or to access services such as food banks.

Quiq Translate also provides retailers and credit unions a way to cost-effectively provide multilingual customer service to a broad base of consumers using the messaging channel: whether those customers are in the U.S., South America or Europe. Research has found that multilingual support can increase how likely a customer is to repurchase.

The world is getting smaller and more connected, and businesses are growing on a global scale. Language can no longer be a barrier to this.

Quiq is the Digital Conversation Company, enabling businesses to engage with customers across the most popular digital messaging channels, exceeding the expectations of digital engagement for support and service teams. Quiq is enterprise-grade SaaS software that supports SMS/text, Apple Messages for Business, Google’s Business Messages, webchat, Facebook, Twitter, call-to-text, Chatbots, and more.

Learn More Today

Quiq’s Newest Partner – Snaps Brings End-to-End Sales and Support on Instagram and More

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq and Snaps Integration

Quiq is thrilled to announce its integration with Snaps, the leading platform for connecting consumers and businesses in messaging. As partners, Quiq and Snaps now offer retailers and eCommerce brands highly intelligent, end-to-end conversations on today’s most popular messaging channels including webchat, SMS, Apple Business Messages, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and more.

Most recently, Quiq and Snaps have updated their integration to deliver hybrid automated and human support for digital retailers on Instagram.

Through Snaps’ integration with Quiq, eCommerce brands can now provide shoppers with 24/7 instantaneous answers to frequently asked questions and personal complex order inquiries with automation or seamlessly connect to a live agent for additional sales or service support.

Quiq example chat

Agents using Quiq can follow the conversation, take over if desired, and then hand control back to the automated assistant.

Once shoppers request agent support, a transcript of their automated conversation, as well as key user properties like name and email, are passed along to the agent using Quiq’s customer service platform.

Quiq chatbot screen

Conversational interactions with the live agent will then continue directly within shoppers’ existing chat windows on Instagram.

For online retailers experiencing a surge of customer service inquiries amidst COVID-19 and peak shopping periods, Snaps’ integration with Quiq enables brands to provide faster and more efficient support to shoppers while freeing up agents to focus on more complex support and sales inquiries.

Interested in learning more about Snaps’ partnership with Quiq? Contact us to get more details about our integration and a personalized demonstration of how it works.

Contact Us

Quiq Series B Announcement Gets Wide Media Coverage

Posted on Lauren Winder

The announcement of Quiq’s Series B funding round has been picked up my multiple news outlets as an exciting continuation of the companies pursuit of being at the forefront of consumer communications across digital engagement channels. Quiq has set itself apart and this news is a clear indication of the confidence and strategic positioning the company has garnered in contact centers and enabling enterprise customer communications. In raising $12.5 million in a series B round of funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from Teamworthy Ventures, Venrock, and Next Frontier Capital, the company plans to build out its platform to “make it smarter” through AI and bots that “deliver the next generation of conversational commerce.”

Be sure to check out the articles below to see how the market has picked up this exciting news.  If you want to learn more about how Quiq is making it easy for businesses to better connect with their customers in more of the ways they prefer, be sure to reach out and we’d gladly show you how the product is transforming customer engagement.

Quiq raises $12.5 million to bring bots and messaging to customer service

VENTURE DEALS

Quiq Raises $12.5 MN; To Be Used for Expansion of Its Conversational Engagement Platform

Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers

Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers

Messaging Platform Quiq Notches $12.5M For AI Build-Out

Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers

Quiq Raises $12.5M in Series B Funding

The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 7/29/19


Quiq $12.55 million Financing. Michael A Myer Released Jul 29 Form D

Quiq Gets Funded for Bots, Messaging for Future of Work. Exclusive Interview

Quiq Raises 12.5 Million In Series B Funding To Help Companies Orchestrate Commerce And Service Conversations – Tech Company News

See a Demo Today

Press Release: Quiq Raises $12.5 Million In Series B Funding Round

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers

Bozeman, MT – July 25 2019– Quiq, a conversational engagement platform and business messaging solutions provider, announces that it has closed a $12.5 million Series B funding round, led by Foundry Group, with participation from Teamworthy Ventures and existing investors Venrock and Next Frontier Capital. Quiq works with over 120 clients including major brands like Overstock, Pier 1, Office Depot, and Men’s Wearhouse to power digital commerce and service conversations.

“This investment validates our vision that digital engagement channels, like messaging and chat, are the future of consumer communications and that asynchronous messaging will be the foundation of the next generation enterprise contact center,” said Mike Myer, founder and CEO of Quiq. “Quiq is the only open platform that seamlessly combines human agents, native bots, and third-party bots across multiple digital channels. Quiq’s clients are seeing ROI of 5X or more, while simultaneously achieving improved customer satisfaction.”

Quiq is the only open platform that seamlessly combines human agents, native bots, and third-party bots across multiple digital channels. Quiq’s clients are seeing ROI of 5X or more, while simultaneously achieving improved customer satisfaction.

The company will use the funding to continue to build out Quiq’s industry-leading engagement platform and to make it smarter with bots & AI to deliver the next generation of conversational commerce, including the first messaging-based shopping cart. Quiq will also continue to build its go-to-market team in advance of the upcoming digital transformation of customer communications.

“Customer experience teams are evolving their tools and processes to an asynchronous messaging first approach – the preferred way that consumers want to communicate.” said Chris Moody, Partner, Foundry Group. “Quiq is a product-driven company that has a deep knowledge of customer experience, unsurpassed vision, and has demonstrated tremendous progress in enterprise customer adoption.”

Quiq’s customer engagement platform powers commerce and service conversations between consumers and companies using human agents and bots. Because it is fully asynchronous, customers own the cadence of the conversation, starting, pausing, and stopping the conversations on their terms-unlike the experience with traditional phone and email channels. Messaging has a near-perfect open rate and brands are taking advantage of rich messaging to present dynamic and interactive content, process secure payment transactions, set up appointments, and share augmented reality.

About Quiq

Quiq helps brands present their customers with consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, and social channels. With Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform, companies can easily orchestrate commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans. For more information about Quiq, go to quiq.com.

Press Release: Quiq Receives SOC 2 Type I Attestation

Posted on The Quiq Team

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Quiq Receives SOC 2 Type I Attestation

Independent Audit Verifies Quiq’s Internal Controls and Processes

Bozeman, MT – April 2019– Quiq, a customer engagement platform and business SMS text messaging solutions provider, today announced that it has completed its SOC 2 Type I audit. This attestation provides evidence that Quiq has a strong commitment to delivering high-quality services to its clients by demonstrating the necessary internal controls and processes.

SOC 2 engagements are based on the AICPA’s Trust Services Criteria. SOC 2 audit reports focus on a service organization’s non-financial reporting controls as they relate to the security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of a system. KirkpatrickPrice’s audit report verifies the suitability of the design of Quiq’s controls to meet the standards for these criteria.

“The SOC 2 audit is based on the Trust Services Criteria. Quiq has selected the security, availability, confidentiality, and privacy categories for the basis of their audit,” said Joseph Kirkpatrick, President of KirkpatrickPrice. “Quiq delivers trust-based services to their clients, and by communicating the results of this audit, their clients can be assured of their reliance on Quiq’s controls.”

About Quiq

Quiq makes it possible for any company to deliver a world-class customer experience using business text messaging. Quiq’s messaging platform enables companies to use their existing landlines to send and receive messages to their customers via SMS/text messaging, live chat, social platforms, and in their own app.

About KirkpatrickPrice

KirkpatrickPrice is a licensed CPA firm, PCI QSA, and a HITRUST CSF Assessor, registered with the PCAOB, providing assurance services to over 800 clients in more than 48 states, Canada, Asia, and Europe. The firm has more than a decade of experience in information security and compliance assurance by performing assessments, audits, and tests that strengthen information security and internal controls. KirkpatrickPrice most commonly provides advice on SOC 1, SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITRUST CSF, GDPR, ISO 27001, FISMA, and CFPB frameworks. For more information, visit www.kirkpatrickprice.com, follow KirkpatrickPrice on Twitter (@KPAudit), or connect with KirkpatrickPrice on LinkedIn.

Megan Weller can #codelikeagirl | Women’s Month 2018

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq’s Very Own Megan Weller

Megan Weller, a front-end software engineer at Quiq, is born and raised in Billings, Montana. When Megan isn’t crushing code, she’s working creative magic in other pursuits. This Women’s Month, get to know this talented developer who isn’t afraid to #codelikeagirl.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, and when you discovered a love of tech.

I discovered my love for tech at a young age. I was always naturally inclined to technology and soon became the go-to for tech support in my family. Although I did start my college career in graphic design, I took a web design class and discovered that I liked the coding part even more than the design part. The core reasons why I wanted a career in tech is that I enjoy problem-solving, design, and creating.

I like to think that I have a pretty creative eye when it comes to design and structure. As side hobbies, I enjoy calligraphy, interior design, woodworking, and designing invitations for my friend’s weddings and bridal showers. I’m creating something out of nothing with these tools that I have.

I think coding goes hand in hand with creativity. You have a blank slate and there are so many possibilities on what to create, how you’re going to do, and how it will be built. There will always be problem needed to solved and I do love a good puzzle. I never knew what I wanted to be when I was growing up, but when I realized that software engineering was a strong possibility, it felt like something just clicked and I knew it was right for me.

Q: What do you love about technology and what developments are you most excited about?

One thing I love about technology is that we are creating simple solutions to problems people didn’t know they had. Making applications and solutions to make life easier and more convenient. Take Quiq for an example, I could call the customer service hotline at a company but then I’m on hold for maybe 30 minutes and transferred several times. But texting a customer service number, and conversing that way is more convenient for me because it’s on my time and makes whatever problem I have so much easier to resolve.

Q: What are the skills or career paths that may be exciting prospects for women now and in the future?

I think this year and the past few months have made this day more important than ever. Women are rising up in the workplace and demanding equality. While I was in school and now as an alumnus, I attended events and groups dedicated to women in tech and engineering. I’ve heard speeches from trailblazing women like Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube, and MSU alumni like Jean Sweeney, a VP at 3M, and many more. All women had one common advice, which was to work hard and have ambition. There are some gender obstacles in the way, but they will not be the deciding factor. A career in tech is extremely rewarding and I’m happy I made my decision to get a degree in Computer Science. I’m excited to see where my career takes me and the changes made in the tech industry, where we one day will have gender equality. As Sheryl Sandberg put it, “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders”.

Quiq Celebrates #womenthatcode for Women’s Month – Q&A with Gretchen Dickie

Posted on The Quiq Team

Adjusting to growth can be challenging and change can be hard for some people, but Gretchen Dickie, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer makes it look easy. From major career moves to the frequent and fast-paced changes in technology, Gretchen has been able to identify and seize opportunities that have helped her move forward as a one of many #womenthatcode.

As part of our International Women’s Day series, we invite you to get to know a bit more about the women at Quiq who are helping to move technology forward. We’re proud of the talent we have at Quiq and are excited to share the stories of the women that are helping to make this company a leading software for text messaging for business.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, and when you discovered a love of tech

The elegant logic of science and math has always fascinated me and led me to BS degrees in Medical Technology and Microbiology. It also led to a cross-country move from Wisconsin to a job as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist in a small hospital in the mountains of Montana. After being lucky enough to take some time away from my career to spend the early years of my son’s & daughter’s lives at home with them, I decided to return to school to pursue a new career path.

Technology professions were barely on anyone’s radar the first time I was in college but now offered seemingly endless possibilities. An MS in Computer Science exposed me to a new world of software design, theory, programming and problem-solving, and bonus – I got to take more math classes! After finishing my Master’s I joined RightNow Technologies (later acquired by Oracle), and held positions of Support Specialist, Business Systems Analyst, and Quality Assurance Engineer.

I’m now Sr. QA Engineer with Quiq, where I’m continuing to pursue my passion for contributing to the creation of software that can actually make people’s lives a little less frustrating.

Q: What do you love about technology and what developments are you most excited about?

What do I love about technology?  Each day brings new challenges & opportunities that allow me to continue learning – no matter what your age is, there’s something new to learn every day.  I enjoy everything that goes into releasing software – witnessing the innovation and ideas the team comes up with every day, contributing to design decisions, implementation, testing, and seeing the outcome of all the hard work in the product we release to our customers.  Things move fast here and are always changing – tech careers are never boring!

#womenthatcode

Q: What are the skills or career paths that may be exciting prospects for women now and in the future?

My path to a technology career was a long journey with lots of turns, but it’s proof that the possibilities are endless if you decide to take that path – and the exciting thing is, even after you get to your destination, there may be surprises.  After getting a CS degree I fully expected to pursue a career as a software engineer, but along the way, I discovered that I loved other aspects of this profession more than coding.

There are so many options available in this industry that no one should limit themselves to a narrow view of what technology professions look like.

Quiq Celebrates International Women’s Day – Q&A with CMO, Dani Wanderer

Posted on The Quiq Team

Quiq Supports International Women’s Day

Quiq is proud to support International Women’s Day by highlighting three of our own Quiqsters who are helping to move technology forward. Our first profile is our very own CMO, Dani Wanderer. Dani has been working for tech companies for over 25 years. She’s helping move technology forward by supporting and mentoring incredible women to pursue their dreams, fight for what they want, and provide opportunities to help them succeed.  Aside from being a mom of two and avid hiker, Dani is the only Bozeman-based board member for Make-A-Wish, and working to make lives better for critically ill children.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, and when you discovered a love of tech

I didn’t start off with a love of tech. I started off with a passion for languages and studied French, German, Spanish, and Latin in high school. At the time, I wanted a foreign language to be part of my job but knew that just majoring in a language in college was not going to result in a high-paying job. I decided to add a business to my degree and pursue international business, and as I entered college, I selected German over the other languages I had studied. This was primarily due to the fact that the Berlin Wall was coming down during that time and I thought there would be a great opportunity to live abroad and work in a German business after graduation.

“Sometimes the path you plan to take has some roadblocks and other paths open up.”

Sometimes the path you plan to take has some roadblocks and other paths open up. I had planned to attend Thunderbird for my masters and thus had selected Arizona State University for my undergraduate school. My mom and I visited the ASU campus and after seeing the campus and meeting the counselor, that it was clearly not the place for me. Being a planner and hater of change, not to mention a teenager, I was devastated. My mom, bless her, decided to drive me down to Tucson to see the University of Arizona. Despite being a very reluctant and negative participant on this detour, the first person I met there actually asked me what I was interested in doing and where I saw myself after graduation. Those questions revealed a whole new opportunity that was just perfect for me. U of A had just launched what they called a 3/2 program, which was a 5-year program where participants would receive a liberal arts degree in 3 years and a masters in 2 years. I was one of the first people to take on that challenge – keep in mind it can take some undergraduates 5 years to get one degree and I was going to have to buckle down to get 2 degrees in 5 years. The upside benefits were that I could still get a degree in a language and also end up with a masters degree in finance, but also, as an out-of-state, working student, I could minimize the years of tuition and student loans.

So, how did I discover my love for tech? It came when I was recruited out of the U of A for a job with Hewlett Packard. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska did not afford me much exposure to tech, not to mention I grew up with more “blue-collar” than white. Hewlett Packard was under the leadership of John Young and then Lew Platt, so the HP Way was very alive and well. That is where I discovered and fell in love with tech.

Q: What do you love about technology and what developments are you most excited about?

What do I love about tech companies?
– the speed at which they move
– the constant change and continual innovation across every single team, not just product/engineering
– addressing new and different challenges every day
– the energy of the culture and people

Q: What are the skills or career paths that may be exciting prospects for women now and in the future?

I believe that we should continue to encourage women in business, supporting their path to senior leadership, and becoming a CEO is still a huge opportunity. There are still only 27 female CEOs in the Fortune 500–that is 5%!!! Encouraging women to go into business and work their way up through the ranks and grow their skills must still be a priority.

How Our Clients Use Quiq Messaging

Posted on Mike Myer

A Message From Mike Myer, Quiq CEO

Since I helped start RightNow, the world has changed, but not my mission. My team and I are still focused on saving companies money, while helping them deliver a better customer experience. No longer are we focused on handling and managing high volumes of phone calls and emails. We have leapfrogged ahead again to focus on the hottest communications channels.  Why?

Simply because no one has time for a phone call and waiting for a response to an email is like watching paint dry.  We, along with all our family and friends communicate via messaging. However, consumers aren’t able to communicate with all their favorite companies in the same way-yet.

At Quiq, we’re helping companies be more accessible to consumers by making it easy for them to add SMS/text, Facebook Messenger and Kik to their business.

We also support web chat and in-app messaging, so one agent can easily see and manage all messaging channels simultaneously. Companies like Overstock, Gogo, Office Depot, Men’s Wearhouse, Tyr, evo, Jackson Hole Resort, and many more are realizing cost savings and higher satisfaction scores using Quiq Messaging to better serve their customers.

Let’s go beyond the hype to some actual example use cases of our clients who are using Quiq Messaging to improve their business. We’d love the opportunity to do the same for you.

 

Here are a few Quiq Messaging use cases:

Quiq Messaging1. Quiq Messaging helps convert tentative buyers into customers.  

If a consumer wants to make a purchase but has a question, it should be easy to get an answer right away.  Back in the day, many companies implemented web chat for just this reason.  However, the majority of website visitors are on mobile devices and web chat simply isn’t the best messaging option from any mobile device.  Why not make it as easy and comfortable to contact you as it is to text with friends?

 

2. Quiq Messaging can help significantly reduce your contact center costs by converting phone calls into messaging conversations.

By converting the call to a text, the conversation is moved from the most expensive channel to the least expensive channel AND the customer will be happier – they didn’t want to make a phone call in the first place, but they wanted help– right now!  This would look something like the following:

“An agent will be with you shortly.  If you’d rather text with an agent, press 1….”

When the customer presses 1, they immediately receive a text message and start a conversation with an agent, resulting in a direct cost savings of 80%. Customers will be more satisfied because they prefer to text and you’ll be more efficient.  A true win-win!!

 

3. Quiq Messaging can make those traditionally one-way Outbound Notifications interactive.

Everyone is familiar with shipping and other notifications delivered via SMS.  However, very few companies have the ability to actually receive responses back to those outbound notifications. We can turn this one-way push, into a two-way engagement:

“Confirming delivery today of your order ”.  Text us back if you have any questions.  Thanks!!”

Quiq Messaging can not only send outbound SMS notifications but also handle responses just like any other Messaging conversation, thereby reducing calls that would otherwise be made to the contact center.

Don’t wait. Be where your customers already are. See how Quiq Messaging can help improve your business!

Cheers,

Mike
CEO, Quiq
mike@goquiq.com

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