Helping ecommerce brands turn customer support into sales
We have exciting news to share: today, we closed our Series A funding! Led by Tiger Global Management, the new $14 million funding brings Zowie’s total capital raised to $20 million. Our investors Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused fund), 10xFounders (investor in Revolut, Robinhood, and Adyen), and Inovo also returned for this latest round, alongside strategic investor Jack Altman (CEO at Lattice). The funding will be used to support the expansion of our product and team.
Below, our CEO Maja Schaefer shares her thoughts to mark Zowie’s latest milestone.
Ecommerce brands are facing changes from all sides. Customer acquisition costs are rising, especially on traditional channels and major social networks. Meanwhile, conversion rates are dropping, and customers are changing how they spend their time online. Brands are using the same strategies to grow their businesses – but aren’t seeing the same results anymore. Add in new regulations to protect consumers online, plus all the software tools out there that promise to make your marketing great (again), and it makes sense why ecommerce brands are feeling the squeeze and not sure how to move forward.
Even though there are many new challenges, the market is booming. So there’s never been a better time for brands to grow quickly. To do that, it’s time for ecommerce brands to look for innovative ways to gain a competitive edge.
Customer service is the new marketing. We all know by now how beneficial it is for brands to build valuable, lifetime relationships with their customers. Our focus at Zowie is: how can we create more opportunities for brands to actually do that – and boost sales at the same time?
Every interaction with customers is an opportunity to sell. I see how brands get caught up in drip marketing, paid ads, or a perfectly crafted social media presence – but it’s simpler than that. Especially as platforms change, your best chance to connect to your customers in a meaningful way is to be ready to talk to them when they want to talk to you.
Zowie enables brands to improve customer relationships and generate revenue from customer service. We’re the only AI-powered chatbot on the market built specifically for ecommerce teams. This focus means that we really understand the day-to-day challenges ecommerce brands face. Our cutting-edge technology automates 70% of inquiries that ecommerce brands typically receive, like “where’s my package?” or “how can I change my shipping address?” We also know what not to automate because some inquiries need a human touch.
While automation is at the center of what we do, it’s just the first step. We follow up our best-in-class automation with a powerful suite of tools that help customer service teams expand their capabilities. At the key moment when your customer reaches out for help, your agents can provide personalized care and product recommendations to keep customer satisfaction high.
This means that you can drive revenue with the customer service team you already have in place. Instead of customer support becoming a budget black hole, it can be your most powerful customer touchpoint. Ecommerce brands are close to their customers, so shifting strategy in this area can quickly make a huge impact – as long as you have the right technology to back you up.
I started Zowie to help brands when business is booming and when times are tough. Together with the team, I’m thinking about the long-term. Unlike many startups grabbing cash to stay afloat, we raised our most recent investment to build on what we’ve already established. This funding will help us deepen our talent pool and expand our product. We’ll be offering even more tools designed for Zowie customers to turn their customer support into sales.
With a dedicated and talented team like ours, a lot gets done in a short time. We’re already building the best technology on the market, and this funding proves the value of what we’re doing. A massive thanks to everyone at Zowie for your hard work and all of our incredible customers – I can’t wait to see what else we can achieve.
Maja Schaefer, CEO
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