Phone Calls Are Dead as Teckst Scores $2.5M in Funding
New York (PRWEB) May 17, 2016 -- Teckst, a first-to-market service that enables two-way text messaging for customer service teams, announced today it has raised $2.5 million in funding. Founded by former Seamless Creative Director, Matt Tumbleson and General Assembly leader, Ji Young Choi, Teckst is fixing the biggest and age-old consumer gripe of antiquated phone calls plagued with never-ending hold times.
Investors include Composite Capital, Gaingels, Kernel Capital, and Zelkova Ventures along with angels Walter Burr, Adam Press, Dan Porter, and Kevin Mahaffey. The investment will accelerate the company’s growth and expansion into new markets.
Despite the rising popularity of messaging apps, the fragmentation of multiple chat platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and WeChat, to name a few, brings tremendous integration challenges for customer service functions. Texting remains the most widely-used and easiest way for every consumer to communicate and now with Teckst, they can send two-way texts to businesses they often need to reach, such as airlines, cable providers and e-commerce retailers.
For today’s millennial generation, email is simply too slow, and both live-chats and phone calls remain inefficient. According to a recent Harris Poll, 77% of consumers aged 18 to 34 prefer texting over voice calling as a customer service channel. Text messages have a 98% open rate, while email has only a 20% open rate (source: CTIA). Furthermore, when responses can be texted, the cost can be as little as $0.25 per interaction, whereas a customer service call can cost between $6 to $12 (source: Forrester).
“Today’s empowered consumers are mobile, messaging-centric and fickle and they expect to interact with businesses instantly in the same manner as they connect with friends and family,” said Matt Tumbleson, CEO and Founder of Teckst. “Businesses can no longer afford to rely on outdated customer service ways and our customers love that Teckst is built to integrate with every CRM system.”
As the only service that integrates seamlessly with Desk.com, Help Scout, Oracle, Salesforce Service Cloud, SugarCRM, and Zendesk, Teckst reaches an audience of more than 6 billion mobile devices.
In just a few months since launching out of stealth mode, Teckst is generating strong demand from mid-market early adopters and enterprises including BarkBox, JackThreads, Luxe and Memebox. Fortune 1000s are turning to Teckst to transform customer engagement with fast, immediate, and conversational texts, while realizing significant time and cost savings.
“Texting is the optimal platform for customer service as it allows for service to happen when the customer wants it and on their terms,” said Teckst investor Jay Levy, Partner, Zelkova Ventures. “Teckst is leading the charge with its highly scalable platform that combines texting and automation, and we're excited to help the company accelerate its mission to enable businesses and consumers to communicate faster, more efficiently, and in more relevant ways.”
“Teckst makes it easy for companies to have two-way human to human conversations. Teckst’s clients are innovators paving the way for the future of customer service,” said Teckst investor David Beatty, Managing Director, Gaingels.
"Our audience is nearly 80% millennial men and over 50% of the time they are purchasing on mobile," said Jason Rosser, Director of Customer Service at JackThreads. "Teckst allows JackThreads to easily communicate with our guys the way they actually shop -- it's a total home-run for us."
“Providing high quality, effective and efficient customer service is our number one priority at Luxe,” said Stasa Zlatar, Director of Customer Delight at Luxe. “Teckst helps us to make the user experience easier and better in real-time, as well as allows us to better manage and respond to multiple enquiries at the same time.”
“Working with Teckst has been like having that partner on your school project who does all the work for you,” said Caroline Kil, Support Leader at Memebox. “All you have to do is tell them your ideas and they come to school the next day with the project all complete.”
About Teckst
Teckst is a first-to-market service that enables two-way text messaging for customer service teams. Teckst is embraced by mid-market early adopters and enterprises to modernize customer engagement and directly integrates with every CRM system. Teckst was founded by Seamless Creative Director, Matt Tumbleson and General Assembly Enterprise Leader, Ji Young Choi, and is headquartered in New York City.
Visit teckst.com for more information. Follow Teckst on Twitter, Crunchbase, Angel List, or check out the Teckst Blog.
Contact:
press(at)teckst(dot)com
Ray Yeung, Teckst, +1 (917) 294-5140, [email protected]
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