Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Thankful Raises $12 Million To Help Businesses Boost Their Customer Service Experience
Ted Mico created an automated customer service platform that works with companies like Crate & Barrel and subscription box service FabFitFun because he hated chat bots.
His three-year old company Thankful was born after his own experience waiting two weeks to hear back from customer service and throwing his phone in frustration across the room far too many times.
"When it comes to customer service, suddenly when you add technology you end up with some hideous chatbot experience," he said.
Ted Mico is Thankful's co-founder and CEO.
Thankful establishes customer relationships through their service platform routing and tagging help desk tickets. A Thankful AI "agent" fields customer queries via text or email. Mico said that Thankful can resolve up to 50% of all help desk tickets without a human.
Among the companies that use his service are MeUndies, makeup brand Morphe and sock-seller Bombas.
"In each one of our average lifetimes we will spend 43 days, dealing with customer service," Mico said. "All those customer queries we can solve without customer service people being involved, then they can be involved in other things and everybody gets better service."
The Venice-based company announced this week they raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Alpha Edison, a capital firm that invests in early-stage companies using AI, data and behavioral science. In addition, Bonfire, TenOneTen, Greycroft, Omega, and Miramar also invested in this round. The funds will be used to develop the product.
As more shopping is done online, more complaints and problems are being resolved through chat bots and other automated systems. It has swelled the ranks of the customer service industry. Thankful competes with other AI-driven companies including Bay Area competitors Netomi and Forethought.
Thankful charges a platform fee based on volume. Though Thankful is not profitable, there are over 50 brands using the platform.
Mico thinks customer service will be regarded as the most viable sales and marketing channel of the future. Despite many outlets like Yelp using the star rating system helping restaurants and businesses learn about customer's comments and complaints, it isn't quick enough. There's an expectation for immediacy which has been fueled by technology and was heightened by the pandemic.
"Customer service is usually the last thought for most companies and we think that within five years, it will be the first," Mico said. "If you actually think of customer service as the most important thing, that customer journey is sacrosanct."
Section 230 limits the liability of internet intermediaries, including social media companies, for the content users publish on their platforms.
"Mend it, don't end it," Sacks said.
Sacks said he's concerned about censorship in the wake of companies tightening moderation policies. In the case of Robinhood's recent decision to freeze users from trading certain stocks— including GameStop's — for a period of time, he said we're now seeing discussions about Big Tech's role in censorship unfold in nonpartisan settings.
"Who has the power to make these decisions?" he said. "What concerns me today is that Big Tech has all the power."
Social media sites including Twitter pulled down former President Trump's account after last month's attack on the U.S. Capitol. But critics have said that these sites didn't go far enough in stopping conversations that provoked the violence.
To provide some external standard, he called for the "reestablishment of some First Amendment rights in this new digital public square" — which is to say, on privately owned platforms.
Newby pointed to a series of recent bills aimed at reigning in the power of tech companies. Changes to moderation laws could have sweeping impacts on more companies than giants like Facebook or Twitter.
"It's going to have a huge stifling effect on innovation," said Klungness, referring to a possible drop in venture capital to new startups. "Some business models may be just simply too risky or may be impractical because they require real-time moderation of content."
And if companies are liable for how their users behave, Klungness said, some companies may never take the risk in launching these companies at all. "Some business models may be just simply too risky or may be impractical because they require real-time moderation of content," he said.
Watch the full discussion below.
Strategy Session: The Future of Content Moderation Online
David Sacks, Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
David Sacks, Co-Founder and General Partner of Craft Ventures
David Sacks is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful tech entrepreneur and investor for two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies of the last 20 years. David has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, Airbnb, Bird, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, Opendoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter and Uber.
In December 2014, Sacks made a major investment in Zenefits and became the company's COO. A year later, in the midst of a regulatory crisis, the Board asked David to step in as interim CEO of Zenefits. During his one year tenure, David negotiated resolutions with insurance regulators across the country, and revamped Zenefits' product line. By the time he left, regulators had praised David for "righting the ship", and PC Magazine hailed the new product as the best small business HR system.
David is well known in Silicon Valley for his product acumen. AngelList's Naval Ravikant has called David "the world's best product strategist." David likes to begin any meeting with a new startup by seeing a product demo.
Kelly O'Grady, Chief Correspondent & Host and Head of Video at dot.LA
Kelly O'Grady is dot.LA's chief host & correspondent. Kelly serves as dot.LA's on-air talent, and is responsible for designing and executing all video efforts. A former management consultant for McKinsey, and TV reporter for NESN, she also served on Disney's Corporate Strategy team, focusing on M&A and the company's direct-to-consumer streaming efforts. Kelly holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. A Boston native, Kelly spent a year as Miss Massachusetts USA, and can be found supporting her beloved Patriots every Sunday come football season.
Tyler Newby is a partner at Fenwick
Tyler Newby, Partner at Fenwick
Tyler focuses his practice on privacy and data security litigation, counseling and investigations, as well as intellectual property and commercial disputes affecting high technology and consumer-facing companies. Tyler has an active practice in defending companies in consumer class actions, state attorney general investigations and federal regulatory agency investigations arising out of privacy and data security incidents. In addition to his litigation practice, Tyler regularly advises companies large and small on reducing their litigation risk on privacy, data security and secondary liability issues. Tyler frequently counsels companies on compliance issues relating to key federal regulations such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA), Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
In 2014, Tyler was named among the top privacy attorneys in the United States under the age of 40 by Law360. He currently serves as a Chair of the American Bar Association Litigation Section's Privacy & Data Security Committee, and was recently appointed to the ABA's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force. Tyler is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and has received the CIPP/US certification.
Andrew Klungness is a partner at Fenwick
Andrew Klungness, Partner at Fenwick
Leveraging nearly two decades of business and legal experience, Andrew navigates clients—at all stages of their lifecycles—through the opportunities and risks presented by novel and complex transactions and business models.
Andrew is a co-chair of Fenwick's consumer technologies and retail and digital media and entertainment industry teams, as well as a principal member of its fintech group. He works with clients in a number of verticals, including ecommerce, consumer tech, fintech, enterprise software, blockchain, marketplaces, CPG, mobile, AI, social media, games and edtech, among others.
Andrew leads significant and complex strategic alliances, joint ventures and other collaboration and partnering arrangements, which are often driven by a combination of technological innovation, industry disruption and rights to content, brands or celebrity personas. He also structures and negotiates a wide range of agreements and transactions, including licensing, technology sourcing, manufacturing and supply, channel partnerships and marketing agreements. Additionally, Andrew counsels clients in various intellectual property, technology and contract issues in financing, M&A and other corporate transactions.
Sam Adams, Co-Founder and CEO of dot.LA
Sam Adams, Co-Founder and CEO of dot.LA
Sam Adams serves as chief executive of dot.LA. A former financial journalist for Bloomberg and Reuters, Adams moved to the business side of media as a strategy consultant at Activate, helping legacy companies develop new digital strategies. Adams holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard College and an MBA from the University of Southern California. A Santa Monica native, he can most often be found at Bay Cities deli with a Godmother sub or at McCabe's with a 12-string guitar. His favorite colors are Dodger blue and Lakers gold.
From Your Site Articles
- Lawmakers Take Aim at Algorithms 'at Odds with Democracy' - dot.LA ›
- How Trump's Order Could Impact The Fates of Snap, TikTok and ... ›
- How Social Media Moderation Might Be Legislated - dot.LA ›
- Counterpart Rakes in $10M to Help Insure Small Businesses - dot.LA ›
- Facebook, Google Execs Admit No Blame For Capitol Attack - dot.LA ›
- Event: Startup Coil Presents Clean Crypto - dot.LA ›
- Imgur's Plans to Get Rid of All NSFW Content - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
http://www.linkedin.com/in/annieburford
annie@dot.la