Call center intelligence startup Z21 Labs Inc., which does business as Observe.ai, said today it’s bringing its expertise to omnichannel conversations after acquiring a company called ScopeAI.

Observe AI sells a call center platform that aims to assist human operators and make them better at tasks such as customer service. It uses artificial intelligence-based natural language processing technology to analyze conversations between operators and customers.

It also transcribes each call and performs sentiment analysis to try to determine customer satisfaction. Further, the software attempts to draw correlations between the words and actions of an agent and a customer’s happiness.

The idea is that by doing this, companies can use the insights to train their call center staff better and improve the customer call experience. For example, the best-performing call center agents can be used as benchmarks to determine what works, and this information can then be used to train new or underperforming staff.

Observe.ai’s platform can also detect what the company calls “dead air,” or gaps in the conversation, and try to figure out where the agent may have knowledge gaps that caused this silence. Interestingly, the software can even differentiate between different kinds of silence, so if an agent puts a caller on hold, it will know that person has just come up short on a question.

The acquisition of ScopeAI means Observe.AI will be able to offer similar capabilities for chat and text-based customer support channels, the company explained today. Not only will it be able to gauge customer sentiment in each chat, but also use the feedback to create purpose-built workflows for quality assurance and agent performance.

Observe.AI, which last September raised $54 million in Series B funding, said the acquisition of ScopeAI is well-timed because text-based customer support channels are increasingly gaining popularity. Moreover, most contact centers are looking to embrace the idea of digital omnichannel support services because web chat capabilities are as much as 17% to 30% cheaper than a phone call, with faster resolution times, according to data from Forrester Research Inc.

The company said it’s acquiring ScopeAI’s proprietary technology and integrations as well as key product and engineering staff. ScopeAI Chief Executive Natalie Abeysena will join Observe.AI to head up Omnichannel product development.

Observe.AI founder and CEO Swapnil Jain said the company’s expansion into omnichannel support aligns with its mission of helping contact center staff achieve unprecedented levels of productivity. By giving 100% visibility into customer conversations, we can turn every interaction into a business-improving insight,” he said.

The company said it will launch its new omnichannel services in the fall starting with web chat services and later with email support.

“I’ve always believed the value of interaction analytics and conversation intelligence should extend across the entire contact center,” Abeysenya said. “By joining Observe.AI, we can now together realize that vision and offer a leading omnichannel product to customers.”

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