Hello Customer, the online platform that helps companies collect and analyse customer feedback using artificial intelligence, wants to break through in Europe in the coming years. The young SME from Ghent has raised over 2 million euros from a number of well-known funds and private investors. The founders of Showpad, among others, are now participating in the scale-up.
Hello Customer was founded in 2015 by Leslie Cottenjé, Joeri Pansaerts and Bram De Vos. They built a Software-as-a-Service platform that enables large companies to map the experience and expectations of their customers, automatically distil insights from them and then optimize the customer experience.
Today Hello Customer is mainly used by financial and retail companies in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Customers in their own country include established companies such as FNG Group, Lunch Garden and JBC. The company has grown steadily over the past three years, with the support of investor Wim Vanhaelemeesch and directors Rik Vera and Steven Van Belleghem.
The team behind the Ghent-based Scale-up has continued to perfect the artificial intelligence of its platform in recent years. The software automatically analyses customer feedback, giving companies a clear view of what customers are doing in real time. "After three years of research, our AI understands all Romance and Germanic languages and its accuracy has risen up to 95%,” says CEO Leslie Cottenjé. "Now that our technology is up and running, we can expand across Europe.”
"Our artificial intelligence understands all Romance and Germanic languages and its accuracy has risen up to 95%. With our technology up and running we're ready to expand across Europe!"
- Leslie Cottenjé, CEO Hello Customer
To make this possible they organized a new investment round in which many well-known names confirmed their belief in Hello Customer. In addition to Dovesco - the fund of Domo brothers Anthony and Gregory De Clerck – other investors are Louis Jonckheere, Pieterjan Bouten and Peter Minne of Showpad, Seeder Fund, the Belgian Customer Centricity entrepreneur Steven Van Belleghem and a group of prominent business angels.
"Artificial intelligence is an excellent tool to translate customer feedback into concrete insights and thus influence the culture of companies," says Louis Jonckheere of Showpad. "We have seen many great developments and are really impressed by the technologically superior product Hello Customer offers. That's why we decided to join this investment round.”
The new investors believe that within two years Hello Customer can move up to the European top. "Customer experience is what keeps companies awake at night. Hello Customer responds to their need to understand customers better,” says Anthony De Clerck. "The fact that Hello Customer continues to build its platform to help close the gap between companies and customers with additional services, makes us believe in their growth potential.”
"We have seen many great developments and are really impressed by the technologically superior product Hello Customer offers, that's why we joined the investment round."
- Louis Jonckheere, Showpad, Investor
In addition to international expansion the 2 million euro investment will also be used for further product development, in order to understand customers even faster and better. CEO Leslie Cottenjé: "We have always started from an individual customer feedback survey, but we want to further expand our platform to communicate with customers at all possible times: in-store, through customer service emails and on social media. Each moment of contact with the customer can provide useful insights.”
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