Top MarTech News From the Week of August 4th: Updates from Thryv, Salesforce, Qualtrics, and More

The editors at Solutions Review have curated this list of the most noteworthy MarTech news from the week of August 4th. This round-up covers announcements and updates from companies like Salesforce, Customer.io, Optimove, and more.

Keeping tabs on the most relevant CRM and MarTech news can be time-consuming. As a result, our editorial team aims to summarize the week’s top headlines in the marketing technology landscape. The Solutions Review editors will compile a weekly round-up of vendor product news, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding, talent acquisition, and other noteworthy MarTech news. With that in mind, here is some of the top MarTech news from August 4th.

Top MarTech News From the Week of August 4th, 2023

Freshworks Releases an AI-Powered Customer Service Suite

Freshworks has launched an AI-powered Customer Service Suite that combines self-service bots, automated ticketing management, and agent-led conversational messaging tools in a single solution. The suite brings together Freshchat, Freshdesk, and the company’s generative AI technology, Freddy AI, to help companies of all sizes automate and personalize self-service across channels, maximize agent productivity, improve internal collaboration, and leverage actionable insights in decision-making.

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Khoros Releases an Updated Version of the Khoros Communities Solution

Khoros, a customer engagement software provider, has announced the newest version of its Khoros Communities solution. The updated solution will help enterprises build brand-owned “destinations” where their customers can engage, collaborate, and educate each other on products, services, and experiences. Khoros Communities will provide users with drag-and-drop design tools, actionable insights, advanced community moderation features, user experience enhancements, and a more open, flexible platform architecture.

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Language I/O Raises $8 Million in a Funding Round

Language I/O, a real-time translation technology platform, has raised $8 million in a Series A1 funding round led by Joint Effects, a VC firm in Boston, MA. The largest investor in the funding round was Wyoming Business Council’s Wyoming Venture Capital (WYVC) Fund, with additional participation provided by Gutbrain Ventures, PBJ Capital, and Omega Venture Partners. Language I/O will use the funds to expand its machine-learning team and capabilities to eventually generate language-specific LLM-powered chatbots.

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Pipedrive Appoints a New Chief Information Officer

Pipedrive, a sales CRM solution for small businesses, has appointed Dr. Andrea C. Johnson as its Chief Information Officer. In the role, Dr. Johnson will support Pipedrive’s digital transformation initiatives and global growth strategy. Before joining Pipedrive, Dr. Johnson was the VP of Global Business Systems at Workhuman. She also has nearly twenty years of experience working with organizations worldwide as an independent technology consultant.

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Qualtrics Announces the General Availability of its Digital Experience Analytics Solution

Qualtrics, an experience management solution provider, has announced the general availability of Digital Experience Analytics (DXA), a solution designed to help organizations create visual replays of customer behavior. The new offering uses Qualtrics’ AI technology to identify relevant session replays, track frustration signals, and enable businesses to improve customer experiences quickly. Digital Experience Analytics (DXA) also has built-in privacy controls to ensure companies comply with data privacy regulations.

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Salesforce Launches a CRM Suite for Small Businesses

Salesforce has announced the general availability of Starter, an all-in-one CRM application for small and growing businesses. Salesforce Starter brings sales, marketing, and service capabilities together on a single platform so companies can improve how they manage customer relationships, centralize data, and grow their brand. Specific features include guided onboarding, built-in AI, reporting templates, unified customer data, pre-built dashboards, and more. The solution is available today, with marketing capabilities becoming generally available later this month.

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Salesforce Reveals Details on Slack Sales Elevate

Salesforce also announced the general availability of Slack Sales Elevate, which integrates Slack with the Sales Cloud suite to provide users with a personalized, centralized location for sales teams to manage information, processes, and tasks. Slack Sales Elevate is built on Slack’s platform and is powered by each company’s Salesforce data, allowing sellers to update pipelines, see real-time data, and respond to notifications directly in Slack. It is available now to companies with Slack Business+ plans or above, alongside the Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Sales Cloud products.

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Thryv Expands its Solution Suite with New Offerings

Thryv, a software platform provider for small and medium-sized businesses, has revealed details on the beta program for Thryv Command Center, a central communications hub designed to simplify how SMBs communicate with customers. The Thryv Command Center is a “forever-free,” customizable solution that acts as a centralized inbox that combines multiple communication channels (i.e., email, text, phone, video, etc.) into a single conversation. Thryv also launched an enhanced version of the Thryv Marketplace and a new, lightweight version of its Website Builder App.

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Expert Insights Section

Watch this space each week as the Solutions Review editors will use it to share new articles from the Contributed Content Series, Contributed Shorts videos, Expert Roundtable videos, event replays, and other curated content to help you gain a forward-thinking analysis and remain on-trend with changing industry expectations. All to meet the demand for what its editors do best: bring industry experts together to publish the web’s leading insights for enterprise technology practitioners.

How Accurate CRM Data Can Increase Sales Productivity, by Jesse Daily of People.ai

As part of Solutions Review’s Contributed Content Series, Jesse Daily, the SVP of Customer Success and Solution Engineering at People.ai, explains why accurate CRM data can help companies improve sales productivity. The article explains why we get bad CRM data, how automation can help resolve the issue, and why pipeline building is essential in maintaining sales productivity.

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Improve Your Sales by Learning to Identify and Appeal to Any Customer, by Paul Bramson of The Paul Bramson Companies

As part of Solutions Review’s Contributed Content Series, Paul Bramson, the CEO of The Paul Bramson Companies, outlines how companies can improve sales by identifying and appealing to their customers. In the article, he discusses the value of understanding your customers, building awareness of their needs, developing authentic customer relationships, and communicating successfully.

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How Automation Can Improve the Guest Experience, by Richard Castle of Cloudbeds

As part of Solutions Review’s Contributed Content Series, Richard Castle, the COO and co-founder of Cloudbeds, explains how automation can help hotels improve the guest experience they offer. Castle outlines two ways hoteliers can use automation: one approach for improving the experience of guests who want a “high-touch” experience and one for guests who wish for the opposite.

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For consideration in future news round-ups, send your announcements to wjepma@solutionsreview.com.