Gladly Software Inc., the provider of a customer service software as a service platform, announced today that it has closed a $36 million Series C investment round led by GGV Capital.

According to Gladly, consumers have come to expect a lot from their customer service, and the old ticket-based service model can no longer cut it in today’s social media-obsessed world.

“Consumers have reasonable expectations for customer service but those expectations aren’t consistently being met by the companies they talk to,” Gladly Chief Executive and co-founder Joseph Ansanelli (pictured, right, with cofounders Michael Wolfe, left, and Dirk Kessler) wrote in a blog post announcing the funding.

“While there are undoubtedly sparks of exceptional customer service, it’s the consistency that’s lacking,” he explained. “When customers start to have multiple conversations that span different customer service agents and different communication channels, that’s when the breakdown seems to happen. But it’s not companies or the agents’ fault, it’s the technology that hasn’t kept up.”

Ansanelli says that the average consumer uses three different channels to reach customer service, including social media and web chat, and most users expect companies to know about their previous interactions even if they switch channels in the middle of a conversation. Gladly’s solution is to provide a unified communications platform that organizes interactions by customer rather than by ticket number or by case. According to Ansanelli, this personalized attention will help companies retain more customers.

“Our focus is to enable companies to have empathetic conversations between people,” Ansanelli said. “Because when it comes down to it, exceptional customer service is about people talking to people across a lifetime of conversations.”

Gladly says that it will use its new funding to further scale up its business, expand its sales efforts. Ansanelli also said that Gladly has “gained a strategic partner in GGV Capital.”

Glady was incubated in 2015 at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock Partners, where Ansanelli remains a partner at Greylock and sits on the firm’s board of directors. The company’s new funding round brings its total funding to date to $63 million. It included contributions from Greylock and New Enterprise Associates.

Photo: Gladly