Though best known for its networking and data center gear, Cisco Systems Inc. is also a major player in the contact center technology business. The company’s products support more than 3 million customer service agents worldwide, a market presence it hopes to further strengthen with the newly announced purchase of Customer Analytics Technologies Inc., better known as CloudCherry.

Cisco didn’t disclose financial terms in the acquisition announcement today. CloudCherry is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based startup whose software helps brands find ways of improving the customer experience they provide for buyers. 

CloudCherry’s platform enables companies to collect user feedback through means such as website surveys, SMS text messages and emails. The algorithms under the hood then blend this input with related data like purchase records to generate a visualization of customer activity. CloudCherry’s graphs show every major step a user takes from their initial interaction with a brand all the way to the final purchase.

Taking the concept a step further, the startup also equipped its platform with the ability to highlight areas for improvement. CloudCherry recommends actions such improving store ambiance that companies can take to boost the customer experience. Its algorithms can also generate a projection about the revenue impact of such changes. 

Cisco will bake CloudCherry into its portfolio of contact center software. The company’s plan is to harness the platform’s analytics features to help customer service representatives interact with buyers more proactively. 

“Predictive analytics help agents make journey modifications in real-time, such as upselling and cross-selling and enabling discounting or offering coupons to meet customer needs during the interaction,“ Vasili Triant, the head of Cisco’s Customer Journey Solutions group, wrote in a blog post.

The acquisition comes less than three weeks after Cisco bought Voicea Inc., a startup that developed a voice assistant for business meetings. Both Voicea and CloudCherry had taken funding from Cisco’s venture capital arm prior to being acquired. CloudCherry raised a total of $16 million over two rounds that also saw the participation of other investors such as Microsoft Corp.

Cisco expects to close the acquisition by the end of the year. The CloudCherry team will join the company’s Contact Center Solutions business after the transaction goes through. 

Photo: Cisco