Text (company)

Last updated
Text
Company type Public
WSE:  TXT
WIG30 Component
ISIN PLLVTSF00010
Industry Software
Founded Wrocław, Poland 2002;22 years ago (2002)
Headquarters,
Number of locations
2 offices (2024)
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Mariusz Cieply (CEO)
  • Urszula Jarzebowska (CFO)
  • Szymon Klimczak (CMO)
  • Bartosz Olchowka (CTO)
  • Piotr Bednarek (CCO)
  • Maciej Malesa (CIO) [1]
Products ChatBot, HelpDesk, Knowledge Base, LiveChat, OpenWidget
Services
Revenue
  • Increase2.svg 223 million zł (2022) [2]
  • 179 million zł (2021) [2]
  • Increase2.svg 119 million zł (2022) [2]
  • 100 million zł (2021) [2]
Number of employees
268 [3]
Subsidiaries
  • Text, Inc.
Website text.com

Text (formerly LiveChat Software, WSE: TXT) [4] is a customer service software company. [5] It provides programmable tools for making B2B and B2C communication functions using its web service APIs. [6] It is also making software as a service products related to artificial intelligence, customer support, e-commerce, and lead generation. [7]

Contents

The company was founded in Wroclaw, Poland in 2002, and it also has US offices in Boston, Massachusetts. Since 2014 it is publicly traded on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. [8] In 2023 the company has officially changed its name to Text. [9]

It serves more than 28,000 paid customers [10] in over 150 countries, [11] [12] including Adobe, AirAsia, Best Buy, Better Business Bureau, ING, Huawei, Orange, and PayPal. [13] [14] [15]

History

Founded in 2002 as LiveChat Sp. z o.o. (LLC) in Wrocław, Poland, since October 2007 it has run as a stock company.

In October 2006, 50% of the company stock was bought by Capital Partners S.A., an investment and consulting firm publicly listed at the Warsaw Stock Exchange. In February 2008 Capital Partners S.A. decided to follow its strategy of having fewer companies but larger individual transactions and sold its entire stake [16] along with another 13% of company stock to another publicly listed company, Gadu-Gadu S.A. [17] This way LiveChat Software became another Polish company in Naspers capital group, joining Gadu-Gadu and Allegro.pl. [18]

In January 2011, the management team sought to get back a controlling equity stake in the company and started a management buyout. After Naspers agreed in June 2011 to sell its entire stake, the founders teamed up with private equity firm Tar Heel Capital to finalize the buyout of the 60% stake. After the transaction was completed in September 2011, the founders own 60% of the stake, while Tar Heel Capital owns 40% of the company. [13] [14]

LiveChat Software has been introduced to the Warsaw Stock Exchange in April 2014 with the symbol LVC. [19]

Products

LiveChat

LiveChat is the main product sold by the company. It is a live support software and help desk software used by companies to provide real-time communication with customers using different communication channels: online chat on the website and inside mobile applications, email, and social media (such as Facebook Messenger and Twitter).

LiveChat Software owns the technology it uses in the product, however, in areas unrelated directly to chat, the company relies on 3rd party services. Technology partners include Elastic for search and analytics engine, [20] Postmark for delivery of transactional emails, [21] Recurly for subscription billing, [22] and Pingdom for performance monitoring and uptime tracking. [23]

In the software market, the company cooperates with such companies as Microsoft, MySQL AB, [24] Intel, and Red Hat. [25]

ChatBot

ChatBot is the second product sold by the company. It was initially launched and developed as BotEngine and was rebranded to ChatBot in November 2018. [26] It is an artificial intelligence-based bot platform. It creates intelligent chatbots to communicate with customers in messaging apps, such as Messenger and Slack. It integrates with LiveChat. [11] [27] Other features include rich messages, an intelligent matching system, an entity system (that allow to validate and save user input), and an open API. [28]

HelpDesk

HelpDesk is the third product sold by the company. It is a system for tracking, prioritizing, and resolving customer support tickets. Customers can leave messages for companies by using dedicated email addresses. Team members can create tickets if customer queries came from other communication channels, such as LiveChat, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or a phone call. [29]

All inquiries are collected as tickets and assigned the appropriate statuses and categories within the application. The application stores customer profiles and the history of their previous messages. [29] [30] [31]

Knowledge Base

Knowledge Base is a tool that builds a self-service help center. It can be used both as an internal database for agents and an external public help center for customers. [32] The internal widget is equipped with AI support that suggests articles to answer customer queries. [33]

OpenWidget

OpenWidget is a free website widget and plugin software. [34] It was launched in November 2022. [35] [36] It allows to add functionality to an existing website using one of the pre-defined apps, such as contact and feedback forms, product reviews and recommendations, and frequently asked questions templates. [37] Such widget integrates with ecommerce platforms, [36] such as Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, [37] and website builders, such as WordPress. [38] The authors claim "using AI for ecommerce personalization" to be their mission. [39]

Past products

Products offered in the past, but currently discontinued are GG Pro (which was a corporate instant messenger) and Chat Server, which was a chat software for moderated chat rooms. Besides developing and selling communication solutions, from 20042010 LiveChat Software was the owner of one of the first Polish online chat portals POLChat.

Another product offered by the company was chat.io. It was a chat widget for websites, apps, and social messaging with message sneak peeks, agent ratings, and chat routing. It allowed integrations with multiple communication channels, like Facebook Messenger. It was a chat platform for developers who like to customize products for their needs. The chat.io platform provided APIs to allow developers to build features atop the current offering. [40] The product has been discontinued and became a part of LiveChat. [41] [42]

Awards

In October 2007 LiveChat (formerly LIVECHAT Contact Center) was listed among the top Customer Support and Feedback applications in the Inside CRM report [43] recommended by Guy Kawasaki. [44]

In 2011 Deloitte listed LiveChat Software as one of the fastest-growing Central European technology companies in the pDeloitte Technology Fast 50 program the company was selected for the 2011 award based on its 545% revenue growth over the previous five years (2005–2010). [45] In 2012 the company was listed 18th in the same ranking, based on its 830% revenue growth. [46]

In 2013 the company has been listed by Red Herring in the group of the most innovative companies from across Europe. [47] It has been recognized by Deloitte in its annual Technology Fast 50 program and listed 18th with 624% revenue growth. [48]

In 2015, during the Private Equity Forum & Awards Gala organized by the Executive Club with the support of the Polish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, LiveChat Software has been awarded “Private Equity Diamonds in the category Portfolio company (small cap). [49] Later that year, LiveChat Software was shortlisted for the European Small and Mid-Cap Awards organized by EuropeanIssuers, FESE, and the European Commission. One of three companies entered for the awards by Warsaw Stock Exchange, LiveChat was among the only CEE companies to be shortlisted. [50] [51]

Corporate social responsibility

The company has supported organizations during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, by offering its services for free to non-profits and for-profits helping towards the Covid-19 cause. [52]

It also has a long history of supporting the customer service community and individuals working in that space with tools that help with their development. One of the examples is Typing Speed Test a free tool that works as an online speed typing contest. It is used to improve the efficiency and accuracy of typing skills (measured in words per minute). The number of tests taken with the tool already exceeds tens of millions. [53] Another example is Customer Service Training a free customer experience training for agents and customer service professionals. [54]

In 2022 the company supported nonprofit organisation, Tech to the Rescue, [55] [56] by conducting several low bono and pro bono projects. [57] One of them was a product integration between sign language platform Migam.org, and the LiveChat application. [58]

See also

Related Research Articles

ICQ New was a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I Seek You". Originally developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996, the client was bought by AOL in 1998, and then by Mail.Ru Group in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chatbot</span> Program that simulates conversation

A chatbot is a software application or web interface that is designed to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions. Modern chatbots are typically online and use generative artificial intelligence systems that are capable of maintaining a conversation with a user in natural language and simulating the way a human would behave as a conversational partner. Such chatbots often use deep learning and natural language processing, but simpler chatbots have existed for decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Customer service</span> Provision of service to customers

Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company through phone, online chat, and e-mail to those who buy or use its products or services. Each industry requires different levels of customer service, but towards the end, the idea of a well-performed service is that of increasing revenues. The perception of success of the customer service interactions is dependent on employees "who can adjust themselves to the personality of the customer". Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm. Good quality customer service is usually measured through customer retention.

An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet bot plays the client role in a client–server model whereas the server role is usually played by web servers. Internet bots are able to perform simple and repetitive tasks much faster than a person could ever do. The most extensive use of bots is for web crawling, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes and files information from web servers. More than half of all web traffic is generated by bots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NICE Ltd.</span> Surveillance and data analytics company in Israel

NICE Ltd. is an Israeli technology company specializing in customer relations management software, artificial intelligence, and digital and workforce engagement management. The company serves various industries, such as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, outsourcers, retail, media, travel, service providers, and utilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salesforce</span> American software company

Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RightNow Technologies</span> Software company

Oracle RightNow is a customer relationship management (CRM) software service for enterprise organizations which is part of Oracle Service. It was originally developed by RightNow Technologies, Inc., which was acquired by Oracle Corporation in 2011 in a $1.8 billion deal.

Verint Systems Inc. is a Melville, New York–based technology company that sells products and services for customer experience (CX) automation. The company offers an open platform, applications, and bots that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, large language models, and automated workflows to analyze business intelligence from customer interactions in the contact center, back office, branch, web sites, and mobile apps. This information is used by organizations to achieve a variety of business outcomes, such as increasing productivity and service quality without hiring additional workers, lowering costs, improving the customer experience, and enhancing products, services, and competitive differentiation.

Traction TeamPage is a proprietary enterprise 2.0 social software product developed by Traction Software Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impulse (software)</span> Defunct video game distribution platform (2008-14)

Impulse was a digital distribution and multiplayer platform. Originally developed by Stardock to succeed Stardock Central, it was purchased by GameStop in March 2011, and was subsequently rebranded as GameStop PC Downloads, with the client being renamed GameStop App. The client was discontinued in April 2014.

LiveChat is an online customer service software with online chat, help desk software, and web analytics capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zendesk</span> American customer service software company

Zendesk, Inc. is a Danish-American company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides software-as-a-service products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007. Zendesk raised about $86 million in venture capital investments before going public in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naspers</span> Multinational holding and investment company

Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers' principal shareholder is its Dutch listed investment subsidiary Prosus, which owns approximately 49% of its parent as part of a cross ownership structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kriti Sharma</span> Artificial intelligence technologist, business executive and humanitarian

Kriti Sharma is an artificial intelligence technologist, business executive and humanitarian. As of 2018, she is the vice president of artificial intelligence and ethics at UK software company Sage Group. Sharma is the founder of AI for Good UK, which works to make artificial intelligence tools more ethical and equitable. Sharma has been named to Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 Europe: Technology list, and appointed as a United Nations Young Leader. In 2018, she was appointed as an advisor to the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Sharma's initiatives include Pegg, an accounting chatbot, and rAInbow, a platform to support survivors of domestic violence. She has called for a philosophy of "embracing botness", arguing that artificial intelligence should prioritize utility over human resemblance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haptik</span> Indian enterprise conversational AI platform

Haptik is an Indian enterprise conversational AI platform founded in August 2013, and acquired by Reliance Industries Limited in 2019. The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text. The company has been accorded numerous accolades including the Frost & Sullivan Award, NASSCOM's Al Game Changer Award, and serves Fortune 500 brands globally in industries such as financial, insurance, healthcare, technology and communications.

Conversational commerce is e-commerce done via various means of conversation and using technology such as: speech recognition, speaker recognition, natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

Netguru is a Polish software development and software consultancy company founded in 2008. Headquartered in Poznań, Poland, it's a globally operating business, with local offices including Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Gdańsk and Białystok. It provides software design and product design, both for early-stage startups and corporations.

A software bot is a type of software agent in the service of software project management and software engineering. A software bot has an identity and potentially personified aspects in order to serve their stakeholders. Software bots often compose software services and provide an alternative user interface, which is sometimes, but not necessarily conversational.

ChatBot is a software platform for creating chatbots for business use released in August 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow.ai</span> Yellow.ai is a company in San Mateo, California that focuses on customer service automation

Yellow.ai, formerly Yellow Messenger, is a multinational company headquartered in San Mateo, California focused on customer service automation. It was founded in 2016 and provides an AI platform for automating customer support experiences across chat and voice. The platform supports more than 135 languages across more than 35 channels.

References

  1. "Key People at LiveChat Software". WSJ.COM. 2016-08-19. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "LIVECHAT SOFTWARE SA : Financial Data Forecasts Estimates and Expectations". MarketScreener. 2023-05-31. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  3. LiveChat Software Investor Relations (2022-06-30). "LiveChat Software's revenues increased by 24.3% and net profit increased by 18.8% in the financial year" (PDF). investor.livechat.com. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  4. "Google Finance". 2024-05-15.
  5. "Text - Company profile & facts". Yahoo! Finance . Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  6. "Text Platform | Chat framework for innovative teams". Text Platform. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  7. "Text S.A.: Shareholders Board Members Managers and Company Profile | PLLVTSF00010 | MarketScreener". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  8. "Company factsheet". Warsaw Stock Exchange . 2014-04-11. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  9. Distefano, Noemi (2023-09-11). "How to manage investor communications during a corporate rebranding". IR Magazine. Retrieved 2024-05-15.
  10. "StockWatch: Asseco BS Q2 results; Quercus TFI Aum; LiveChat clients; Lotos fuel H1 report". biznes.pap.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2019-08-04.
  11. 1 2 Guta, Michael (2017-10-03). "LiveChat Teams with BotEngine to Make You Available to Customers – Anytime". SmallBizTrends. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  12. "Livechat Software No. Of Clients Using Paid Version Of Livechat Up At 25,398 As Of Oct. 1". Reuters. 2018-10-02. Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  13. 1 2 Wauters, Robin (2011-10-24). "LiveChat Founders Buy Out Investor Naspers, Regain 60% Stake". TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
  14. 1 2 Tolentino, Mellisa (2011-10-25). "LiveChat Completes Management Buy-Out, Now 60% Employee Owned". SiliconANGLE. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
  15. Carr, David F. (2011-08-10). "Customer Support Gets Personal With Facebook Connection". InformationWeek. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
  16. "Warsaw Voice - Capital Partners Plans New Floats". 2008-02-20.
  17. "4.00M for LiveChat Software S.A." 2008-02-02.[ dead link ]
  18. "Gadu-Gadu invests in LiveChat Software". 2008-02-02.
  19. "Stock Card - LiveChat LVC". 2014-04-12.
  20. LiveChat case study helped Elastic.co, Retrieved 2016-08-19.
  21. Postmark helped LiveChat scale to 10,000 customers Postmark, Retrieved 2015-12-30.
  22. LiveChat more than doubles its subscribers in 18 months with the help of Recurly. Recurly, Retrieved 2015-12-30.
  23. How LiveChat uses Pingdom. Pingdom, Retrieved 2015-12-30.
  24. "LiveChat Software listed at MySQL AB Partners & Solutions". Archived from the original on 2008-06-15. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  25. "Red Hat Software Catalog Application Profile".
  26. Del Rowe, Sam (2017-11-27). "LiveChat Launches New Chatbot Capabilities". Smart Customer Service. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  27. "LiveChat aiming at true AI with BotEngine launch".
  28. Jurczyk, Luiza (14 May 2019). "ChatBot evolution. How our small platform developed into a comprehensive chatbot solution". Chatbots Magazine. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  29. 1 2 "LiveChat Launches HelpDesk Online Ticketing System". Smart Customer Service. 2019-05-15. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  30. Ueland, Sig (16 May 2019). "Ecommerce Product Releases: May 16, 2019". Practical Ecommerce. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  31. "LiveChat extends its product portfolio by launching HelpDesk, an online ticketing system". CustomerThink. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  32. "LiveChat – wszyscy tak samo ważni". wroclife.pl. 12 April 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  33. Pliszka, Matt. "Knowledge Base - Smart knowledge base to support your customers and agents". Product Hunt. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  34. Heggie-Collins, Sam (2022-11-15). "OpenWidget by LiveChat Software will help e-commerce businesses during the upcoming peak season". Directors Club News. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  35. Bilinska, Patrycja (2022-11-16). "LiveChat Launches a Standalone Contact Widget". Multichannel Merchant. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  36. 1 2 "LiveChat Launches OpenWidget". www.destinationcrm.com. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  37. 1 2 Ueland, Sig (2022-11-15). "Ecommerce Product Releases: November 15, 2022". Practical Ecommerce. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  38. Suleman, Mohammad (2022-12-01). "Free Website Widget to Add FAQ, Popular Product, Contact in One Place". I Love Free Software. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  39. "Our take on AI revolutionizing ecommerce personalization". openwidget.com. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  40. Sachdeva, Anmol (2017-10-14). "Top 10 Intercom Alternatives You Can Use". Beebom. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
  41. Bilinska, Patrycja (2019-04-10). "Chat.io Becomes LiveChat – All You Should Know". LiveChat Blog. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  42. Brooks, David (2018-06-12). "Can You Do Top-of-Funnel Marketing Automation Without CRM?". Business2Community. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  43. "The Web Entrepreneur's Customer Service Toolbox: 100 Hacks and Resources". 2007-10-24. Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  44. Kawasaki, Guy (2007-10-25). "A Night in the Life of Guy Kawasaki Plus Cool Stuff Friday". How to Change the World. Archived from the original on 2007-10-27. Retrieved 2008-02-25. This is a compilation of useful tools and services to maintain a high-level of customer service. These tools help you keep in touch, run meetings, do accounting, provide support, and solicit feedback.
  45. "2011 Deloitte technology Fast 50 in Central Europe". Deloitte . Retrieved 17 January 2012.
  46. "2012 Deloitte technology Fast 50 in Central Europe". Deloitte . Retrieved 13 March 2013.
  47. "2013 Red Herring Europe Finalists". Red Herring . Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  48. "2013 Deloitte technology Fast 50 in Central Europe" (PDF). Deloitte . Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  49. "Winners of V edition". Executive Club. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  50. "Three GPW-Listed Polish Companies Shortlisted For The European Small And Mid-Cap Awards". Mondo Visione. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  51. "European Small and Mid-Cap Awards 2015". The Federation of European Securities Exchanges. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  52. Lewin, Amy; Bilboe, Connor. "How startups are supporting Europe's coronavirus efforts". Sifted by Financial Times . Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  53. "Typing Speed Test - Global Scores". LiveChat . Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  54. Walters, Jeannie (25 March 2020). "What makes a great online CX training course - and what are the best free/cheap ones?". MyCustomer. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  55. Domaradzki, Krzysztof. "Tech To The Rescue otrzymał pół miliona dolarów od Google". Forbes.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  56. "Tech To The Rescue – polskie firmy IT pomagają organizacjom pozarządowym na całym świecie". ngo.pl (in Polish). 2021-05-31. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  57. "#TechForGood Badges - Tech To The Rescue". www.techtotherescue.org. Retrieved 2023-05-31.
  58. Migam (2022-09-08). "We have integrated Migam Translator with LiveChat". Migam. Retrieved 2023-05-31.