How AI Is Changing Customer Care Forever

The ongoing integration of AI into every part of our daily lives has revealed the potential of smarter machines to transform a wide range of industries. EQT Ventures backs Parloa, a front-runner in bringing the power of AI to customer service—not to replace human experiences but to supercharge them.

As they announce their $66 million in Series B funding, investor and board member Doreen Huber, Partner EQT Ventures, explains why the customer service industry is deeply in need of change and why Parloa is ideally placed to lead the way.

“Voice is not going anywhere, and here is why: when you really have a problem, you call.”

In a world of connected information, it’s never been easier to learn, but when you have a problem, our instinct is still to reach out for a human hand — or, more often, a voice. This has led to the creation of a $500 billion industry based around customer call centers; this is an industry ripe for disruption and transformation.

Solving the contact problem has already led to a number of billion dollar companies — think Intercom or Zendesk — but voice remains the key channel for change. At EQT Ventures, we’ve always known that the solution would require a vision that unites technology and personal touch.

Recent developments have lit a fire under this mission. The speed with which tools such as ChatGPT have entered the mainstream shows just how fast user adoption can be when the means are aligned with the problems and needs of normal users. Voice has been one of the most dynamic sectors of development, with just 2% of the population now able to consistently identify generated voices.

This opens the door to an exciting possibility: tailored customer care support, with oceans of data at their fingertips, available 24/7. From helping to solve issues to inspiring customers and offering other products which perfectly fit your needs based on a detailed profile, this technology combines customer care with a new route to market for their products and services.

This will require a new infrastructure and communication layer between core CRM systems and customers themselves — one that turns data into experiences in a way that can scale with an ever growing number of calls and conversations.

And we believe Parloa is the answer.

Giving a voice to businesses

Customer support is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget the crucial role that it plays. Managing and scaling customer experience isn’t just a matter of answering a few queries, it’s a key element of the promise between businesses and their users. Customers want to know that their provider can support them beyond that first transaction and actively engage in their success.

That’s why, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, keeping your clients satisfied and cared for is an existential problem to solve. This is because voice-CX grows with a strong correlation with the topline, easily becoming a massive, non-scalable cost that does not deliver on its promises of truly helping users.

The challenge for businesses is that managing CX has morphed from a controllable issue into an acute pain for companies in recent years:

• The automation of channels such as text through chatbots and generative AI has shed light on the untapped potential of voice as a support stream.
• Past attempts of “voice” automation have failed to scale and are RPA-like because companies weren’t cloud-first, preventing AI from making a dent in the market due to a lack of connected data.
• The labor crunch in call centers combined with a need for lean P&Ls puts voice in the front row when it comes to efficiency opportunities.

With enterprises facing top-down pressure from boards to adopt generative AI, voice support emerges as a significant opportunity to manage costs, improve customer care, and deliver a modern customer experience. Parloa is ready to respond.

“The voice CX industry is heading towards “80/20”, where 80% of the voice interactions are handled by AI and 20% with super high empathy, engaged, humans.”

A new route to customer care

The best ideas are those you can communicate quickly and effectively — and for our team meeting Parloa founders CEO Malte Kosub and CTO Stefan Ostwald in 2023, that took 15 minutes. Kosub promised to pitch the idea of Parloa to EQT Ventures’ team in a quarter of an hour, and kept his promise almost to the second.

From our point of view, it was not just the problem but the team that showed us what was possible. In front of us, we saw:

• An extraordinarily ambitious and hungry team on the mission to spearhead the next generation of Customer Support.
• An obsession for customers reflected by impressive retention metrics and Parloa’s fast market adoption, measurable through very fast growth
• A relentless drive to scale. While walking around the offices, Malte pointed to a picture on the wall and asked us if we knew what it was. He preempted the answer and said with a smile, “This is the Parloa Tower to anchor the ambition,” referring to the famous Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

Since helping to lead their €20 million Series A , we’ve seen the team go from strength to strength, and we’re proud to be driving them forward with this new round of funding.

Expanding the potential of AI

From the first conversation, it’s always been clear that this is just the beginning of the journey. Moving forward, the target is nothing less than unleashing the full potential of conversational AI, and this Series B will play a key role in making that a reality.

The consistency at which they’ve been bringing their solution to market has been impressive, creating the right momentum and environment for Series B acceleration. We’ve seen the business attract leading talent from across industries, adding 200+ team members, including CRO Joachim Schreiner (ex-Salesforce General Manager).

Their goal remains clear — providing a new backbone for companies to communicate with their customers. And it’s clear they have the drive, talent and ideas to reach it.

We’re excited to be part of their journey going forward, working with Malte, Stefan, Tino, and Joachim to transform this multi-billion dollar industry. 🤗

As we’ve seen, a conversation remains the best way to solve the problems that matter.