Nuance Acquires TouchCommerce For $215 Million

by @lauriesullivan, July 21, 2016

Nuance Acquires TouchCommerce For $215 Million Nuance Acquires TouchCommerce For $215 Million

Nuance Communications said Thursday it has signed an agreement to acquire TouchCommerce for $215 million in a combination of cash and stock to strengthen customer services for enterprise companies. The Board of Directors at both companies have approved the transaction, which should close by the end of Nuance’s 2016 fiscal year, Sept. 30. 

TouchCommerce is known for its Web chat technology and self-service customer cloud platforms. The addition of TouchCommerce aims to help accelerate Nuance’s Enterprise business and expand its customer care solutions with a range of digital offerings, including live chat, customer analytics and the ability to personalize services.

TouchCommerce — which supports companies like AT&T, Bridgestone, Comcast, eHarmony, and Panasonic — will become part of Nuance once the transaction is closed. For the immediate term, Nuance will not rebrand the product line, but later this year the company will integrate the solutions into the Nuance OnDemand cloud platform.
On Wednesday, TouchCommerce announced the Web chat bot TouchAssist, which allows brands to initially automate the self-service assistant until consumers need additional help answering questions the bot cannot answer. TouchAssist creates human-like dialogue with a virtual assistant or chat bot on a company’s Web site. When the virtual assistant is not certain of the answer, a live agent steps in to continue the conversation and provides the correct answer.

Marina Kalika, senior director of product marketing at TouchCommerce, told Search Marketing Daily, that TouchCommerce leverages the virtual assistant technology from Nuance Communications for the new product.

 

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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