• by Ray Schultz , March 3, 2020

Two customer experience specialists, Ada and Zendesk, have strengthened their strategic partnership to help brands provide personalized experiences. 

The goal is to enable “conversational business at global scale,” states Warren Levitan, VP of conversational business for Zendesk.

Ada is an automated platform that delivers personalized experiences and can synchronize with other systems such as Zendesk Support, the firm says. 

When live support is needed, Ada’s virtual assistant can now be deployed into all channels enabled by Zendesk’s Sunshine Conversations. A conversation starting with a virtual assistant can be escalated to a live agent. 

The Sunshine Conversations messaging platform was acquired by Zendesk last year as part of its purchase of Smooch, a Montreal-based firm.

The platform has a universal messaging API that lets users communicate on all major chat platforms, Zendesk says. In addition, it facilitates a unified user profile and omnichannel experiences, the company adds.    

Brands are increasingly using Ada and Zendesk together in a best-of-breed approach. The customers include email service provider Mailchimp; Upwork, a freelancing platform; and Qapital, a personal finance mobile application.

“Good service differentiates your business and adopting an automation-first strategy augments your ability to provide quality service,” states Mike Murchison, Ada co-founder and CEO.