Heyday, a Montreal-based company, has announced that it has raised $6.5 million Canadian ($5.1 million in US dollars) in additional seed funding.
The goal of the startup
Co-founder and CEO Steve Desjarlais said that the startup’s goal is to allow retailers to bring more automation and more personalization to their online customer interactions, while co-founder and CMO Etienne Merineau described it as an “all-in-one unified customer messaging platform.”
What it means is that Heyday brings all that communication together in one dashboard, irrespective of a customer sending a message from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Google’s Business Messages, or just via email. It then uses artificial intelligence to determine whether the message is a customer service or sales-related interaction. It also automates basic responses when possible.
What is the service and how is it distinct from others?
Heyday chatbots can provide order updates or even recommend products as it integrates with Salesforce, Shopify, Magento, Lightspeed, and PrestaShop, then route the conversation to a human team member when necessary.
Other platforms combine customer service and sales, but at the same time, Merineau said it’s important to treat the two categories as distinct and trust that a good service experience will lead to sales in the feature.
We believe that helping is the new selling.
We’re really against the ticket ID system. A customer is not a ticket … I truly believe that every single customer is a relationship with a brand that needs to be nurtured over time and that will give more value to the brand over time
Desjarlais added
Further details and future mindset
Founded in 2017, Heyday has doubled recurring revenue over the past two quarters. Its customers include French sporting goods company Decathlon, Danish fashion house Bestseller, and food and consumer product brand Dannon. The platform is “bilingual out of the box” and has seen strong international growth, Merineau noted.
“Retailers who believe that the changes brought about by COVID-19 are temporary are in the wrong mindset,” he said. “The new mantra of future-forward brands is ‘adapt or die.’ … Brands want to deliver great service, but they care about the bottom line. We help them kill two birds with one stone.”
The startup had previously raised $2 million Canadian, according to Crunchbase. This new round comes from existing investors Innovobot and Desjardins Capital. Merineau said the money will help Heyday “double down on the U.S. and scale.”