CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE STARTUP HARK RAISES >$1.5M TO BUILD A NEW VIDEO-FOCUSED SUPPORT CHANNEL
Hark, a New York-based startup, has raised more than $1.5M to launch a new, video-based customer experience channel aimed at helping companies deliver a best-in-class experience while decreasing costs.
PRESS RELEASE AUG 10, 2022 10:38 EDT
NEW YORK, August 10, 2022 (Newswire.com) - The rapid growth of online shopping has driven customer expectations higher than ever before, while economic factors are putting pressure on brands to optimize spend. With Hark, best-in-class customer experience and support team efficiency are no longer mutually exclusive.
To deliver best-in-class customer experience, brands need to be everywhere their customers are at all times. Filling out forms and sending emails can sometimes feel like a black hole for customers with no visibility or insight into when their solution will be resolved. As a crutch, they often engage in live chat or call in about the same problem, in hopes of getting an immediate resolution. This puts a strain on support teams, creates redundant tickets across multiple channels, and requires more agents to be available in the moment.
"Everyone has felt the pain of waiting on hold, chatting with robots or even sending an email to a black hole with no visibility around a potential resolution," says Hark founder and CEO Fran Brzyski. "There is a new generation of shoppers who have made it clear they want to communicate in a new way. We built a channel that helps CX teams exceed customer expectations and bring a new level of transparency to the post-purchase journey which will drive increased lifetime value."
Hark, a New York-based startup, has raised more than $1.5M to launch a new, video-based customer experience channel aimed at helping companies deliver a best-in-class experience while decreasing costs.
With Hark, consumers take a short video to explain what they need help with from their point of view. For the first time, this happens entirely within the brand's website with no uploading or emailing required. Within 30 seconds, the consumer will have completed the entire process and can get on with their day. They have the ability to track this request as well. This transparency leads to more confidence and trust that they are being taken care of.
When using other channels, agents often need to follow up for further information, but with Hark's customized workflows, many issues can be resolved immediately.
The video, along with the full-text transcription of the message, sentiment analysis, and any attached files (like photos or screenshots) are packaged up for the agent into the "perfect ticket." Hark drives faster resolutions by providing more context to the agent and giving customers a voice like never before. This channel delivers increased one-touch resolutions, decreased cost per ticket and, most importantly, increased customer satisfaction (CSAT).
By providing a best-in-class experience for consumers and streamlining ticketing processes for CX teams, Hark delivers the best of both worlds and aims to be the channel of choice for most inquiries.
"At Pair Eyewear, we're constantly striving to create seamless and memorable customer experiences. Hark is unique in that it allows for the end user to communicate their issue and feel heard rather than just be another voice in the masses. Simultaneously, the CX team gets the uniformity we so strive for on the backend to allow for proper tagging, routing, and decreased handling time. It's truly a win-win tool!" says Ben Segal, Senior Director of CX at Pair Eyewear.
RiverPark led the round along with M13, The Fund, Lightbank, Green Egg Ventures, Hatchet Ventures and other investors, including: Neil Capel (Founder of Sailthru and Solve.io), Pierson Krass (Managing Partner of Lunar Solar Group), Stephan Cizmar (Co-founder of Lorimer Ventures & lang.ai) & Austin Rief (co-founder of Morning Brew).
"In the midst of a challenging digital marketing environment - where it costs merchants 5x more to acquire a customer than retain an existing one - improving brand loyalty is more important than ever," says Spencer Krug, Partner at RiverPark Ventures.
"Hark's novel video-focused solution helps CX teams quickly triage problems while providing unparalleled transparency for the consumer. We're excited to back Fran on his journey to create a refreshing experience for brands and their customers, and make Hark the single source of truth for anything CS-related."
The fundraise has allowed Hark to hire its core team, which has launched the product leading to their first customer onboardings. They plan to enhance the current product and add supplemental features such as an admin dashboard to deliver further value back to their customers around consumer sentiment and voice of the customer.
"Hark is addressing a customer service problem we see too often with brands and companies we work with. We're very excited about Fran and his team's understanding of the customer service process, and the opportunity to provide an improved, efficient solution to delight customers at their highest point of need. Hark is on a mission to change the way brands engage with their customers in a novel way that we see as the future," says Bill Pescatello, General Partner at Lightbank.
Source: Hark Technologies, Inc.
