Customer service analytics ClickFox gets $18M

ClickFox to spend $18 million Series C round on research and development in social media space

Analytics company ClickFox announced Monday that it has raised $18 million in a Series C financing round led by Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners (AIP). Though other investors were not named, it would be safe to bet that at least a few if not all of existing investors--Ascent Venture Partners, Cedar Fund, Delta Ventures and Veritas Venture Partners--participated in the round as well.

Those four former investors last contributed $12.5 million to ClickFox.

The already profitable company provides customer service analytics at all interaction points--interactive voice response (IVR), Web agent, chat, and retail/point-of-sale (POS). The next step for ClickFox is to invest further in research and development, especially in relation to social media analytics.

Social media analytics and, along with it, social customer relationship management (CRM) are relatively new concepts and ones that probably most businesses should already be trying to understand, if not entirely embracing. Many companies, like Lithium and Shoutlet, provide social CRM tools for clients struggling to figure out what customer service should be about in the age of Facebook and Twitter.

“We recognize the enormous potential and value of data in today's enterprise", said Jamey Sperans, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley AIP. "But too often this data is 'trapped' inside separate functional areas and difficult to understand in any holistic way. Clickfox's innovative solutions break down internal silos to enable companies to operate in a truly customer-centric way.”

Though the company won’t name names, ClickFox claims to serve two of the “big four” banks (Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo), nearly all of the North American wireless providers and a number of Fortune 500 companies. ClickFox covers quite a few major industries, including telecommunications, healthcare, financial services, insurance, technology and retail.