Facebook has acquired Servicefriend, which builds "hybrid" chatbots, for Calibra's customer service – TechCrunch

Like Facebook is preparing to launch its new cryptocurrency, Libra, in 2020, and puts in place the elements necessary for its proper functioning. One of the most recent developments has been the acquisition of Servicefriend, a startup that builds bots – chat clients for artificial intelligence-based messaging applications – to help customer service teams. confirmed TechCrunch.

The news was first reported in Israel, where Servicefriend is based, after one of its investors, Roberto Singler, alerted the local publication The Marker about the deal. We contacted Ido Arad, one of the co-founders of the company, who forwarded our questions to a Facebook team. Facebook then confirmed the acquisition with a non-specific Apple type statement:

"From time to time we acquire small technology companies. We do not always discuss our projects, "said a spokesman for Facebook.

Several people, including Arad, his co-founder Shahar Ben Ami, and at least one other, say that they are now working on Facebook within the Calibra digital wallet group on their LinkedIn profiles. Their jobs on the social network started this month, which means that this acquisition has been closed in recent weeks. (Several others indicate that they are still at Servicefriend, which means that they have probably also moved.)

Although Facebook does not specify what they will work on, the most obvious area will be to create a bot – or more likely a bot network – for the Calibra customer service layer. digital wallet that Facebook is developing.

Facebook's plan is to create a range of financial services that allow users to use Calibra to pay and receive Libra – for example, sending money to contacts, paying bills, charging phones, buying items, etc.

It remains to be seen how much people will trust Facebook as a provider of all this. It is therefore essential to have a "human" and accessible customer service experience.

"We're here for you," notes Calibra on his home page, where he promises 24/7 support through WhatsApp and Messenger for his users.

In the past, Servicefriend had worked on the Facebook platform: more specifically, it had designed "hybrid" robots for Messenger that businesses could use to complement human teams, to better tailor their services to email platforms . In one of the Messenger robots that Servicefriend built for Globe Telecom in the Philippines, the hybrid robot was able to reduce "agent hours" to less than 20 hours per 1,000 customer interactions.

Robots have been a relatively problematic area for Facebook. The company launched a personal assistant called M in 2015, then robots that allowed users to talk to businesses in 2016 on Messenger, with some fanfare, although the reality was that nothing really worked as well as promised, and sometimes much more than any of the services they were intended to replace.

While artificial intelligence-based assistants such as Alexa have become synonymous with how a computer can conduct a conversation and provide information to humans, the consensus around robots is that the best way to To move forward is to create complementary services, rather than replacing them completely. , teams.

For Facebook, using their customer service with Calibra can help them build and strengthen their credibility (note: another area in which Servicesfriend has created services is the use of customer service as a marketing channel). Making mistakes could mean problems not only with customers, but also with partners and perhaps regulators.