Facebook Buys Customer Service Startup, Kustomer, for $1 Billion

Facebook has reached an agreement to acquire Kustomer, a customer relationship management platform that enables businesses to manage their customer interactions effectively.

As times move by, more people are opting to use texts and messages in addition to calls. Every day more than 175 million people contact businesses via WhatsApp, indicating a greater need for a CRM service that could help customer representatives handle communication with customers better.

“We’re excited about what the future holds with Kustomer, and we hope to welcome co-founders Brad Birnbaum and Jeremy Suriel and the rest of the Kustomer team to Facebook soon,” the social media company said.

That’s what Facebook’s Kustomer acquisition plans to solve. Kustomer brings together communications from different channels, including social media, into one single screen view helping the customer support team provide better services. Customer reps can view a customer’s historical interaction with the company.

Facebook plans to support Kustomer’s operations by providing the resources it needs to scale its business, improve and innovate its product offering, and delight its customers.

The company isn’t pulling the plug yet on supported CRM platforms in its messaging services. It says, “we’ll continue to support the numerous options that businesses have to integrate their CRM platform of choice with our messaging services.”

The social media giant hasn’t disclosed the deal’s terms, but multiple sources have confirmed it was valued at $1 billion. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

The deal was valued at a billion dollars, which is way less than what the company has had to pay in the past to acquire another company. For instance, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.

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