RingCentral Set to Acquire Connect First

RingCentral, a leading provider of enterprise cloud communications and collaboration solutions, has announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Connect First.

Ian Taylor

RingCentral, a leading provider of enterprise cloud communications and collaboration solutions, has announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Connect First, a cloud-based blended/outbound customer engagement platform for mid-sized and enterprise companies. Connect First’s platform is deployed by many customers, including: the ASPCA, Carnival Cruise Line, Party City, & PBS, and Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) for large service providers such as Charter Cable and Comcast.

The enhanced RingCentral Customer Engagement portfolio will include RingCentral Contact Center for inbound comms and Workforce Optimization (WFO), RingCentral Engage for digital customer engagement, and Connect First for outbound/blended customer contact, post-acquisition.

“Maximising agent productivity in today’s rapidly changing customer service environment is becoming increasingly challenging. Customer service organisations need to seamlessly blend outbound calling activity with customer call backs and communications over digital channels,” said Jim Dvorkin, senior vice president, Customer Engagement, RingCentral.

“The acquisition of Connect First complements our current Customer Engagement portfolio and will provide transformative and differentiated customer experiences. We’re excited to welcome the Connect First team to RingCentral.”

The Connect First cloud native platform is built from the ground up on a microservices architecture that is highly scalable and reliable, and runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS). All of Connect First’s capabilities are available through web-based APIs that enable rapid innovation and easy integration.

“At Connect First, we’ve been focused on building an innovative outbound/blended customer engagement platform with a state-of-the-art architecture,” said Geoff Mina, founder and CEO, Connect First. “This acquisition validates our technology leadership, and we’re confident that by joining forces with RingCentral we will broaden our market reach and scale to deploy our platform to enterprises worldwide.”

Some of the key features of the Connect First platform improve the outbound/blended customer experience and responsiveness of agents.

These include:

Outbound/blended

Preview, progressive, and predictive outbound modes to maximize the effectiveness of agents

Telephony Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) tools to manage compliance rules and regulations
Dynamic Agent Scripting to guide agent interactions with customers
Call blending for managing outbound and inbound interactions to deliver optimal agent productivity
WebRTC-based agent desktop for flexibility and ease of management
Real-time and historical reporting and analytics for managers and supervisors
Open APIs for easy integration with third-party applications

Cloud native architecture

Microservices architecture running on AWS
Fully redundant platform for high availability
Proven deployments of multiple thousands of agents per customer

“As RingCentral continues to be chosen by larger businesses, the need to support outbound customer interactions and campaign management has increased,” said Sheila McGee-Smith, President of McGee-Smith Analytics. “With its born-in-the-cloud microservices architecture, Connect First brings technology that has already been successfully deployed across midsize and enterprise organizations and will complement RingCentral’s existing portfolio.”

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close in Q1, 2019, and is estimated to have no material financial impact for the year ending December 31, 2019.

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