AnswerDash

AnswerDash
Formerly called
 Qazzow[1]
Industry Computer software, Internet
Founded 2012
Founders Jake Wobbrock, Andy Ko, Parmit Chilana[2]
Headquarters 1501 4th Avenue, Seattle, Washington, United States
Key people
 Bill Colleran, President & CEO
Total equity $2.54 million[2] (2015)
Number of employees
 12[2] (2015)
Website answerdash.com

Coordinates: 47°36′36.43″N 122°20′15.21″W / 47.6101194°N 122.3375583°W / 47.6101194; -122.3375583 AnswerDash is a B2B software company that facilitates customer service for e-commerce businesses. AnswerDash was founded in Seattle, Washington in 2012 as a spin-off from the Information school of the University of Washington.[3] Its software-as-a-service utilizes machine learning to create databases of context-sensitive support answers for end-users of webpages and mobile applications, thus reducing the need for human customer service.[2] AnswerDash claims to be the first,[4] and as of 2015 the world's leading provider of contextual point-and-click answer technology.[5]

History

The former logo of AnswerDash

The company was founded under name ″Qazzow″ in 2012 by three University of Washington employees:[3] Jake Wobbrock, an associate professor and the director of Mobile & Accessible Design Lab,[6] Andy Ko, an associate professor the director of Code & Cognition Lab,[7] and Parmit Chilana, a research assistant and a graduate student at the time, now an assistant professor of University of Waterloo.[8] Jake Wobbrock assumed the responsibilities of CEO, and Andy Ko became the company's CTO.[9] The idea of the key company's service stemmed from Parmit Chilana's dissertation on human–computer interaction.[10] Her research has highlighted a very high proportion (up to 95%) of users' questions that are triggered by something seen on a website and should benefit from contextual help.[8]

In November 2013 the company received $500,000 seed investment from W Fund to further develop its contextual Q&A service[4][11] and in December 2013 additional $2.4 million from WRF Capital and Voyager Capital investment funds.[12] In May 2014, the company re-branded itself to ″AnswerDash″ reacting to customers' confusion over the unusual sequence of letters in the original name.[1][3]

In January 2015, Kevin Knoepp has replaced Andy Ko as AnswerDash new CTO.[13] AnswerDash service came on-line in May 2015.[14] At the same time, after serving as a CEO for three years, Jake Wobbrock stepped down as the CEO. His performance was generally favored by the board, but Wobbrok has admitted his tendency to focusing on interesting scientific details that might not be relevant to business success.[15] Wobbrock was replaced by William Colleran, a former CEO Impinj.[16]

By the end of 2015 the company has “matured dramatically”.[17] After announcing the successful deployment of its software to Zendesk,[18] in September AnswerDash raised additional $2.9 million.[17] In 2016, AnswerDash has recorded the biggest jump in GeekWire 200 rating, a ranked index of Pacific Northwest startups.[19]

Services

Offered under SaaS model by subscription, the service aims to eliminate the need for separate FAQs or ″help islands" offering contextual answers to end-users' questions.[20] The service can be used on websites, web applications, and mobile applications. It employs a natural-language engine and machine learning technology that allows website and application owners to build the database of answers in a matter of several days.[8]

In addition, AnswerDash utilizes data mining technology to provide business owners with valuable analytics on their consumers' behavior that leads to further improvement of their e-commerce services.[21][22] AnswerDash claims to reduce the need of traditional customer support by 30 to 50 percent.[16]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Taylor Soper (May 20, 2014). "UW spinout AnswerDash launches, names ex-Drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore to board". GeekWire.com. GeekWire. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Steven Goldsmith (20 March 2015). "They answer the riddle of online user confusion". Puget Sound Business Journal. 35 (48). Seattle: American City Business Journals. p. 40. ISSN 8750-7757. LCCN 99107105. OCLC 11683053.
  3. 1 2 3 "Company Overview of AnswerDash, Inc.". bloomberg.com. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  4. 1 2 John Cook (November 5, 2013). "UW spin out Qazzow scores $500,000, helps customers get questions answered on e-commerce sites". GeekWire.com. GeekWire. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  5. ↑ "AnswerDash Reports Customers Experience an Average Cost Savings of $20K a Year in Customer Support". finance.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Finance. February 12, 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  6. ↑ "Jacob O. Wobbrock". washington.edu. University of Washington. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  7. ↑ "Andrew J. Ko". washington.edu. University of Washington. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 Barry Levine (October 8, 2014). "University of Washington-spinoff AnswerDash launches to make everything on a Web page questionable". venturebeat.com. VentureBeat. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  9. ↑ Pranay (February 24, 2016). "Applying Software Research to Industry with Andy Ko". softwareengineeringdaily.com. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  10. ↑ Rachel Lerman (20 September 2015). "Tech Spotlight: AnswerDash solves your confusion when using websites". The Seattle Times. Seattle, Washington. ISSN 0745-9696. OCLC 9198928.
  11. ↑ "iSchool startup Qazzow receives seed investment from W Fund". uw.edu. University of Washington. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  12. ↑ John Cook (December 13, 2013). "UW spin-out Qazzow scores $2.4M to bolster customer service on e-commerce sites". GeekWire.com. GeekWire. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  13. ↑ "AnswerDash Announces New Hire Kevin Knoepp as Vice President of Engineering". finance.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Finance. January 22, 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  14. ↑ Becker, Sam (July 1, 2015). "Bright Idea: UW-spawned platform makes websites more responsive". Seattle Business Monthly. Seattle: Tiger Oak Publications. LCCN 2006252302. OCLC 259466486.
  15. ↑ Adam Bryant (30 June 2015). "Jake Wobbrock of AnswerDash: Lead With Strength, and Weaknesses". New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522.
  16. 1 2 "AnswerDash Appoints Don Davidge as Vice President of Sales and Marketing". finance.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Finance. March 31, 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  17. 1 2 Taylor Soper (September 14, 2015). "UW spinout AnswerDash raises $2.9M to support growth of online contextual help platform". GeekWire.com. GeekWire. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  18. ↑ Benjamin Romano (December 19, 2014). "Seattle Roundup: Skytap, Mercent, AnswerDash, FlowVella, Impinj". xconomy.com. Xconomy. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  19. ↑ Monica Nickelsburg (June 10, 2016). "GeekWire 200 June Update: AnswerDash, Placed and other startups climb the ranks". GeekWire.com. GeekWire. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  20. ↑ Jennifer Lonoff Schiff (March 2, 2016). "5 ways ecommerce businesses can improve customer service". cio.com. CIO magazine. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  21. ↑ Aubrielle Billig (8 February 2016). "AnswerDash: Provide Predictive Answers Before Your Customers Even Ask Them". smallbiztrends.com. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  22. ↑ Menzies, Tim, ed. (2016). Perspectives on Data Science for Software Engineering. Laurie Williams, Thomas Zimmermann. Morgan Kaufmann. p. 377. ISBN 0128042060. OCLC 951234165.
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