Microsoft Corp. last week announced that it reached a definitive agreement to acquire Parature, a leading provider of cloud-based customer engagement solutions.
 
The acquisition will add world-class customer self-service capabilities to further accelerate the Microsoft Dynamics vision of helping organizations deliver amazing customer experiences.
 
“Customers are more connected and better informed than ever before. Organizations are looking for business solutions that can strengthen their ability to connect with customers on their own terms, using whatever device and whatever channel they prefer,” said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. “Parature is a perfect fit for every business and will enable us to offer customers one of the best cloud-based solutions for customer self-service. This is a compelling combination for organizations committed to delivering the best service experience that consistently exceeds their customers’ expectations.”
 
As a provider of cloud-based customer service software to midsize and enterprise organizations, Parature has a well-earned reputation for outstanding customer service with 70 million users worldwide and more than 500 well-known brands, including Ask.com, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, IBM, Saba Software Inc., Tagged Inc. and Threadless. The company also received the 2013 Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Enhancement Award for using social media to help organizations deliver outstanding customer service.
 
Parature’s approach to its solutions enables organizations to take advantage of an extendable knowledge base available through self-service portals on the Web and Facebook, support ticketing, mobile customer care on virtually any device the customer chooses to use, social customer support, and chat for both traditional customer service scenarios and proactive sales engagement to create new, revenue-generating opportunities for the business. These capabilities complement the existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM customer-care solution with core strengths in workflow, extensibility and process-driven user experiences that allow contact center agents to do their best work.
 
Microsoft will continue to offer Parature solutions and support all new and existing customers as the company works to further enhance these offerings.