The Gist

• Agents and customer engagement. Factoreal launches Agent App to streamline customer engagement on WhatsApp Business and websites.
• Some DAM news. Acquia enhances its DAM platform with new integrations to enable an efficient, automated content supply chain.
• Feds breached. A 4-year-old vulnerability in Telerik, a web server user interface tool, was exploited by hackers to breach a US federal government agency.

Talkdesk Appoints Andrew Dobrov as Chief Customer Officer

Andrew Dobrov has been appointed as chief customer officer at Talkdesk. Dobrov will be responsible for leading customer success and customer support, as well as the company’s services organization. With over 25 years of experience, Dobrov has a track record of building and scaling support, services, customer success, and operations teams into world-class differentiators.

According to Charanya Kannan, chief product, engineering, and customer officer at Talkdesk, customer success is the driving force behind everything they do as a customer experience solutions provider. Dobrov’s experience and passion for customer success will help Talkdesk achieve customer service excellence. Dobrov, who was a Talkdesk customer before joining the company, looks forward to helping Talkdesk customers leverage the full potential of their contact center platforms to power deeper connections with their customers.

Cvent to Be Acquired by Blackstone in $4.6B Transaction

Cvent Holding Corp., a meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider valued at $4.6 billion, has been acquired by Blackstone private equity funds. Following the recommendation of a special committee, the Cvent Board of Directors unanimously approved the merger agreement. The transaction is expected to close mid-year 2023.

Blackstone will become a significant minority investor alongside the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), also part of the transaction. Cvent will become a privately held company upon completion of the transaction.

“As one of the world’s largest private equity firms, Blackstone brings deep expertise in the event and hospitality industry, and with their backing, we plan to continue to invest in our business and deliver the innovative solutions that meet our customers’ needs and power the meetings and events ecosystem,” CEO and founder Reggie Aggerwal said in a statement.

Factoreal Unveils Agent App

Factoreal has launched a messaging app called Agent App, designed to help businesses improve customer acquisition and retention strategies on WhatsApp Business and company websites. The app offers chat routing features, ensuring that visitor chats are directed to the most appropriate agents for an improved customer experience. WhatsApp Business has over 2 billion global users, with businesses in the sports sector increasingly using it for marketing and consumer engagement.

Live chat has become the leading digital contact method for online customers, with 41% of customers expecting live chat on a company’s website, according to a report by Forrester. The Factoreal Agent App allows customer engagement agents to monitor and manage all conversations happening on WhatsApp Business and websites in real-time from anywhere, giving businesses greater control of their communication channels. 

“Businesses increasingly expect software solutions to integrate and deliver more convenient customer experiences, ultimately having your customers talk to the right person at the right time. With Factoreal Agent App, businesses can now gain greater control of their communication channels on WhatsApp Business and through their website,” Factoreal’s CEO Aditya Dhruva said in a statement.

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Acquia Enhances DAM System With New Integrations

Acquia has announced new integrations for its digital asset management (DAM) platform, Acquia DAM, to enable a more efficient, automated content supply chain. The new integrations provide greater control over brand consistency and productivity, and extend the value of content and data created in other systems.

Acquia DAM is a crucial component of a digital experience platform, enabling content search and access, on-the-fly content conversions, monitoring content performance, and streamlining content reuse to help marketing teams move faster.

“Acquia DAM enables organizations of all sizes to maximize the value of their content by connecting to other software solutions, including a DXP, via built-in integrations or API,” sales and marketing VP Jake Athey said in a statement.

The new integrations — almost 60 total — include widely used tools such as Shopify, Asana, Google Sheets, HubSpot, and Slack, and others. This helps make content more secure, extensible, accessible, and trackable across a brand’s digital properties. 

Threat Actors Exploit Progress Telerik Vulnerability in US Government IIS Server

The US government has issued a warning that various cybercriminal gangs, including a nation-state backed hacking group, exploited a four-year-old software vulnerability to breach a federal government agency.

This breach has exposed access to the agency’s internal network. The gangs and hacking group exploited a known vulnerability in Telerik, a user interface tool for web servers, which runs on the agency’s internet-facing web server.

While the agency hasn’t been named, the CISA, the FBI, and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) have released a joint advisory stating that the Telerik vulnerability allowed the hackers to execute remote code on the agency’s web server.

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