LogMeIn today introduced a new digital customer service product, continuing the Boston-based company’s efforts to expand its offerings beyond its long-time calling card of remote computer access and troubleshooting software.
The announcement marks LogMeIn’s first significant product launch since its $1.8 billion merger with the GoTo business of California rival Citrix Systems, a spokeswoman says. That deal was announced in July 2016 and completed in February.
Since the merger was announced, 14-year-old LogMeIn’s stock (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LOGM]]) has risen from about $70 per share to $112 apiece, as of Wednesday at the closing bell.
In its press materials, LogMeIn bills the new product, dubbed Bold360, as a move into the market for customer relationship management (CRM) software. That would seem to pit it against well-established CRM companies like Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, and HubSpot.
But Paddy Srinivasan (pictured above), LogMeIn’s general manager of customer engagement and support solutions, says the strategy is more about filling in gaps in currently available CRM software, and focusing specifically on offering better software tools to contact center agents. (The company’s product announcement mentions that Bold360 will integrate with Salesforce software.)
Xconomy posed three questions about the new product. The following are Srinivasan’s e-mailed responses, which have been edited for length and clarity.
Xconomy: Why does it make sense to jump into CRM, and why now?
Paddy Srinivasan: There is a significant white space when it comes to the engagement capabilities of traditional CRM and digital customer service solutions. Engagement strategies are becoming increasingly important as customer expectations around how they want to interact with companies are rising and brand loyalty [has become] much harder to achieve.
Customers want to be able to interact with their favorite brands through a variety of channels including Facebook Messenger, e-mail, and chat, and they want that information to transfer seamlessly as they move across channels. Traditional CRM solutions are doing their best to add channels to meet these needs, but more often than not, they are created to be “good enough,” rather than robust and powerful. Also, all that customer information lives in disparate systems, making it hard [for] companies to get a full view of their customer. We saw this gap and designed Bold360 to bring together customer information and vital business data in one solution—making that information actionable and helping companies deliver a seamless and more personalized experience.
Expanding our footprint into CRM and, specifically, the digital customer service part of the CRM market, has been our vision for a number of years.
X: Isn’t this sector too saturated? How do you plan to compete against well-established players like Salesforce, HubSpot, and plenty of others?
PS: What we are looking to do with Bold360 is really to meet the needs that are currently being unmet by today’s CRM and ticketing systems. We aren’t looking to replace the CRM, we are looking to complement it.
X: How does this announcement fit into LogMeIn’s strategy after the merger with Citrix’s GoTo business?
PS: LogMeIn is using its leadership position to bet on three core areas—collaboration and communication, identity and access management, and customer engagement and support. For the customer engagement and support side of the house, we are working to expand our leadership beyond live chat and remote support—as it is today—into the broader market of customer engagement. Bold360 is the first step in that direction.
