Facebook has acquired Kustomer, a New York-based software company that
helps businesses manage customer conversations from multiple services on
one dashboard. From a report: The social media giant made the deal to
bolster its nascent messaging business, which is expanding to include
customer-service products that help companies interact with people via
chat apps, like WhatsApp and Messenger. “Any business knows that when the
phone rings, they need to answer it. Increasingly, texts and messages
have become just as important as that phone call — and businesses need
to adapt,” Facebook executives wrote in a blog post. Kustomer also offers
automated tools so companies can handle easier customer requests using
bots. The deal values Kustomer at a little over $1 billion, WSJ reported. …
