Zoom expands into contact centre market

Zoom Video Communications has spent $14.5bn on the purchase of contact-centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) business Five9. The acquisition is part of the video-conferencing company’s plans to build out its existing Zoom Phone product line for business users.

Five9 provides a cloud-based contact centre offering with a suite of applications for the management and optimisation of customer interactions across multiple channels.

The company said the acquisition of Five9 was complementary to the growing popularity of its phone offering, adding that the combination of Five9’s CCaaS product with the Zoom communications platform would transform how businesses connect with their customers, building the customer engagement platform of the future.

Through the acquisition, Zoom said it hoped to grow its enterprise business by addressing the $24bn contact centre market. 

“Zoom is built on a core belief that robust and reliable communications technology enables interactions that build greater empathy and trust, and we believe that holds particularly true for customer engagement,” said Zoom CEO and founder Eric Yuan.

“Enterprises communicate with their customers primarily through the contact centre, and we believe this acquisition creates a leading customer engagement platform that will help redefine how companies of all sizes connect with their customers. We are thrilled to join forces with the Five9 team, and I look forward to welcoming them to the Zoom family,” he said.

Rowan Trollope, CEO of Five9, said: “Joining forces with Zoom will provide Five9’s business customers access to best-of-breed solutions, particularly Zoom Phone, that will enable them to realise more value and deliver real results for their business. This, combined with Zoom’s ‘ease-of use’ philosophy and broad communications portfolio, will truly enable customers to engage via their preferred channel of choice.”

Zoom has been expanding its enterprise communications products and services. During an earnings call posted on the Seeking Alpha site, Yuan described how the company was transitioning to provide technology and services for hybrid work patterns. He said many companies were redesigning the workplace to enhance the hybrid work experience.

“To meet this need, we announced Zoom Rooms features such as smart gallery, which puts in-room and remote participants on an equal footing, virtual receptionist, participant counting and environmental sensors.”

The company also launched a video software development kit (SDK) earlier this year and a $100m fund to kickstart a Zoom Apps ecosystem.

“Zoom Apps is designed to enable users to bring their favourite apps directly into the Zoom experience in a way that inspires collaboration, boosts efficiency, creates healthier habits and generates much more fun,” said Yuan during the earnings call.

“We will also launch Zoom Events, our events platform, which will be focused on our enterprise customers and support an array of virtual event use cases.”