In January, Microsoft announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Parature, a leading provider of cloud-based customer service solutions. This month, veteran Microsoft Dynamics CRM team member Bill Patterson announced that he’s leaving Washington and moving to Washington—D. C., that is—to take a leadership position at Parature (as Senior Director, Customer Self Service Solutions).
Parature is the leading provider of cloud-based customer service software, supporting 70 million end users worldwide and more than 3000 brands, including IBM, Saba Software Inc., Ask.com, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Parature gives its users an extendable knowledge base available via self-service portals on the Web and Facebook, support ticketing, mobile customer care on virtually any device the customer uses, social customer support, and chat for both traditional customer service and proactive sales engagement. These capabilities complement Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s core strengths in workflow, extensibility, and process-driven user experiences.
This move is a signal of Microsoft’s commitment to Parature, both as a standalone product and as an integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Parature will remain independent, but now they have a leader with extensive knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and where it is headed.
Acquiring Parature saved Microsoft a couple years of developing its own similar functionality. Microsoft Dynamics CRM was already strong in sales automation and in its tight integration with Microsoft Office products. The acquisition of Marketing Pilot last Fall brought some terrific marketing automation on board, and now Parature adds strong investments in customer care. It’s all coming together as the best of all CRM worlds.
