La Poste Ventures invests in Smart Tribune to help build a leader in customer care

Smart Tribune was created in 2011 by Jérémy Gallemard, Christopher Montémont and Samy Lastmann, who met during their studies. Over the years, they have developed an extensive knowledge of companies’ needs in terms of customer care, and have convinced more than 150 major brands from every sector to integrate their bespoke customer self-service solutions.

The tools developed by Smart Tribune are based on the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to connect live chats, chatbots, dynamic FAQs and internal knowledge bases. The goal: to help their clients provide a better, more engaging, and more satisfying customer experience.

Smart Tribune has proven its effectiveness in improving the customer experience at Le Monde, SNCF, Engie, Leroy Merlin and LVMHGuerlain, among many other companies. In fact, Smart Tribune’s customers have deployed the solution for several use cases, including:

• Enabling customer autonomy at every touchpoints across a brand’s customer experience;
• Boosting organic SEO to help customers answer their questions directly via the search results page;
• Improving the likelihood of conversion as customers move along the path to purchase;
• Increasing the happiness, satisfaction, and loyalty of long-term customers;
• Reducing customer support contact volume by automating up to 70% of tier-1 inquires; and
• Equipping customer support agents with the most up-to-date knowledge base information at all times.

Going global

So far, the business has been fully bootstrapped (and profitable!), but it’s now time to aim higher. That’s why Smart Tribune is raising a total of 8 million euros in a Series A led by InvestCapital. Thanks to this first fundraising, the team wants to accelerate its growth and create a global leader in self-service customer care.

The company already has an office in London and can count on both La Poste and XAnge’s expertise in its internationalization process. For instance, Pierre Grauby, Directeur de la Relation Client at La Poste Branche Grand Public et Numérique, an expert of customer care as his titles suggests, will join the board to support the team in this new phase of development, drawing on his previous international experience at Orange,  also drawing on his previous international experience at Orange.

By the way, La Poste is already a power-user of the solution, in France and abroad, through DPDgroup (GeoPost) and Maileva (Docaposte). This investment will drive more synergies and value creation with La Poste’s subsidiaries, while Smart Tribune will benefit from XAnge’s valuable know-how in helping startups scale their businesses in foreign European and North-American markets. What an exciting journey!