Few companies have experienced the growth rate enjoyed by CM.com over the past 18 months, with the company earlier this year achieving the coveted status of European “Unicorn” and a market cap of over $1bn.
Driving this growth is CM.com’s entrepreneurial desire to continue iterating on its product stack, whilst expanding operations across the globe, with specific focus on its regional development including the UK and Ireland.
The Dutch listed company is billed as the leader in “conversational commerce”, a phrase coined to define the modern way in which customers interact with companies through differing digital channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, Chatbots, and voicebots. CM.com’s ability to help companies streamline customer engagement has led to several new client wins, with such coveted names as American Express, Cancer Research UK, and Coca-Cola, all benefiting from CM.com’s technology to support and innovate their customer service experience.
“Every sector has been affected by the pandemic in one way or another over the past 18-months, especially businesses that sell products or services directly to consumers. Managing the huge uplift in customer enquiries relating to event cancellations, travel changes, or online orders has put enormous pressure on contact centres. Businesses are now coming to us looking for help to give their customers the ability to contact them in the way the customer wants, whilst automating as much of the engagement process as possible to reduce the workload on call centre operatives”, commented James Matthews, UK and Ireland Country Manager for CM.com.
CM.com sees the UK and Ireland market as a one of their growth areas demonstrated by continued investment to expand its London and Cork teams, with dedicated divisions now focussed on specific sectors such as Music & Live, Sport & Entertainment, Hospitality, and eCommerce. Many of these sectors have been badly hit by the recent crisis, and CM.com can play an important part in helping affected companies to build back better.
“The past two years have been the most challenging time for businesses within the live entertainment sector, with most companies completely mothballed for months whilst the lockdowns were enforced. Now, as we emerge and begin to reopen live events, we have a unique opportunity to change the status quo, integrate technology to help take the heavy lifting away from manual customer engagements, and to give customers the ability to interact with companies through their natural and preferred methods of communication”, James Matthews commented.
There’s no doubt CM.com is investing heavily in these sectors; they were the event supporter of the recent Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix, and provided the technology infrastructure for ticketing, customer support and in-event payments. Last month they were a key sponsor of the Sport Industry Awards in London.
Having recently moved to a dedicated office overlooking St Katherine’s Dock, the UK and Ireland headcount is set to expand over the next 12 months, with a 25% uplift on top of the 50% employee headcount growth they experienced in 2020 to 2021.
“Attracting the right talent to CM.com is vital to our continued success. Whilst some of our competitors were scaling back their operations over the past 18 months, we saw it as an opportunity to invest in people and recruited entire teams from companies that laid-off large sections of their workforce during the pandemic”, commented Matthews.
This recruitment strategy certainly puts CM.com in good stead during what is widely reported as a staffing shortage across the UK & Ireland. Demonstrating such growth metrics over the past 18 months will only serve to position CM.com as an attractive employer during what is still a relative time of uncertainty.