(Feature Image: CEO of Smart Communications Leigh Segall) Smart Communications acquires Australian startup Pendula known for its intelligent orchestration and digital delivery technology. This acquisition is designed to help highly regulated organisations, such as those in finance and healthcare, improve their customer engagement.
According to research by Smart Communications, only 54% of customers are satisfied with the omnichannel experiences provided by these industries, a number that has been declining. This dissatisfaction often stems from fragmented systems and manual processes, which can lead to incomplete transactions and a loss of customer trust.
The integration of Pendula’s technology with Smart Communications’ Conversation Cloud™ platform aims to close this gap. By adding intelligent orchestration capabilities, the platform aims to help organisations deliver seamless, cross-channel engagement through channels like SMS, email, WhatsApp, and RCS.
“For Smart Communications, the future has always been about enabling smarter, more meaningful experiences with customers,” said Leigh Segall, CEO of Smart Communications. “The acquisition of Pendula is the natural next step in our evolution, solving a key challenge our clients face: orchestrating and completing complex, high-value customer interactions across digital channels, at scale. It also strengthens the AI capabilities already embedded into the Conversation Cloud – enhancing decisioning, automation, and personalisation to help our customers engage more intelligently and drive better outcomes across every touchpoint.”
New capabilities
Smart Communications will integrate the Pendula’s Intelligence Suite into its Conversation Cloud™ platform. This integration will introduce new AI capabilities aimed at improving customer conversations.
The Intelligence Suite features analytics, AI decisioning, and configurable AI agents. These agents are designed to operate within specific workflows and guidelines to maintain compliance and align with an organisation’s brand and goals. The AI capabilities will enable the platform to identify trends, forecast customer needs, and provide personalized responses. It will also facilitate smooth handoffs from AI agents to human staff. This new layer of technology is intended to help organizations use data to improve engagement across multiple channels.
At Pendula, we’ve always believed that today’s customers want real conversations, not one-way broadcasts,” said Alex Colvin, CEO of Pendula. “By joining Smart Communications, we are combining our orchestration expertise with the global reach and proven capabilities of the Conversation Cloud™ platform. Together, we will help enterprises move faster, connect more intelligently, and deliver personalised experiences that drive action at scale.”
Pendula’s orchestration technology, which is also part of the integration, includes intelligent failover. This feature automatically reroutes a message to an alternative channel if it fails to reach a customer on the initial attempt, which can increase message completion rates and reduce manual intervention. The platform’s decisioning logic can also be configured to automatically guide customers toward a specific outcome or redirect them based on their input. The solution is designed for seamless integration within the Conversation Cloud platform and includes pre-built connectors for a variety of enterprise systems, such as Salesforce, AWS, and Zendesk.