If you opted in to receive text messages for deals from an online retailer, the messenger could be sitting in Postscript's new downtown Phoenix office.
Fresh off a $65 million series C funding round, the Valley-based company launched its new product offering Tuesday, which it calls Postscript SMS Sales. The product works on behalf of some companies that sell their goods through the e-commerce platform Shopify. Because this requires more collaboration from team members, Postscript recently signed a lease for its first office space. Employees previously all worked remotely.
The company leased 3,500 square feet in a dedicated office on the sixth floor of the Heard Building in downtown Phoenix. Postscript brought on 18 employees to help with the product launch and plans to reach 50 employees by the end of the year working on SMS Sales. Postscript has more than 200 employees companywide.
Postscript Chief Marketing Officer Mike Manheimer said the company chose to locate downtown to be centrally located for employees.
Manheimer said Postscript's SMS Sales program is comparable to customers receiving help at a retail store. Agents who work at Postscript are familiar with the products its clients sell and engage with customers who voluntarily submitted their information, but didn't complete a purchase.
"We use our SMS Sales to drive better customer service, better conversation and ultimately incremental sales for brands," he said. "[Our clients] use our SMS marketing product to tell people via text, like, 'hey, our products dropping tomorrow. You'll get early access 24 hours beforehand. If you want to go check it out.' And that drives tons of revenue. They sell a lot of stuff that way.
"And what we're seeing is that just by intervening and handling people's objections, basically giving the in-store experience over text, we're able to drive 30 to 40 more points of conversion on those shoppers."
Postscript signed on 12 online retailers for the beta stage of SMS Sales, including soap company Dr. Squatch. The company doesn't collect fees from its clients but works rather on a commission basis for SMS Sales.
The company raised $65 million last summer. The round was led by 01 Advisors with participation from Twilio Ventures, Expanding Capital, m]x[v Capital, and existing investors at Greylock, Accomplice, Elephant and OpenView.
Postscript raised over $100 million in venture-backed funding since its inception in 2018 and has partnered with thousands of retailers on Shopify through SMS marketing.
Postscript was co-founded by Alex Beller, Postscript’s president, Adam Turner, the CEO, and Colin Turner, the COO.
"We raised the money on the heels of a few successful years and we've been accelerating our growth since then and we're excited to launch more new products and see where that takes us," Manheimer said.
