Limitless secures seed funding for new GigCX platform

Funding round led by Unilever Ventures providing on-demand customer care, powered by artificial intelligence.

Limitless (https://www.limitlesstech.com/), an innovative CrowdService platform, today announced it closed a seed round of funding led by Unilever Ventures. Limitless helps brands turn their most loyal and passionate customers into trusted Brand Ambassadors and rewards them for providing great service on-demand. Limitless provides Brand Ambassadors with a cloud based service accessed via an intuitive mobile app that is powered by artificial intelligence.

"The fundamental nature of work is changing as the world is moving from fixed to fluid, on-demand working models," said Roger Beadle, co-founder and CEO of Limitless. "Customers today value authenticity and expect fast, helpful and empathetic service at the speed of social. In our view, crowdsourcing will become an integral part of an ecosystem of technologies and methods that will fundamentally change the future of customer service."

In 2014, Gartner predicted that 75% of high-performing enterprises will use crowdsourcing in some form by 2018. Today, online crowds are helping enterprises tackle a wide range of challenges, from simple tasks to complex ones requiring specialised skills. It's having amazing results too, often creating better and more scalable solutions at lower cost than even the best in-house teams.

"To date, companies have had to rely on inflexible and costly contact centres, with fixed infrastructure and resources to deliver customer support," said Megan Neale, co-founder and COO of Limitless. "Limitless allows companies to tap into a more diverse, talented and flexible global workforce and achieve up to 50% cost savings."

Crowdsourcing offers a way for enterprises to find new solutions and to offer people a greater diversity of work. It's also creating new opportunities for individuals to change the way they work, learn new skills and earn rewards wherever they are and whenever they want.

Limitless is currently helping three Unilever brands, Marmite, Persil and TRESemme.

Stan Sthanunathan, Executive Vice President, Consumer & Market Insights at Unilever says: "We know consumers want more insightful and faster responses from communications with our brands, Limitless offers us a way to provide this this whilst helping other consumers at the same time. We are excited to work with Limitless to help us scale customer services much more cost effectively across all digital channels on a 24/7 basis and deepen our understanding of consumer needs. We also get to reward our most loyal and passionate customers at the same time."

The team has over 25 years' experience in building and running some of the world's largest customer care facilities. "Unilever Ventures invested in Limitless because they combine bleeding edge technology in crowdsourcing and artificial intelligence, with an amazing team who know what customers really want‚" said Jan Harley, Director at Unilever Ventures.

The platform integrates with the leading cloud and e-commerce platforms to intelligently route customer queries to an on-demand network of experts in real time. Brand Ambassadors earn instant cash or rewards for resolving enquiries.

To ensure it's a success it's really important to make sure your business has the right "Crowd" on board. An intuitively designed onboarding process can ensure you are attracting the right freelance talent for your customer-facing roles. From our experience of attracting and training freelancers, we've observed a few traits essential for an Ambassador. They need to be:

• Fans of your brand. Let's face it, if they love their Samsung Galaxy S8 they're not going to be singing the praises of the iPhone 8, or vice-versa!
• Product savvy. The best person for the job is someone who knows your product and/or brand inside out!
• Brand Evangelists: Great Ambassadors are not just brand lovers - they are evangelists, who will convince customers to purchase your product or upgrade!
• Reputation focused: In the same way that user rating has transformed service levels in the transport, e-commerce and hotel industry, Limitless also leverages reputation scores to drive consistently high customer satisfaction. Good Ambassadors are stimulated not only by cash rewards, but they also strive to maintain high reputation scores. For people focused on peer recognition and being "on top of their game," reputation scores can become a great motivational driver.
• Love helping people. Ambassadors are customer facing so a friendly upbeat persona is vital
• Problem solvers. They live to help people find solutions
• Enjoy freedom. Ambassadors cherish the flexibility that freelance roles offer. They thrive in environments which give them the freedom to work at their own pace and on their own terms, without having to commit to a traditional 9-5 model.

The nature of the work and the varied brands we support means our Ambassadors are a diverse bunch of people with different motivations for using Limitless. However, we find that they typically fit one of five personas below:

1. The savvy retiree: Typically aged between 50 and 70, they are either retired or semi-retired so use Limitless to stay active, engage with others and make some extra money.
2.  The permanent freelancer: Workers who have made the conscious decision to work flexibly and have more than one job. They're a bit younger, often aged between 20 and 35.
3. The work-from-home parent: Not only a great way to make some money, it's also beneficial to parents who are planning on coming back to the workplace and want to have up-to-date experience.
4. The conscientious student: As well as the benefit of extra cash, the platform helps students to build up some work experience whilst studying.
5.  The multi-tasking employee: Employees are fans too and have the best first-hand knowledge of the business. Existing, former or part-time employees can supplement their earnings by using their knowledge to help others in their spare time.

Whatever their profile, we find that Ambassadors who gravitate to Limitless, do so, for the flexibility and convenience the platform offers - allowing them to earn on the go, without having to commit to specific time schedules or minimum work hours.

The sharing economy shouldn't be a scary proposition but should be looked upon as a catalyst for business growth. If a business sources the right talent and understands their motivations, they can cultivate a great work/life balance that is reflected in the level of engagement and quality of service provided by the freelancers.

About Limitless

Limitless CrowdService was founded in 2016 by Megan Neale and Roger Beadle on a mission to put an end to poor customer service and give people who provide great service better rewards and freedom. Limitless provides a more effective alternative to contact centres or standalone automation combining the best of people with technology to give customers a better, more authentic experience. For enterprises, it gives them a way to more cost effectively scale their resources to provide faster responses that customers appreciate more. Limitless is headquartered in London. For more information on Limitless, visit www.limitlesstech.com or contact roger@belimitless.io.

About Unilever Ventures:

Unilever Ventures is the venture capital and private equity arm of Unilever. They invest in early stage, promising companies, accelerating growth by providing access to Unilever's global ecosystem, assets and expertise. The fund looks to invest in tomorrow's world-beaters in Personal Care and Digital Transformation. Key focus areas within Digital Transformation include content creation, data analytics, e-commerce, internet of things, mobile marketing, social media, and video in both developed and emerging markets. Unilever Venture's existing investments include Clavis Insight, Percolate, Blis Media, Gousto, Brandtone, Iluminage Beauty, Big Sync Music, Froosh, and Voltea. For further information, please visit: www.unileverventures.com