The pioneering live chat firm launched 15 years ago has become Blazeo, a 400-employee global platform, having optimized how 35,000 small businesses capture and qualify leads, set appointments and sign retainers, while embracing 24/7 live human agents in an era of over-automation. 

Blazeo officially announced that is has changed its name from ApexChat, reflecting its growth from a pioneering customer service-focused chat firm into a 400-employee ad conversion platform, which has helped 35,000 local businesses—spanning dozens of verticals–efficiently find, qualify and help new customers while blending advanced AI and, also, live human agents.

“Fifteen years ago our founder, Ashhad Syed, started with a mission to revolutionize customer-business communications,” explained Blazeo Chief Operating Officer Cory Halbardier. “In our first few years, we built a system capable of handling hundreds of thousands of customers, sparking growth from word-of-mouth referrals.

“Today,” said Blazeo’s COO, “we’re a bigger, better company that offers far more than chat. Our Ad Conversion Platform focuses on lead capture, lead qualification and lead closing.  This includes call center services, appointment setting, SMS enablement, market automation, sales acceleration and much more. We want our name to reflect that–Blazeo, derived from ‘blaze’ evokes passion, speed and energy. Like a blaze, Blazeo ignites growth. In fact, we’ve generated over 15 million leads for small business owners across North America, Australia and New Zealand; and we’re just getting started.”

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Companies are expected to spend more than $380 billion on generating leads this year; and the average small business is spending more than 8 percent of their revenues on digital ads, often with low conversion rates. For example, the average landing page conversion rate across industries is less than 3 percent.

“Enter Blazeo,” said Founder and CEO Ashhad Syed. “Companies, especially local businesses, are trying to maximize their marketing dollars. Most small businesses—think dentists, plumbers, HVAC experts, med spas, personal injury lawyers, carpenters, you name it—aren’t digital ad experts. They’re busy serving their customers, not building landing pages or answering calls at 10 PM on a Friday. But these small businesses want more customers without breaking the bank on wasted digital marketing costs.

“Blazeo,” Mr. Syed added, “makes it possible for these small companies to be responsive 24/7. That pays dividends.  In fact, 59% of the leads we generate for businesses are outside of normal business hours, when consumers aren’t working.”

Blazeo has expanded its services as its customers’ needs have expanded, creating a large, customizable and still-growing quiver of AI- and human-powered tools and services, designed to help local businesses thrive.

• Blazeo’s managed live chat empowers local businesses to convert more website visitors into leads, along with its newly expanded suite of customer experience and lead generation tools.
• Its call center services take inbound calls from existing and prospective customers; and they perform outbound calling campaigns to convert more leads to customers.
• Its appointment setting services conserve salespeople’s time and demonstrably raise conversion rates.
• Its retainer signing services help law firms generate tens of millions more in revenue per week.
• And Blazeo’s SMS communication platform helps SMBs take advantage of technology formerly only available to their Big Biz competitors.

Unlike other ad conversion firms, Blazeo’s offers a subscription model for its customers instead of a cost-per-lead model; and, critically, it employs more than 250 live human agents to provide its customers with round-the-clock service.

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“We’ve taken a balanced–and frankly, quite different–approach when it comes to AI and live agents,” said Blazeo Founder and CEO. “AI is a powerful tool that we’re leveraging every day and in new ways all the time. However, AI has limits that are overlooked within our industry and outside of it. Businesses want efficiency gains, which AI can certainly deliver but only to a point. When consumers get to the point of wanting to chat, most often they want to speak with a live person, so bots only go so far. AI technology which powers human connection creates the greatest return on investment for local service businesses who view each customer or client as important.”

When a potential customer approaches one of Blazeo’s clients via its platform, they have the choice to communicate with real people over whatever medium they want—text, chat or phone.

“Advanced AI in combination with live agents is our formula,” said Mr. Syed. “The consequence is higher engagement and more conversions.”

Keep an eye out for new major product announcements in coming months that will further fuel local business success.