Customer engagement has been a big theme on the Finovate blog this month. As our recent guest features from SaleMove (Enhancing the Customer Experience in Financial Services) and SuiteBox (Top Five Trends in Customer Engagement Technology) attest, technologies that enable better communication between businesses and customers are among the most promising areas of innovation in fintech.

So the news that FinovateSpring 2017 alum Layer has released a new customer engagement-enabling solution is the latest reminder of the trend toward more and better engagement options for businesses. The San Francisco-based company launched its Conversation Design System earlier this month, giving enterprises new tools to quickly build and customize conversational experiences for their customers “in just minutes.”

Pictured (left to right): John Montgomery (COO) and Bill Hu (VP Sales) demonstrating Layer’s customer conversation platform at FinovateSpring 2017.

Layer’s technology leverages chatbot technology and data analytics to provide a wide range of businesses with a customer conversation platform that makes it easier to engage with consumers over the channel of their choice – especially mobile. Through a combination of AI and human participation, Layer’s platform enables financial professionals to provide advice, counseling, and customer service in a unified experience that is more convenient and less intrusive for the contemporary client. “From (our) vantage point, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way people, consumers and businesses alike, want to do business,” Layer’s John Montgomery said during his FinovateSpring presentation earlier this year. Pointing out that both the phone and email were becoming less popular modes of communication, Montgomery added that transitioning to a platform like Layer also gave benefits to businesses. “(This platform can) accelerate the time it takes to do a sales cycle, help you be more scalable in the delivery of services and ultimately lead to greater lifetime value,” he said.

VP of Product at Nordstrom Trunk Club Justin Hughes praised the way the technology helped them improve customer engagement. Calling Layer’s messaging technology “central to the shopping experience and critical to our conversation effectiveness,” Hughes credited Layer for helping the company become and and remain better connected with its customers.

Layer also announced seven new integrations including integrations with Front, Salesforce, and Zendesk. These add to the company’s previously announced IBM Watson and Microsoft integrations. “Today’s announcements unlock boundless potential for brands across all industries,” Layer CEO Ron Palmeri said. “Unlike messaging platforms that simply move text messages from point A to point B, Layer gives brands everything they need to build truly amazing, delightful customer experiences on essentially any channel,” he said.

Founded in 2013, Layer demonstrated its customer conversation platform at FinovateSpring 2017. With more than 1,000 customers including nerdwallet, Qapital, and snapswap, the company has raised more than $42 million in funding, including a $15 million Series B led by Greycroft Partners in February.