Live Chat Service
LiveChat Service, part of the LCS Group, is active in the field of live chat and offers chat software, live chat crew and data-driven marketing. She does this worldwide from offices in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.
About LCS Group:
Online, yet personal with live chat
We are an online service provider in the field of live chat and help companies and organizations get in touch with their potential customers via their own website. Live chat works via a chat window that can be clicked open at the bottom of the screen. The website visitor can then type into this screen, where he or she will have direct contact with a representative of the website or company. Our goal is to help both companies and consumers through personal contact with website visitors.
We mainly offer the following three types of services:
- providing software in the field of live chat;
- providing the live chat crew for companies;
- and providing marketing based on chat data.
In addition, we are increasingly focusing on providing our services as “white-label software” for other service providers.
We provide our services through the various companies that belong to our group.
LCS Group
The bonds are issued by LCS Group BV, the holding company of LiveChat Service BV, LiveChat Service GmbH, LCS International BV, which provides manned chat services and Cobrowser.net BV, developer and provider of chat software. In addition, online marketing services are offered under the name LCS Agency, which is a trade name of LiveChat Service BV.
More about our services
Our 'white-label' activities were negligibly small in 2019 and are therefore not shown.
Providing live chat software
Our software allows customers to contact website visitors through a chat window on the website. Customers activate the chat window using a script. This script can easily be placed via the source code of the website or Google Tag Manager. From now on, a visitor will see the option on the website to open a chat window (as in the image below) and directly talk to a representative of the website.
The software is offered as SaaS (Software as a Service) for which customers pay a monthly fee depending on the number of licenses they use.
Providing crew for live chat
In addition to software, we offer the option to take care of (part of) the chat crew. Our chat operators, the employees who conduct chat conversations, can provide the full chat service or serve as a supplement when the customer is unable to answer himself, for example during busy periods or during weekends. Our chat operators are available 7 days a week, weekdays from 07:00 AM to 23:00 PM and weekends from 9:00 AM to 23:00 PM in 5 different languages.
In this case, the customer purchases a package with a minimum number of chat conversations per month, for which a fixed price is paid. Additional chat conversations will be paid for per chat afterwards.
It is possible to combine the manned service with a chatbot, a program that automatically answers standard questions. As soon as the chatbot does not have a suitable answer, the chat is automatically transferred to one of our chat operators.
Providing marketing based on chat data
By providing our chat services, we collect a lot of useful data about the behavior of visitors on websites, such as on which page a chat is started or which questions are asked most often. In addition, we can also ask questions during conversations that provide insight into the wishes and type of website visitor. Based on this data, the customer can adjust or improve his marketing and the collection of data from chat conversations can be used for targeted advertisements.
Providing white-label services
We continuously develop our software so that we can continuously adapt it to the wishes of our customers and the latest state of technology. This allows us to link our software to existing systems of other service providers. Our software is then delivered in their 'look and feel' without mentioning our name. We call this providing 'white-label' services.
Chat innovations
In addition to the 'normal' chat solution on websites, we also offer a number of variants that we have developed in-house. For example, it is possible to place a chat window in advertisements shown on websites. We call these 'chat banners'. The advertisement thus provides a direct link to a representative of the company behind that advertisement.
We also offer a chat solution for emails. An email that someone receives has a chat window built into it, which puts them in direct contact with the company behind that email.
Other innovations include 'retargeting by text mining', which allows data from chat conversations to be used for targeted advertisements and screen share, which allows the chat operator to monitor the website visitor.
Market developments
Over the past decade, live chat has definitively won over telephone and email as a channel for customer contact. Huge growth in the adoption of live chat is also expected in the coming years. Some statistics*:
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- The live chat software market is expected to be $2023 million by 987.
- 54% of B2B companies and 31% B2C companies use live chat for marketing.
- 53% of companies were rolling out chatbots and messenger services in 2019.
*Live Chat Adoption Statistics, Finances Online
Social media channels are also growing and are increasingly entering the business market as an online contact channel. For example, WhatsApp announced in mid-February 2020 that the messaging app is now actively used by more than 2 billion people worldwide.
To respond to these developments, we are currently converting our chat software to a broader platform in which all possible contact channels come together.
Recent software developments
We distinguish two types of customers for offering our software. On the one hand, these are larger companies and public institutions, where we offer customized solutions under the name 'Cobrowser'. This type of organization often has to deal with strict regulations regarding the handling of confidential data. Our software meets the latest security and privacy requirements, allowing us to serve this target group.
We have also adjusted our software so that it is better suited for small and medium-sized companies. Instead of a minimum purchase of chat services, we also supply these companies with separate software licenses for their own chat management, for which a monthly license fee is paid. This is done under the name Knowler.
Recent crew developments
We have been supplying the crew for chat services since the end of 2019 in 5 different languages: Dutch, English, German, Spanish and French. Here you can see the distribution of our services per language. We deliver approximately three quarters of the chat conversations we conduct in Dutch, which is our original home market.
However, compared to other languages, the Dutch language market is relatively small. This means that the potential market for chat services in other language areas is larger than in Dutch, which offers great opportunities for further growth.
We expect to achieve healthy growth by expanding our sales and marketing activities in the other language areas.
Customers
Here is a selection from our customer base:
Competition
There are a number of different competitors active in (parts of) the market we serve. In the Netherlands we have identified two competitors that, as far as we can estimate, have smaller turnover than us. In addition, there are a number of competitors within Europe that are often partly active in the market we serve. An example of this is a Polish listed company that is mainly active in providing chat software. Before we had our own software, we also used this company's software.
However, what makes us unique is the combination of software, crew and marketing, three pillars that no competitor connects like we do.
History
In 2015 Nick Blom started offering live chat services under the name LiveChat Service BV. Initially for one customer, served by Nick himself. But soon more customers followed and the first employees could be hired.
In 2017 services were expanded to include marketing activities 2018 were brought together under the name LCS Agency. End 2018 CoBrowser.net BV was acquired. Thanks to this acquisition, LiveChat gained access to its own software, which is being further developed alongside the Cobrowser brand as an accessible solution.
Begin 2019 we moved to a larger office building and in April of that year we acquired Finnchat GmbH in Germany, which is now LiveChat Service GmbH. This acquisition gave us direct access to the German market. The umbrella holding company was named LCS Group. End 2019 we have also added French and Spanish to offer our chat services and software throughout Europe. Early 2020 we have shifted our focus from developing just chat software to a complete communication platform. With this change, the market needed a new name that better describes it: Conversation24.
Because working from home had now become commonplace due to the corona pandemic, we have started 2022 moved again to a smaller office on Botersloot in Rotterdam. At the same time, the platform was further expanded with the first catalog and payment integration for WhatsApp and we introduced Lead Automation via WhatsApp. In order to work more efficiently, we merged several operating companies in the same year. The organization was therefore ready for its growth ambition 2023 and after that.
management team
Nick Blom is founder, CEO and indirect Director of LCS Group BV. He headed the sales team of Van Boom & Slettenhaar Real Estate Funds before he decided to start his own business. Since its start in 2015, Nick has grown LiveChat Service BV into a group of companies that covers all facets of conversational commerce.
Mark Vrijvogel has been since 2018 Operational director from LiveChat Service BV. After studying Commercial Economics, Mark was partly responsible for starting and expanding Alternate Nederland into one of the largest electronics web shops in the Netherlands and Belgium. After 20 years, he made the switch to help realize our ambitions.
Walid Sadek is like Head of Customer Experience responsible for the implementations and support of our customers. During his Sports Marketing & Management studies, Walid Sadek started at LiveChat Service BV as a graduate intern, after which he became a permanent employee. He was one of the first employees.
Sanne IJben is Manager Conversational Services and uses her knowledge and expertise at LiveChat Service BV to help the international chat team and our customers grow with the organization. Previously, Sanne was partly responsible at Robeco Retail for the transition of employees and customers to online services and their continuous improvement.
Frank Leegstra is like Chief Technology Officer associated with our company. After his studies, Frank founded CoBrowser.net BV in 2008, which he sold to LiveChat Service BV two years ago. Since then he has been involved in expanding the development team and new innovations such as the Messenger platform and Knowler.
Jeroen Mahler is Director International Partnerships. Jeroen has been involved with that company since the founding of CoBrowser.net BV and has built up a growing customer portfolio in finance, e-commerce and government. After selling his shares to LiveChat Service BV, he works for us and is involved in expanding our partner network.
Christian Ebel is like Commercial Director responsible for the daily management of our German branch. Before switching to LiveChat Service GmbH, he worked as a Consultant Industry Partner at Spryker Systems GmbH, where he had a leading role in guiding customers in the digitalization of their activities.
Organogram
Loan purpose
We have grown from nothing since 2015 to a consolidated annual turnover of almost € 3 million in 2019 with a net result after tax for that year of more than € 200.000.
We want to grow further in the coming years. We think that the market offers room for further growth and we are convinced that we must also intensify that growth. To make that possible, we are issuing these bonds.
We want to borrow a maximum of € 2.500.000 from investors with a minimum amount of € 500.000 that we want to invest according to the table below.
Risks and certainties
Investing always involves risks. The main risk you run is that LCS Group BV has no money to repay you or to pay the interest. This could happen, among other things, if we cannot grow sufficiently or if competitors do better. Then you may not receive any repayment of the loan and you will not receive any interest.
No further guarantees are provided. For the complete risk analysis, please refer to the prospectus and the information document.
Rates
The rates charged by NPEX are shown below.
| NPEX account | free |
|---|---|
| Deposit money | free |
| Registration fee for issue | 1% one-off |
| Service fee | 0,05% per month* |
*To be calculated based on the nominal value of the bonds in the portfolio on the coupon payment date and to be offset against the (monthly) interest payment.
