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RightNows Internet customer service software recognises online customer emotions

Announcement posted by RightNow Technologies 17 Oct 2001

RightNow Technologies improves its Web self-service offering to recognise emotional tone of customer messages and automatically organise unstructured content for easy navigation
RightNow Technologies, a provider of Internet customer service solutions has announced the latest release of its flagship application, RightNow Web eService Centre 5.0. The application assists customers via Web self-service, email response management, live chat and collaboration, and service analytics. Its the first Internet customer service solution to deliver a common knowledge base across all of those communications channels, and offers language recognition technology that can help gauge customer emotions.

RightNows self-learning knowledge base technology builds content based on customer inquiries and interactions. This enables companies to develop a customer support database that maintains itself and grows with the business.

It reduces call centre workloads by enabling customers to quickly find 75 to 90 per cent of the answers to their own questions online. Online self-service has resulted in substantial cost savings and service improvements in telecommunications, automotive, consumer goods, financial, education, and government fields.
Flagging and routing inquiries based on emotional content
RightNow Web eService Centre can monitor customer communications for emotional content. Dubbed SmartSense, this feature uses intelligent language recognition technology to alert customer service representatives (CSRs) when customers express anger or dissatisfaction. Using workflow and escalation rules, customers who are flagged as more upset can be routed with priority to the most appropriate CSR.

RightNows CEO and founder Greg Gianforte, whos in Australia this week said, Effective service is all about treating customers like people. By engineering the recognition of emotional language cues were giving customer service teams the added advantage of being able to quickly prioritise potentially disgruntled customers, resulting in significantly improved customer satisfaction and retention.

Automatically structures content for easy navigation
As well as automatically building its knowledge base from day-to-day interactions with customers, RightNow Web eService Centre automatically organises that knowledge base into a logical, hierarchical structure based on the search and query terms that customers use. This
use-driven structure makes it easy for customers to immediately see what information is available online and lets them browse even the largest knowledge bases to quickly pinpoint the answers they seek.

RightNows automated structuring is an improvement over conventional approaches to self-service content. Plain text search, for example, forces users to guess which words will lead them to the information they need. This can be a slow and frustrating process. Manual organisation of content is labour-intensive because content managers have to guess what headings and content will be most helpful to customers. In addition, content managers must continually work to accommodate new content.

In contrast, the RightNow Web eService Centre automatically creates content areas that are labelled with the same words and phrases that customers themselves use. It also automatically re-structures content areas without manual intervention by site managers or support staff.

Multiple-choice tests are always easier than filling in the blanks. By automatically structuring the self-service knowledge base, RightNow gives customers an easy, multiple-choice approach to finding whatever they're looking for, said Greg Gianforte.

Immediate, one-on-one service for Web customers
Using RightNow Web eService Centre organisations can deliver immediate, personalised service to customers while theyre online. CSRs can chat with customers to quickly assist them as they browse the Web site. They can even launch co-browsing sessions to guide customers directly to the right Web page or file.

RightNow makes CSRs more efficient because they have access to the same structured knowledge base as the customers do online. RightNow also provides intuitive session management tools that enable CSRs to work together, as well as all of the reporting facilities necessary for managers to track the effectiveness and productivity of service teams. Intuitive session-management consoles let CSRs track active sessions and pass them to one another as required.

Multi-language support for global e-business
RightNow Web eService Centre is available in 15 languages. It automatically recognises the language of customer inquiries, allowing them to be routed to appropriate CSRs or responded to with scripted replies in the correct language. Content in all languages is managed as a single knowledge base; all translations of each knowledge item are maintained as a single atomic information unit.

Healthy sales growth
The strong appeal of RightNow's Internet customer service solutions is evident from the company's continued strong sales growth in a challenging software marketplace.

RightNow Web eService Centre is typically implemented as a hosted service, further accelerating customers' time-to-benefit while providing low ongoing ownership costs. Its available immediately through RightNow's global direct and partner sales channels.

About RightNow Technologies

RightNow Technologies is a leading global provider of proven Internet customer service solutions that deliver rapid return-on-investment. RightNow was named the second fastest-growing independent software company in the US by Softletter, an industry newsletter. RightNows comprehensive solutions include Web-based self-service, email response management, live chat and collaboration, and service analytics. These solutions feature an integrated product architecture, highly intuitive interfaces, and centralised workflow management; all based on a proprietary customer-driven, self-learning knowledge base.

RightNow customers include Air Canada, Ben & Jerry's, Black & Decker, Motorola, Nortel, Pitney Bowes, Sanyo, Social Security Administration, Sprint, and more than 1,100 other organisations in a wide range of vertical markets.

Founded in 1995, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, London, Sydney, and Tokyo. RightNow's products are available in 15 languages worldwide. To learn more, visit www.rightnow.com.