eLive! Inc. sees the dynamics of e-commerce sounding the death knell of
static and so-called quasi-interactive Web sites' limited functionality. It
believes that multichannel interaction drives the successful e-commerce site
in terms of establishing a Web presence, customer satisfaction and
increasing market share. eLive! is an Internet-based telecommunications
program incorporating live video, synchronized audio, text chat and document
push retrieval technology to facilitate live collaboration on standard
bandwidth by automatically sensing the end user's bandwidth and adjusting
the frame rate. Although the company recommends cable or DSL access, eLive!
will still work with 56K dial-up connections.
The eLive! iCRM Suite is designed to enable Web page customers to have
instant access to a company's support staff to hear and see the information
they need through real-time, collaborative interactions. Troy Wyatt, CEO of
eLive!, said that, with so much "form-intensive" e-commerce
activity, it behooves organizations of all sizes to implement collaborative
channels of communication, adding a mark of differentiation to a site,
overcoming the impediments to online sales and the sources of frustration
for customers and service representatives alike (huge volumes of e-mail
included). eLive!'s suite can be characterized as an extensible feature set
that enhances the real-time capabilities of your customer-facing resources.
A few of its many features include: active content delivery, electronic
whiteboards, recording and archiving of sessions, individual log ins and
IDs, custom templates, drag-and-drop documents, open APIs for integration to
CRM or other enterprise system solutions, queue management and e-mail
transcripts. eLive! iCRM Suite works with all levels of security by sending
encapsulated data via HTTP protocol or via a proprietary eLive! port. eLive!
is available in an ASP model and as an enterprise solution. eLive! also
offers support services including installation, training and integration.
Larry Caretsky, president and CEO of Commence Corporation, remarked that,
while there is a growing demand for solutions that fulfill the CRM needs of
small- to mid-sized companies, a gap still exists between that need,
available solutions and providers. Building on its experience in providing
solutions to that market segment, the company unveiled Commence Relationship Management,
described as the next generation of its Commence 2000 CRM product. The
solution has new features and functionality designed to combine sales,
marketing and customer support information into a unified database for
managing customer interactions and support a broad range of business
activities and operations.
Commence RM's flexible user interface provides an easier way to view all
types of customer interactions and information. The new interface includes
an easy-to-use wizard to help users create a personalized multiview display
(described as a "digital dashboard") for selecting and viewing
specific information needs (daily sales orders, priority support calls,
account history, follow-up activity, etc.). Multiviews can be combined with
desktops to offer different sets of functionality to users, managers and
different departments. Complementing the dashboard is a tool, called Grid
View, for creation of reports in a spreadsheet-style format. Pop-up dialogs,
specialized according to field type, assist in data entry. In combination,
the dashboard and Grid View make it easier for businesses to access and view
information and extend the CRM database across the organization. Database
integration to third-party applications allows users to share information
with in-house solutions, most accounting applications and a variety of other
business solutions. Refined workgroup performance features allow
administrators to control user access to desktops, hide or deny unneeded
functionality and enforce category permissions, which can help to simplify
an application and prevent access to confidential information. Enhanced
e-mail integration simplifies storage of and access to e-mail, and is
automatically installed in the MS Outlook interface for immediate
availability.
With the integration of HTML content with the Commence application,
Internet- and Intranet-based applications and pages can be viewed directly
from a Commence desktop, creating a seamless link between local and remote
data, applications and content. Web integration provides access to the Web
directly from within the Commence desktop. The solution's core applications
are customizable and do not require programming knowledge, enabling easier
tailoring to business requirements and quicker deployment.
Internet shoppers expect the service capabilities of the Web to save them
time and money. In fact, many of these capabilities have not been delivered,
have been back ordered or are languishing in an unattended virtual
warehouse. While citing the all-too-familiar statistics on abandonment and
poor marks given e-tailers by dissatisfied shoppers, WorldCom Inc. also
recognizes the burden imposed on companies to adopt technologies and
processes (and attendant support resources) to better position themselves in
the e-commerce arena. In its view, e-commerce organizations committed to the
Web for their financial future need simple yet efficient integrated customer
service, support and relationship management solutions. These companies want
cost-effectiveness and rapid implementation; in essence, value-enhancing
tools in support of their e-business infrastructures.
To that end, WorldCom launched the WorldCom Web Center, a network-based,
Web-enabled customer contact solution. With no equipment requirements beyond
Internet browser-equipped PCs, Web Center offers an assortment of
interaction services supporting multiple contact channels, including e-mail
and message management, chat, Web callback, Web collaboration, voice mail
and fax. Customer data storage and record-building capabilities of the
solution provide agents with up-to-date customer profiles and histories,
allowing them to leverage and maintain positive customer relationships and
provide upselling opportunities.
Using its global digital network, WorldCom Web Center services can be
provisioned quickly and accessed on-demand via a single-source Internet
business portal. Agents may be located anywhere there is access to a
browser, allowing for significant flexibility in workforce deployment:
businesses can establish their customer service operations without concern
for addressing obsolete on-premise equipment problems. Customers can
subscribe to the Web Center service online and establish or amend their own
business rules and service levels. One of the attractions of this type of
hosted service is the per agent/per month subscription model, allowing up-
or downscaling to accommodate planned or unexpected customer interaction
volume changes.
Button
Up Your Infrastructure: Resolution Suite Version 5 www.support.com/877-4WEBSPT
Increasingly, complex technology inextricably entwines itself through
business operations. A major challenge to organizations is finding the means
to furnish efficient support for users, systems and processes, while at the
same time striking a balance between insourcing, outsourcing and
cost-effectiveness. Enter Support.com, Inc. and its Resolution Suite of
products. The software provides an integrated system encompassing problem
resolution, support delivery and management and user insight in a Web-based
platform that captures and leverages personalized information throughout a
support interaction. The goal is to enable companies to provide self-help,
assisted service and a dynamic communications infrastructure on a solid
foundation of content management functionality.
New features include the Scorecard, which provides IT management with
real-time views and information about their users through intelligent
analysis of support requirements. It allows for more rapid allocation of
resources to handle major problems, to change content to more effectively
address problems and provide SupportActions (videos, scripts, etc.) to
automate support for resolution of key issues. The SmartResult System
combines information from the SmartIssue component with advanced knowledge
retrieval to intelligently return only the most relevant self-service
solutions to analysts and users. Featuring natural language search and
automatic content categorization, the SmartResult System reduces development
and maintenance by eliminating manual content categorization.
Version 5 is equipped with "application triggers" that enable
support organizations to embed support content directly into a business
application without changing the application's source code. The user can
simply hit a "hot key" to receive support. The triggers also allow
for proactive "self-healing" before a user needs to ask for help,
automatically identifying and resolving problems or guiding users to a
solution. The software developer's kit provides well-documented APIs and
sample code to permit deployment of modular functionality, such as chat,
remote control, healing and solution retrieval. It also enables faster and
more flexible branded portal deployments, particularly valuable to
Support.com channel partners who leverage Support.com technology to build
branded, customized portals for their customers, partners and employees.
AvantGo
4.0 Powers Wireless Applications And Services www.avantgo.com/510-259-4000
AvantGo, Inc. recently released AvantGo 4.0, designed to make the most of
existing network infrastructure, Internet standards and wireless devices so
businesses can deploy applications to their mobile workforces, partners and
customers without writing specialized software for each device or
connectivity alternative. It provides an open architecture for incorporating
complementary tools and technologies to deliver broader capabilities to
enterprises. This ample software solution framework provides a stable
foundation on which to build mobile applications that can take best
advantage of current and future standards, technologies, platforms and
wireless services. The solution enables corporations to seamlessly
transition applications between online, offline and push modes --
wirelessly, through a desktop PC or over cellular and paging networks.
AvantGo 4.0 supports existing wireless protocols and is positioned to
support new technologies, including Bluetooth and 3G, as they become more
widely available.
Version 4.0 includes important wireless infrastructure improvements to
the company's core M-Business Server, its Mobile Engines for the Web, Lotus
Notes, Microsoft Exchange and its mobile Internet service. M-Business Server
features 30 percent improved wireless performance to increase reliability
over high-latency and low-bandwidth wireless data services (such as paging
and cellular networks). It also offers self-registration and end-user
account management, allowing IT managers to grant users permission to create
new accounts and add or delete applications with a browser-based interface.
Enhancements for the Lotus Notes and Exchange Mobile Engines include
"mobilizing" applications particular to each product and expanded
remote access capabilities. The Mobile Engine for the Web allows for easier
delivery of Web-based content and applications over wireless and wired
networks to handheld devices and Internet-enabled phones. Additionally, the
Mobile Engine for Sales Automation provides out-of-the-box integration with
leading sales force automation solutions.
AvantGo's mobile Internet service provides local language content and
applications in North America, France, Norway, Sweden and the United
Kingdom, and is available for free to consumers. Enhancements include new
content, applications and service channels optimized for mobile devices'
small screens. In partnership with Sundial Marketplace Corporation,
consumers can also purchase wireless service and hardware at the AvantGo Web
site. Sundial provides the configuration engine, product and service
inventory and backend fulfillment.
Peregrine Systems, Inc. focuses on helping companies move toward a state of
what it terms "frictionless business" by preventing or minimizing
downtimes caused by IT issues and breakdowns. The company recently launched
ServiceCenter 4, the latest version of its enterprise service management
solution. Steve Gardner, Peregrine's chairman and CEO, said "IT service
management is a competitive advantage for companies doing business in
today's global economy." ServiceCenter 4 was designed to "embed
built-in best practices for the real-time management of technology assets,
thus taking frictional cost and guess work out of setting up truly effective
support for mission-critical systems."
ServiceCenter 4 integrates industry-standard best practices and is
certified compliant in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL),
supporting both ITIL processes and relationships. Improvements were made to
the Service, Incident and Request modules to make the product more
intuitive. Root cause analysis capability was added to enhance proactive
problem management. Known errors can be identified and underlying issues
(the root causes) can be investigated and properly handled. Individual
incidents can be correlated throughout the entire problem management cycle,
providing more information and resolution capability to less experienced
technicians. This functionality is an effective way of preventing service
calls and breakdowns and eliminating recurring incidents. ServiceCenter
supports IT operations with integrated applications that follow an organized
approach to dealing with infrastructure-related issues. The objective is to
implement applications that address the current IT situation and enable
movement from reactive and tactical operations to proactive, service-based
strategic operations. This builds value into the IT organization as it
relates to the business it supports.
The product synthesizes lifecycle service management, providing both a
plan and the tools to implement the steps toward a well-organized service
operation. Foundational packages provide fundamental service management to
log and track calls and support customers by quickly resolving and closing
incidents. Proactive Management identifies known errors and actively manages
problems and integrated change management processes. Peak Performance
manages services with a preventive maintenance strategy using task planning
and scheduling, workload balancing and services prioritization. Value-added
IT operations leverage an "under-control" infrastructure
environment for improved cost controls, service capability and employee
productivity.
E-Business
Platform From eGuanxi www.eguanxi.com/650-227-6700
Global e-business is of course big business, and in this
millennium, if you can't react rapidly and collaborate with the entire
enterprise, as well as customers, partners, suppliers and distributors so
you keep abreast of marketplace changes, you will quickly lose out to your
competitors.
Addressing this need for enterprise e-business, eGuanxi has
designed its eBOSS Architecture to meet the needs of enterprise integration
of workflow automation, supply- and demand-chain support and public
marketplace offerings.
eBOSS technology components include Organizational Modeling
and Management, Virtual Link, Workflow Automation, Event-based Messaging and
Notification, Backend Integration, Predefined Explicit Object Classes, and a
Library of JSP/WEB Pages.
The Organizational Modeling and Management (OMM) model is an
object-oriented approach designed specifically to represent different
resource types within and across enterprises. Applying the OMM methodology,
system designers are able to represent to the desired level of complexity
various business objects such as products, services, companies, employees,
partners, contracts, invoices, auctions, negotiations and others.
The Virtual Link provides dynamic relationship management,
where objects are linked based on business rules. This approach abstracts
business relationships and policies into computable rules, whereby thousands
of relationships that exist can be represented by a handful of business
rules. When the underlying information of the business objects change, these
virtual links automatically adjust themselves to represent the new
relationships between the business entities.
An object-based workflow system is developed on top of the
OMM model. The workflow system allows system designers to define flexible
business processes to represent the numerous interactions and
collaborations. The eBOSS workflow system is designed to be easily
integrated with external workflow systems developed by other vendors.
eBOSS also supports event-based messaging. System
administrators can define system events and business modelers can define
business events. All of the defined events are associated to specified
plug-in executable programs (methods). When a certain event is raised, the
system will automatically trigger the corresponding program to run. This
mechanism enables users to receive notifications (via e-mail, cell phones or
other wireless communication means) upon event occurrence.
All objects within eBOSS can be imported from and exported to XML format.
This makes the integration of eGuanxi data objects with backend systems easy
and straightforward.
eGuanxi has developed an extensive set of predefined,
explicit object classes used to deliver e-business functionality. These
object classes allow eGuanxi to quickly customize application suites to meet
customer- specific business needs. These object classes were built using
industry standards, which include Java, Java Beans, EJB, J2EE, JDBC, Java
Server Pages, LDAP and XML. eGuanxi has developed more than 70 Java object
classes with more than 300 Java application programming interfaces (APIs).
The eBOSS Library of JSP/WEB pages is developed on top of
the Java Object Classes and provides more than 80 percent of the required
e-Business functionality on the Web. These predefined pages can be
customized to support unique image, brand and business requirements.
eBOSS is the foundation for eGuanxi PerfectSuite
Applications, which include: PerfectMarketplace, solutions for public
exchanges; PerfectCommunity, solutions for private exchanges within public
exchanges; PerfectEnterprise, solutions for virtual enterprises;
PerfectSource, solutions for the supply-net; and PerfectCustomer, solutions
for the demand-net.
Integration of diverse new and existing systems has always
meant headaches for IT personnel. Addressing this problem for the contact
center, Cisco has released its Turnkey CTI Suite, which provides three
levels of CTI support: server-to-server integration for third-party
applications that include CRM packages, logging, recording and workforce
management solutions; CTI toolkit integration through ActiveX and Java
controls for custom integration and CTI capabilities on the contact center
agents' desktops; and integration with Cisco Turnkey CTI solutions to enable
organizations to deploy CTI throughout the enterprise. This will allow new
and existing Cisco customers to evolve from a TDM (time- division
multiplexing)-based solution to an IP-based solution.
The Cisco Turnkey CTI Suite can deliver initial CTI needs
such as screen pops, workflow automation, supervisor-to-agent text chat,
call queuing, consolidated reporting and soft phone to agents,
administrators and supervisors, and can scale to meet a contact center's
changing needs.
Centralized administration provides one place to define
workflow and agent desktop look and feel, the ability to distribute
administrator updates to the desktops, the ability to organize agent
desktops into workgroups, and provide support for multiple administrators
responsible for different workgroups. The integration of Cisco's Turnkey CTI
Suite with its IPCC (IP Contact Center) allows for routing of each customer
contact to the best enterprise resource.
The product is designed to enable contact centers to be
operational with screen pop, soft phone and agent/supervisor coaching
capabilities typically in less than one week. Some of the features Cisco
Turkey CTI Suite offers include agent phone directory, agent call log,
workflow automation, caller context (such as time caller spent at IVRs, time
in queues, agent amendable data about the caller if transferring to another
agent) and conference room. Solutions are provided for single-site,
multisite and network-integrated deployments.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
TMCnet LOGIN
WEBINARS
