The
Little Man Who Isn't There: NeuroServer 3.0 vReps www.nativeminds.com/800-968-1002
As costs escalate for handling live calls and e-mail,
Internet-based self-service options for cybershoppers
are attracting more notice from companies desirous of
stemming cost overflows while not short-changing their
customers. NativeMinds Inc. unveiled NeuroServer 3.0,
the latest release of its software suite for creating
virtual online customer service representatives, or "vReps."
These virtual agents help to enhance customer service,
increase sales and deflect costly phone calls and e-mail
messages by automatically answering high-volume
questions online.
Instead of just returning a list of search results,
NeuroServer 3.0 enables virtual service agents to gauge
customers' questions based on question type, tone and
customer history, and answer precisely with accurate,
personalized replies. These capabilities enable vReps to
handle relatively complex questions such as, "What is my
insurance policy coverage" or "How can I open a checking
account?" The product can respond to customers with
text, Web pages, transaction data or a transfer to live
assisted service via telephone or e-mail.
New features include the ability for vReps to suggest
other conversation topics related to customers' initial
lines of questioning and extensive customer intelligence
capabilities that allow businesses to analyze vRep
conversation data. The reporting capabilities track vRep
usage metrics and capture customer information including
conversation topic popularity, duration and percentage
of repeat customers. Companies can also measure vRep
response accuracy as well as statistics on when
questions need to be escalated to higher-level customer
service channels. Intended for meeting the demands of
high-traffic Web sites, the solution's performance
delivery has doubled over the previous release. A new
component, NeuroServer 3.0 Enterprise Application
Platform, allows virtual representatives to manage
thousands of simultaneous conversations across multiple
servers and maintain continuous conversation threads in
the event of unforeseen hardware failures.
Since NeuroServer integrates with leading CRM systems
and employs an advanced search technology, vReps can
draw on information stored in a variety of databases,
order tracking, CRM and e-commerce systems, and respond
to research-type questions that require broader
responses (as in the form of multiple Web pages). vReps
can manage and field a large percentage of customer
inquiries in order to free up live agents to handle
higher-level service tasks. NeuroServer 3.0 is a
complete on-premise development and serving environment
that allows companies to easily develop their own
self-service initiatives and maintain complete control
of their proprietary corporate data.
Financial
Service Solutions From Motive www.motive.com/512-339-8335
Financial services represent one of the strongest growth
sectors of Internet-based commerce. According to
information gathered by Jupiter Research, the number of
U.S. households managing their finances online will
triple over the next four years. While businesses will
most certainly increase their use of Web-based financial
applications, many barriers still exist to providing
consistent, problem-free experiences to users, both
business and commercial, conducting online transactions.
As Mike Maples, vice president of corporate products for
Motive Communications, Inc., put it, "Customer service
will increasingly be what differentiates financial
institutions and defines success for online products.
The trick for financial institutions is to re-focus
their online service processes on making customers
productive and successful, without significantly scaling
up their service centers."
As part of its Olympus Vertical Solutions product
line, Motive has released a set of industry-specific
solutions that address the growing number of service and
technical challenges faced by financial institutions
serving online customers and employees. Developed for
banks, brokerages and insurance companies, Motive's
Financial Services solutions deliver personalized
service experiences with built-in, high-touch service
for customer applications and front-line employee
applications, resulting in an increased usage of
applications and reduction in service costs. Motive
offers five solutions that comprise an online service
platform with prepackaged components and industry best
practices specifically for financial services. The
solutions are geared for closing the adoption gap by
building customer service directly into the application.
There is a full array of one-button access points to
self-service, assisted-service from a live expert,
alerting and technical support capabilities to answer
customers' questions or solve problems. Each solution is
designed specifically for strategic user segments:
Online Banker for retail and wholesale banking
applications; Online Investor for retail brokerage
applications; Independent Advisor/Agent for PC- and
Web-based financial management applications; Company
Broker/Agent for PC- and Web-based business applications
used by revenue-producing front-line employees; and IT
Help Desk for desktop support of a company's knowledge
workers. Customer Service Assistants, intelligent,
out-of-the-box templates and programs, automate various
service tasks; providing assistance with registration,
completing transactions, getting professional
assistance, accessing technical support etc. Additional
solutions for specific financial services environments
will be announced throughout 2001.
Talisma Corporation recently presented its new Talisma
Sales Suite, engineered for ease of use by employing
automatic data capture and analytics capabilities and by
focusing on lifting the burden of data input from the
sales force. Pradeep Singh, Talisma's founder and CEO,
said, "Most traditional CRM and SFA software is not
really designed with the day-to-day functioning of a
sales organization in mind. It's often complicated, hard
to learn and requires salespeople to enter customer
information manually in order to build the corporate
database." Consequently, "...(the) Sales Suite makes use
of technology that sales forces already...use on a daily
basis, and it automatically captures customer data from
that technology so sales staff can spend time selling
instead of entering information."
The Talisma Sales Suite offers in-depth
functionality, including order, opportunity and pipeline
tracking and management capabilities that can be used
alone or integrated with other sales support technology
already implemented. Fully integrated with Talisma's
Marketing and Service Suites, the Sales Suite gives the
sales force an organization-wide customer view, allowing
them to tailor interactions to the specific needs of
each prospect, to close sales more quickly and
effectively and to increase upsell and cross-sell
opportunities. It can automatically capture data from
routine daily sales interactions and its integration
with Microsoft Outlook through the Talisma Offline
Client, or user interface. The Offline Client is
intended for salespeople comfortable using Microsoft
Outlook who do not want to learn another software
program. It enables sales staff in the field to remotely
create, edit and view interactions with customers,
opportunities, corporate accounts or contacts. These
interactions are automatically captured and synchronized
with the solution to become part of customer or account
profiles in the corporate database, allowing both remote
and onsite sales staff to have real-time information
that can be leveraged to build relationships and
increase sales.
Included are powerful analytics and customizable,
in-depth reporting functionality to help sales managers
analyze the sales pipeline, measure sales performance,
track revenue, develop sales forecasts and projections
and improve sales process efficiencies. Designed for
rapid deployment and training, salespeople can begin
using the product immediately with minimal disruption of
their day-to-day work, and companies can realize a more
rapid return-on-investment and accrue immediate business
benefits. Talisma also offers Wireless Client, which
gives mobile users remote access to Talisma's sales and
service tools via any WAP-enabled device, including cell
phones and PDAs.
Keeping
It Together: I'm InTouch www.01com.com/905-795-2888
Simply speaking, unified messaging provides the
convergence of voice, text and images in combination for
enhanced messaging capabilities. Initially marketed
primarily to large enterprises, unified messaging has
found wider, more rapid acceptance in markets such as
small to medium enterprises, SOHOs and organizations
with mobile workforces. Not surprisingly, these continue
as the major growth segments in the industry, especially
with the Internet platform and the surge in wireless
communications.
01 Communique Laboratory Inc. integrates multiple
message types into one convenient interface intended to
provide end users with simplified communications
management and remote wired/wireless personal control
over their messaging. Recognizing that people use
different devices to communicate and that no single
device can serve all of their communications needs, the
company recently launched I'm InTouch, a "de-centralized"
unified communications solution that permits remote
access and control over messages, contact records,
software configuration and management, etc. Using any
Web browser, phone or wireless Internet device, a user
can log into his or her PC to access a personal
communications center over the Internet. I'm InTouch
allows users to remotely perform a variety of tasks,
including: check for new voice, fax and e-mail messages;
search for any contact information in your phonebook;
send e-mail from your existing e-mail address on your
PC; monitor your home/office using live video streaming
technology; and change the I'm InTouch configuration on
your PC. 01 Communique has plans for additional
functionality, including wireless synchronization and
collaboration, peer-to-peer networking, hard drive
access and instant messaging. The product, offered on a
monthly subscription basis, installs on a PC and stores
all inbound and outbound e-mail, faxes and voice
messages on a personal communications center. All
messages can be searched and sorted in one operation
with the I'm InTouch interface. Contact and log data
stays on your PC, not on a server in the public domain.
The product protects all interactions with a PC by
employing password and user name protection to prevent
hacking and denial-of-service attacks. Restrictions on
the remote capabilities of a PC can be added to prevent
accidental or deliberate system corruption. Access to
the communications center will not allow any access to
the underlying computer system where the product
resides. 01 Communique also announced the availability
of I'm InTouch Service Provider Edition geared for
telcos, cellcos and service providers.
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