UniPress Software, Inc. announced that the e-mail management functionality built-in to its FootPrints product line is playing a critical role in helping organizations deliver timely service and support to their internal and external customers. This capability allows organizations to automate multi-channel service and support requests, accommodate larger volumes, and deliver more responsive service. Additionally, it helps agents control, route, and escalate e-mail-based support requests more efficiently while providing users with important notifications and other capabilities to drive self-service.

With FootPrints' advanced e-mail management capabilities, all incoming service and support requests received via e-mail automatically become tickets and are managed through the centralized Web-based service desk. In addition, through auto-generated and customizable e-mail notifications, users and groups that submit requests receive personalized alerts and updates allowing them to monitor the status of requests, keeping them informed throughout the problem resolution lifecycle. E-mail templates can be created within FootPrints to streamline communication and personalize individual and mass e-mails without any programming.

"For our 2,000-plus customers, many of whom are in the mid-market, the influx of e-mail-based service requests as the initial point of contact has emerged as a top operational challenge," said Mark Krieger, President of UniPress Software. "Our system allows organizations of all sizes to track and manage their incoming e-mail as easily as phone calls or Web-based inquiries, and provides a centralized system to deliver responsive service, independent of the channel."

According to industry research firms, e-mail management technology will top the list of many service and support managers' wish lists in 2005 as it quickly emerges as the communication channel of choice for many consumers and business customers.

In a recent report by Gartner Inc. entitled "MarketScope: E-Mail Response Management Systems, 2H04 Update (1)" e-mail is cited as the fastest-growing communication channel for customer service, especially within financial services, consumer packaged goods, insurance industries, and the government. As the volume of e-mail increase, more and more organizations turn to e-mail response management systems (ERMSs) to help them manage the inflow of customer service e-mail.

John Ragsdale, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research notes, "By the time you are receiving 1,000 e-mails a day, it is too late to implement e-mail response management effectively. Organizations should stay ahead of customer demand, and embrace new channels before the deluge hits."

In addition to the customer service and staff efficiency benefits delivered through e-mail management technology, there are also cost savings. Interacting with customers via e-mail costs $16 per incident as opposed to $20 through phone, according to the Help Desk Institute's 2004 Practices Survey. For organizations fielding tens of thousands of support requests per month, the annual savings offered by an effective e-mail management solution can be measured in millions.

"Managing e-mail in the modern service desk era is a two-dimensional problem," said Mr. Krieger. "Not only do organizations need to automate e-mail channels in order to satisfy customers, they must also ensure their service and support agents are armed with the right tools to efficiently manage support e-mails internally."

With FootPrints, support agents can create tickets directly from e-mail, dynamically process e-mail attachments, and link them to corresponding requests. Also, agents and customers can conduct e-mail conversations that are in turn, automatically tracked to the correct issue. E-mail notifications are automatically routed to appropriate agents and escalated based on the organization's specific agent, timing, and SLA support requirements through built-in business rule automation features within FootPrints.

"Even if organizations master the e-mail support challenge, they must continue to support phone and other communications channels," said Mr. Ragsdale. "Support interactions will increase on average 20% year over year, so even if self-service or e-mail handles a good portion of requests, these channels cannot handle all of them."

"To ensure a consistently positive customer experience, FootPrints helps companies optimize and automate all their support channels equally well," explained Mr. Krieger. "Whether they need to address e-mail, phone or Web-based support, or any combination, they can easily and quickly deploy FootPrints to meet their specific needs."

(1) Gartner Report "MarketScope: E-Mail Response Management Systems, 2H04 Update" by Esteban Kolsky. January 6, 2005.