|
(Editor's Note: Broadbase Software, Inc. and KANA
Communications, Inc. merged after this product was
reviewed to form KANA
Software. The Broadbase E-Service Suite is now
called KANA Service.)
People have come to expect a certain standard of
customer service from enterprise-level companies.
Although they've probably experienced "superior"
customer service far less often than mediocre to fair
treatment, comparatively it's only the best that
matters. The degree of "pleasantness" associated with
a customer service interaction depends almost
exclusively on two things: a customer service
representative's (CSR's) ability to obtain the most
accurate and up-to-date information about you and your
situation, and whether that same CSR is capable of
providing a suitable solution to the question or
problem at hand. Nothing sours a customer's attitude
toward your organization more than having to explain
the same problem more than once. Furthermore, each
time an occurrence such as this takes place, it not
only generates negative "word-of-mouth" publicity, but
customers interpret this as blatant disregard for them
and their business.
What if it was no longer necessary to speak to a
CSR to find timely solutions to real problems or to
answer questions because all of the company's
knowledge was online? Of course, there will always be
a need for CSRs, but what if all this "online
information" answered a sizable percentage of
potential questions destined for the ear of a CSR?
Furthermore, should a customer not be able to find
what he or she is looking for using this intelligent
type of database, what if the customer could contact a
CSR from any Web page, and a CSR would instantly have
access to the customer's history with the company as
well as his or her Web session history?
Broadbase Software Inc.'s E-Service Suite addresses
all of these issues. It uses the Broadbase Knowledge
Base to afford both customers and agents the
information they seeks regardless of the medium:
e-mail response or proactive or assisted services.
These and various other features which comprise the
E-Service Suite are designed to allow companies to
better manage their workforce and help agents become
more effective than they would be with a more
traditional system.
IMPLEMENTATION
We chose to modify this section title from "Installation"
to "Implementation" as it is a true reflection of what
would be happening should a company decide to purchase
the E-Service Suite. Broadbase provides more than just
software. Its Professional Services division furnishes
the consultancy companies need to make the transition
to the E-Service Suite. It is the job of Broadbase
Professional Services to work with company management
to outline and attain customer service objectives.
Professional Services is a compilation of Broadbase
and/or vendor consulting teams tasked with
understanding company goals and shaping and
implementing the product to provide the most
appropriate solution. This includes everything from
system assessment to code authoring necessary for
uniting legacy systems and enterprise data with the
software to many other transitional tasks, which will
obviously vary from company to company.
There are, however, some minimum hardware and
software requirements for a Broadbase installation.
The server requires an Athlon or Pentium III at
500MHz, with a minimum of 256 MB of RAM, although 512
MB of RAM is recommended. Three gigs of hard disk
space are also required, which is enough room for the
Broadbase software and supporting software
requirements. The E-Service Suite runs on Windows NT
4.0 Server with Service Pack 6a. Other supporting
software includes: MS IIS 4.0, MTS 2.0 and MS SQL
Server 7.0 (Service Pack 2). MS SQL Server should use
the following services: MSSQLServer, MSDTC,
SQLServerAgent and MDAC 2.5. The client machines
should be at least a 233MHz K6, or Pentium Pro with a
minimum of 64 MB of RAM. Additionally, since the GUIs
are Web-based, either Internet Explorer 5 or Java
Virtual Machine 5 is required as well.
If a company determines that e-mail is a viable
communications conduit as a means to retain and
maintain customer relationships, a POP3 and SMTP-compliant
mail server is necessary. This mail server should be
capable of harboring at least one e-mail account for
each of the company mailboxes.
Broadbase boasts a turnaround time of about 8 to 12
weeks from the initial "meeting" with prospective
buyers until the data are compiled, the product
installed and the training is complete. Broadbase has
quite a few training facilities, but they are willing
to work out an arrangement if you'd rather they travel
to you. A large portion of the turnaround time
consists of the "first phase of implementation," or
defining the Knowledge Base structure to most
efficiently achieve company goals.
DOCUMENTATION
We received eight books with the product, not
including supplemental materials. E-Service Suite is a
product built around custom data, or Knowledge Bases.
It is therefore paramount to the effectiveness of this
product to have existing company data linked,
providing the best possible compilation of
information. This process is done using Professional
Services; "process" being the operative word, since it
takes time to complete this operation to the degree of
totality necessary to afford it adequate
functionality. Since we were unable to test certain
aspects of this product, we did not review every
manual. However, we did perform many tests on the
agent/user relationships, the Knowledge Base, etc.,
and, as a result, heavily referenced those manuals.
The documentation we used impressed us. Each book
had both a table of contents and an index to
facilitate referencing. All the manuals were created
professionally, and we didn't have a problem finding
answers to any of our questions. The design of the
manuals was logical and intuitive. The online agent
and user documentation were equally impressive.
Overall, the documentation was of excellent quality.
FEATURES
The Broadbase E-Service Suite is a customer service
tool integrated with a store of company information
and designed to capture any new intellectual capital
as it forges through the Web. Agents can add new
cases, documents and files, which are stored for use
in Knowledge Bases. The theory behind this system is
to allow customers to expedite the acquisition of
information on their own and avoid phone queues.
Scalable architecture allows the system to grow
with the company, supporting multiple HTTP Gateways,
request routing engines, e-mail request managers,
knowledge servers and integration connectors. The
platform also supports features such as Assisted
Service, affording CSRs the most accurate information
using various knowledge retrieval methods including
natural language search, case-based reasoning,
decision trees, expert systems and clarifying
questions. Using these methods, lists of problems and
their respective resolutions are displayed, which can
help guide an agent to the correct answer. System
administration is done through a Web-based interface.
Administration also allows queue monitoring, reporting
and the Single Thread Conversation feature, which
allows an interaction to be tracked in a single thread
even if the medium changes from, for example,
self-service to live interaction. The Knowledge Server
allows authoring from the Web interface, collaborative
authoring and workflow. Workflow is a process that can
be developed to ensure quality knowledge objects by
authorizing a "team" of individuals to collectively
inspect and ultimately publish each object.
Through a browser-based interface, agents can
manage multiple sessions simultaneously while
monitoring queues and using Assisted Service knowledge
access. E-mail Response also includes Auto-Suggest
Template Response, which incorporates suggested text
into the reply message; Auto-Suggest Knowledge Base
Response, which presents agents with possible
solutions; Smart-E-mail, which contains a link to the
knowledge base; and other features. Leading ACD
products can be incorporated to distribute e-mail and
live interaction requests. Agents can also collaborate
live with multiple customers via chat while using
collaborative browsing, page-pushing, and form-filling
capabilities. Additionally, customers have access to
myCSR, the E-Service portal through which they can
view their recent interactions and a variety of
additional personalized information.
OPERATIONAL TESTING
Broadbase set us up with a demo computer: a laptop
packed with all the software and data we would need to
put their system to the test, including several
knowledge bases. Accessible from the agent interface
and customer access points (usually the customer doesn't
have access to all the information the agent does),
the knowledge base we worked with was entitled "Home
Theatre." A knowledge base contains information about
a certain subject matter, and ours was built on the
premise that we were in the business of selling
televisions, surround sound systems, DVD players and
similar wares. The material that both a company's
management team and Broadbase Professional Services
initially deemed relevant was incorporated to create
knowledge base objects, which have several forms.
Knowledge base objects can be cases, problems,
solutions and decision trees. A decision tree, for
example, might be a speaker troubleshooting guide to
solve a speaker problem to within a few key issues
before contacting an agent. Different template sets
are used to create knowledge bases that are then run
by a Knowledge Server, which finally determines not
only what information to display, but also how to
display it.
Customer interface. Our mock Web site
was fitted with a custom Home Theatre Knowledge Base
that was quite simple in presentation -- which is
good. This limits the potential for customer confusion
while affording several different avenues of
information to answer customers' queries, or help
determine if they will find it necessary to pursue
another method of information retrieval. Several
popular subjects were listed which, when selected,
would yield answers to many topical frequently asked
questions (FAQs). Since a common troubleshooting
problem in a home theater scenario is speaker problems
(especially if the customers are installing the
speakers themselves), a speaker troubleshooting guide
(decision tree) was added to help arrest hundreds of
quick-fix problems, which would otherwise waste a CSR's
time unnecessarily, allowing them to focus their
attention on more pressing and complex problems. If
there is a an unusual issue that doesn't seem to fit
into any of the other categories, a short description
may be entered into the appropriate field and a search
will initiate when the Next button is clicked. If too
many possible solutions exist, the provided Clarifying
Questions can help refine the search. Customers using
the Web site are also able to start a Session Log to
review past activity.
Our demo Web site was set up in a way that branded
each page with two buttons to contact a CSR: a "connect
with an agent now" button and a "request more
information" button. These buttons provided
functionality to interface with an agent via different
channels: e-mail, text chat or callback request.
Agent interface. The agent interface
is broken into several different sections, each with
its own tabs and preview panes, allowing a
representative to select a customer request assigned
to his or her queue and toggle back and forth between
knowledge bases and media (canned replies, directions,
etc.) while not losing sight of the current e-mail
message or chat session. How the requests are assigned
to the queue depends on the administration, routing
rules and an agent's area of expertise. Multiple
requests can be handled at once by dragging a
pertinent media item into the chat window (such as
directions to the nearest store or an auto
acknowledgment) while answering an e-mail or callback
request. The important thing to note about the preview
windows is they allow the agent a quick view of either
the media content or, in some cases, pages a customer
has already viewed before his or her request to
contact a representative. This is an important feature
both for expediting the right information to the
customer, since the customer won't have to explain
what avenues he or she has pursued to that point, and
eliminating the risk that an agent will redirect
customers to ground they have already covered on their
own.
Customer interaction. Text chat has
been given a promotion in the past several years, from
hobbyist frippery to e-service communication staple. "Staple"
is exactly the role it plays in the E-Service Suite.
Via the Web, it is the main real-time conduit between
customer and agent. Although VoIP was offered in the
past and Broadbase says it may be offered again, it's
currently not an option with the product. The Agent
Libraries contain different media types, or "canned
content" that will help an agent quickly acknowledge
customers and provide them with material such as
brochures if they need to wait while an agent wraps up
another interaction. If the media files are named
properly (which would be up to company administration
of the Broadbase product), this feature works very
well, allowing well-thought-out responses to be
administered almost instantaneously. The History
button on the text chat window allows the agent to see
the customer's past contacts (live and self-service),
purchases, agent notes and other details. We found
this extremely helpful in almost all situations. The
Collaboration feature also works well, allowing agents
to "drive" a customer's browser to the desired
location. E-mail response also allows for the
expedition of media files for quick turnaround times
in answering customer queries.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
As the Web becomes a more and more conventional medium
for doing business, so too should its users have the
benefit of monitored interaction. We would like to see
a little more in the way of features, such as
real-time text chat monitoring and perhaps even some
agent-assist capabilities, to aid in the training
process. Although queues can be monitored, there doesn't
seem to be a way for supervisors to get the
individualized sense they would need to aid in
evaluating and improving an agent's performance. It
should be mentioned, though, that e-mail can be routed
(without the agent's knowledge) to a supervisor's
inbox for a "once over" before it is sent to the
intended recipient.
CONCLUSION
Our test system was set up in a way that worked very
well for its goals -- providing customers Web
self-service by means of intuitive, usable tools to
expedite the search for a solution to their problems
and/or questions. Coupled with text chat for real-time
collaboration with an agent or a callback request, it
becomes an even more valuable tool. Integrated into
the call center environment, it will provide customers
with more avenues to solve problems or answer
questions.
This is an enterprise-level tool that we feel has
merit for both the customer and the company. The
customer benefits from additional ways to get help
faster, around-the-clock and, if they prefer, without
having to talk to anyone. Agents can experience
reduced traffic flow due to self-service Web pages,
more tools to help them handle customer requests
intelligently and quickly and the possibility of a
less stressful work environment.
Some simple testing of both the agent and customer
interface revealed the true power of "intellectual
capital" and how it can better serve customers -- not
only by delivering the type of information customers
seek, but also by leaving the customer with a feeling
that the company and the people representing it are "sharp."
As we all know, superior customer service does wonders
for repeat business, and it's one of the best ways to
develop the kind of "word-of-mouth" marketing campaign
most company's only dream about. We think Broadbase's
E-Service Suite is a step in the right direction and
is certainly worthy of an Editors' Choice Award.
[ Return
To The July 2001 Table Of Contents ]
|
SUBSCRIPTIONS
TMCnet LOGIN
WEBINARS
