Headlines
Sideware Expands Online
Interaction Capabilities
To help increase the ways that companies can interact
with their customers, partners and employees, Sideware
has announced the general availability of its
Enterprise Interaction Suite (EIS) 4.0, a multichannel
customer service solution for call centers and service
desks. In addition to its existing Web collaboration,
e-mail resolution and computer-telephony integration (CTI)
modules, Sideware has added several customer
interaction channels to its suite solution. Sideware
Assist features an intelligent search engine which
employs natural language processing (NLP) to assist
customers in searching for answers. Customers can be
automatically routed to Web collaboration or other
channels if needed. At the core is an adaptive
knowledge base which learns from customer
interactions. Sideware Wireless provides customers
with round-the-clock access to live customer service
through any wireless-enabled device that supports
wireless markup language (WML).The EIS 4.0 solution
allows individuals to reach call centers and service
desks when and how they want, via online or
phone-based channels. This customer service
functionality enables organizations to better manage
their customer interactions. In addition, the suite
offers companies the option of providing Sideware
Assist as the first level of customer support.
Customers can use this low-cost and self-learning
service to get quick, consistent and accurate
responses to questions. When no appropriate response
is found, customers can be easily routed to another
channel, such as Web collaboration or e-mail. The five
modules are built upon Sideware's Enterprise
Interaction Platform, the suite's integration
framework, which is based on an open platform
architecture that allows for easy integration with
back-office systems. www.sideware.com
/ 800-227-2096 eGain
Targets E-Service Market With New E-Mail Software
eGain Communications Corp. has announced an enterprise
software solution for companies grappling with rising
volumes of e-mail and Web form submissions from around
the globe. A new e-mail management product, eGain Mail
Global provides support for inbound and outbound
e-mail in virtually any language, as well as agent
consoles that have been localized into eight of the
world's languages. In addition to English, eGain Mail
Global is available now with user interfaces in
double-byte languages such as Japanese, Traditional
Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Korean. Localized user
interfaces for French, German, Dutch and Spanish will
be available in the third quarter of this year. The
new software solution was designed to complement the
international capabilities of eGain Knowledge, a
knowledge management system, and eGain Campaign, an
outbound e-mail marketing application. Used together,
the three products provide a solution for multilingual
e-service management, helping enable companies to
deliver improved online customer service throughout
the world, regardless of language. eGain Mail Global
recognizes and stores content written in multiple
languages in a single database, allowing both support
agents and customers to work in the language of their
choice. Leveraging built-in workflow management, eGain
Mail Global also supports language-based routing for
sending incoming e-mail to the appropriate customer
service representatives (CSRs). From an end customer
perspective, the routing is transparent: customers can
send e-mail in any language they wish, and it will be
automatically routed to the appropriate agents. At the
receiving end, agents can read and send e-mail in any
language, and have the choice of localized user
interfaces for their work environment: through a
pull-down menu, agents can select their language
preference at log-in. Thus, multilingual agents can
work in their native language, even while they support
customers in multiple languages. www.egain.com
/ 800-821-4360 Blue Barn
Interactive And ChatSpace Team Up
Blue Barn Interactive (BBI), an integrator and
producer of end-to-end online events solutions and
services, has announced it has formed a relationship
with ChatSpace, a developer and provider of online
community software technology and hosting services.
The alliance will enable BBI to use the ChatSpace
Community Server platform to more rapidly deploy its
online event offerings. ChatSpace will offer the event
solution to its customer base, leveraging BBI's online
event planning, technology integration and moderation
competencies. The BBI and ChatSpace relationship will
help enable customers to focus on event-related
business and editorial activities, using BBI's event
teams for strategic planning, customization, marketing
and moderation services. BBI's team of event producers
and chat administrators works with each client to
define event goals and guidelines, customize the event
environment and manage events. BBI's reporting
specialists will maximize the ChatSpace platform's
data capturing capabilities and provide qualitative
and quantitative post-event reporting. BBI's event
solutions can help boost ROI for companies in a range
of consumer, e-tailing, and corporate communities. The
ChatSpace Community Server is a scalable,
standards-based chat application server. BBI will use
the system to develop and maintain its clients' online
event communities, including the creation of chat
auditoriums, registration of users, integration of
audio/video, slide push technologies, chat moderation
and remote server administration. www.bluebarn.com
/ 212-807-8059,
www.chatspace.com
/ 760-710-3200 InQuent Forms
Strategic Alliance With SureFire Commerce
InQuent Technologies Inc., a provider of wholesale
hosting platforms to carrier and service providers
worldwide, has formed a strategic alliance with
SureFire Commerce Inc., a provider of secure online
transaction processing services. InQuent has
integrated FirePay, SureFire Commerce's payment
gateway and real-time transaction processing service,
into its carrier-grade hosting platform. This
e-commerce service helps enable carriers and service
providers to offer their customers online transaction
services worldwide. FirePay features include Internet
merchant accounts, fraud management, secure credit
card processing, multiple currency conversion and
payment capabilities.
www.inquent.com /
416-645-4600 New
Functionality For Handspring Users
SkipWire, a provider of wireless Palm OS file
distribution and management, will partner with Margi
Systems, a company that offers multimedia devices for
the mobile professional, to create a new solution that
gives Handspring Visor owners wireless access to Web
pages and PowerPoint files for on-the-go
presentations. SkipWire.com offers wireless users of
Palm OS devices a host of services designed to
increase the functionality of their handheld. These
services include free wireless download technology for
a selection of Palm OS applications and e-books,
online storage, server-based PC to Palm/Palm to PC
conversion options, wireless e-mail attachment viewing
and editing, and wireless image and data file upload
for e-mail forwarding or storage online. The
Presenter-to-Go module allows Handspring Visor owners
to connect directly to digital projectors or other VGA
displays and manage a presentation from anywhere in
the room by way of an included remote control.
Presentations may be saved to the Presenter-to-Go's
Flash Memory, the Visor's internal memory or a
Springboard Flash Memory module.
www.skipwire.com
/ 877-757-9473 Avaya
Demonstrates New IP Telephony Applications
Avaya recently announced new firmware for its IP
telephones that will offer users new functionality in
their personal digital assistants (PDAs), the
enhancement of telephony capabilities and access to
Web-based streaming text via the phone's display
panel. The company also announced a new version of its
IP Agent, aimed to make the remote contact center
agent more efficient and effective. Avaya will take
advantage of its IP Telephone's downloadable firmware
capability and infrared port to offer the new
PDA-based functionality. New firmware, developed by
Avaya Labs, will allow users to dial and control the
phone using their PDA's infrared interface. This
eliminates the need to remember phone numbers, keep
multiple phone directories or look up a number and
dial it in a separate step. With the appropriate PDA
application software and the new firmware, users will
be able to dial directly from the existing PDA "address
book" database, as well as provide a remote control
for pushing telephone buttons such as conference,
transfer and hold. It will also be possible for users
to log-in and log-out from a telephone via their PDA
to support shared office and hoteling applications.
The new firmware, which also features enhanced voice
quality and faster start-up, is available to users of
Avaya IP Telephones as a free upgrade. Additional
capabilities taking advantage of the Avaya IP
Telephone's infrared port will be available later in
2001. These include the ability to send business card
contact information (vCards) from one PDA to another
over the phone. Other LAN-enabled PDA applications
will be supported via the infrared connection in the
future, including e-mail and Web browsing.
www.avaya.com /
800-426-2455 WebSideStory Helps
Analyze Shopping Patterns
WebSideStory, Inc. has announced the availability of
HitBox Commerce, a service designed to help e-commerce
sites increase revenue and improve profitability by
offering real-time analysis of customer shopping
patterns and trends. HitBox Commerce correlates
browsing behavior with purchasing activity to help
businesses more efficiently acquire, retain and
convert online customers. It delivers information
about different customer segments, products and
brands, orders, shipping and payment methods. The
service helps marketing and e-commerce executives
determine where a site's most profitable customers
come from, which marketing campaigns generate the most
revenue, which products represent the best cross-sell
opportunities, which search engines or affiliates have
the highest conversion rates and which paths through a
site lead to the most transactions. As an outsourced
solution, HitBox Commerce requires no hardware or
software expenses. It is platform-independent and
works with all major e-commerce applications. HitBox
Commerce is a complementary service to HitBox
Enterprise, a visitor analysis solution for
high-volume sites. www.websidestory.com
/ 858-546-0040 [
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