RightNow® Technologies (Company
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Studies), the leading on demand CRM company focused on customer service, today announced that the State of Florida's web portal has been selected from among 32 federal, state and local agency nominees as a finalist in the 2004 Government Customer Support Excellence Awards competition for its innovative cross-agency implementation of RightNow Service™. The GCSE Awards are presented annually on behalf of the Government Contact Center Community of Practice to recognize teamwork, technical, customer focus and overall excellence in the public sector.
By implementing RightNow in conjunction with its creation of a cross-agency team of state librarians, the State of Florida now provides nearly 100,000 answers to its constituents every month—greatly enhancing citizen access to the government information they need, while at the same time significantly reducing the phone and email workloads of state employees.
Constituents can quickly and easily search the State’s online knowledge base of more than 1,150 question/answers pairs by topic, keyword search or natural language query. RightNow’s software also maintains a “Top 20” list of the most commonly asked questions, which appears as soon as a site visitor clicks the “Get Answers” link. These search functions ensure site visitors can immediately pinpoint the specific piece of information they need — even if they are not sure which agency or bureau is responsible for that particular issue.
RightNow also enables visitors who don’t find an appropriate answer in the knowledge base to immediately submit a question via a web form to the State’s pool of librarians. A librarian will then get the answer to their question, regardless of which department it relates too. RightNow makes it easy for librarians to manage this question queue. And if a librarian believes that an answer he or she has tracked down should be added to the online knowledge base, the RightNow makes it easy for them to do so.
“RightNow has proven to be a very powerful solution for transforming our web site into an extremely complete and easy-to-use 24/7 information resource for the citizens of Florida,” Matt Kimball, Enterprise Portal Manager at Florida’s State Technology Office, said. “Being named as a GCSEA finalist once again provides independent confirmation of what we have accomplished by partnering with RightNow.”
The effectiveness of the State’s RightNow implementation is also evident in its being ranked ninth in the nation for accessibility by Brown University’s A. Albert Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions. Before implementing RightNow, it was ranked 17th.
Finalists were honored at DCI’s Government Customer Support Conference 2004 in Arlington, Virginia.
RightNow has a track record of success for helping government agencies improve the quality and cost-efficiency of their communications with constituents across web, email, phone and chat channels.
“As citizens become more and more inclined to search for the information they need on the web, government organizations are under increasing pressure to take their web sites to the next level—while they also integrate the web with their other communication channels,” Sean Forbes, vice president of Marketing and Business Development at RightNow, said. “By providing both award-winning technology and outstanding best practices, RightNow has consistently proven it can help government organizations successfully meet this challenge.”
The State of Florida’s RightNow online knowledge base can be viewed at http://myflorida.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/myflorida.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php.
About RightNow Technologies
RightNow Technologies is the leading on demand CRM company focused on customer service. RightNow improves the effectiveness of service and support operations with easy-to-implement technology, replicable best practices drawn from the industry's broadest base of successful implementations and engagement terms that create accountability for delivering quantifiable results.
RightNow has delivered these benefits to more than 1,000 customers worldwide such as: Air New Zealand, Ben & Jerry's, Briggs and Stratton, British Airways, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories, Inc., Electronic Arts, Pioneer, Raymarine, Remington, Sanyo, Specialized Bicycles and more than 150 public sector clients including the Social Security Administration and the State of Florida.
Founded in 1997, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, San Mateo, New Jersey, London and Sydney, with an associated office in Tokyo. RightNow’s products are available in 13 languages worldwide. For further information visit http://www.rightnow.com/.
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