RightNow Technologies (Company
Profile, Past
Stories, Case
Studies), the world’s leading provider of hosted customer service and support solutions, today announced the conclusion of its annual service summit with
nearly 300 customer attending. With senior executives, managers and administrators, IT professionals and industry observers in attendance, the conference revealed
broad consensus about the opportunities and challenges currently facing customer service organizations.
One key theme, highlighted by research director John Ragsdale of Forrester Research was the growing strategic importance of customer service to business success.
“As industries mature and companies can no longer differentiate themselves by attributes such as products or pricing, customer service becomes a critical
competitive advantage,” Ragsdale said. “Managers at all levels are coming to realize that service and support interactions are often the only direct contact the
company has with the customer, and that the quality of those interactions therefore has a significant impact on long-term business success.”
Conference attendees also widely agreed their customer service organizations are facing increased pressures to do more with less, and also to contribute to top-line
revenues. Many are being asked to provide service to more customers and/or support a wider range of products and services, even as budgets are reduced or remain
flat. Organizations are also beginning to communicate proactively with their customers to decrease support loads and provide better service.
“We have to continue seeking ways to improve our operational efficiency while building a world-class customer service organization,” said Peggy Esch, Manager of Customer
Care at Meteorlogix, said. “That’s the only way we are going to deliver the quality of service we need to retain the loyalty of our customers while ensuring targeted
levels of per-account profitability.”
A third key theme of this year’s conference was the growing emphasis on common management of diverse customer service communications channels—which typically
include the phone, email, web, and chat. “No one wants to manage these channels as separate ‘silos’ anymore,” Greg Gianforte, founder and CEO of RightNow
Technologies, said. “Our customers are looking for ways to treat all incoming service requests as a single, highly manageable queue, so they can optimize overall
efficiency, centralize the complete customer history, reduce the number of applications customer service agents use, and deliver consistent and accurate answers
regardless of the channel.”
In addition to a keynote address by Ragsdale and a special presentation by customer service consultant Kirk Weisler, the conference offered attendees a wide range of
breakout sessions on topics ranging from workflow automation to proactive outbound customer contact. Attendees also took advantage of the free, intensive one-on-
one consulting sessions with RightNow’s technical staff offered at the event.
RightNow presented several awards at the conference to customers whose achievements during the year were particularly noteworthy. Those companies included
Cisco Systems Worldwide Channels, Intermec, Nikon, Pacific Capital Bank, and Wolters Kluwer Health.
About RightNow Technologies
RightNow Technologies is the leading customer service and support solutions company that radically and rapidly improves the effectiveness of service and support
operations with easy-to-implement/easy-to-use 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 100 public sector clients including the Social
Security Administration and the State of Florida.
Founded in 1997, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, San Mateo, London, and Sydney, with an associated office in Tokyo. RightNow's products are available in 17
languages worldwide. For further information visit http://www.rightnow.com/.
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