Resounding Success of RightNow User Conference Highlights 'Changing of the Guard' in CRM Market (email this article)

BOZEMAN, Mont., Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RightNow® Technologies' (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies) (Nasdaq: RNOW - News) today announced the resounding success of its annual user conference, held last week in Big Sky, Montana. With record-breaking attendance, the growing size and scope of customers' implementations, and the significant impact those implementations are having on customers' business performance, the conference underscored RightNow's continued ascent in a rapidly changing CRM market.

Almost 400 customers attended the event, including companies such as Black & Decker Corporation, Nike, Inc., Nikon, Polaroid, US Airways and Siemens. The size and scope of customers' implementations of RightNow's on demand CRM solutions was significantly larger than last year -- with deployments expanding across marketing, sales and customer service functions, as well as across multiple geographies. Most importantly, the companies attending the event reported substantial, quantifiable business results and high ROI.

"The operational efficiencies we've achieved in our support center alone have more than paid for our investment in RightNow's technology," John Erskine, director of studio services at NCsoft, a leading online game company, said. "RightNow is clearly focused on helping us achieve concrete results, rather than simply foisting a lot of complex technology on us and leaving us to figure out what to do with it ourselves."

The company's industry leading voice-enabled CRM solutions also garnered significant interest from attendees. "Many of the customers I met with at the conference were interested in incorporating RightNow Voice into their CRM environments," Art Schoeller, senior analyst at the Yankee Group, said. "As the only CRM vendor offering a packaged CRM voice application within a common platform, RightNow is leading the way."

RightNow presented several awards to its customers during the conference, including an Innovation Award given to Air Force Personnel Center for its use of RightNow as the foundation of its entire worldwide Web presence in support of servicemen and women at home and abroad.

Several RightNow partners exhibited their solutions at the conference. These partners included Five9, Inc., Echopass, CosmoCom, IHS, RiverStar, Marqui, ISC, and Zeacom.

The conference was attended by virtually every leading CRM industry analyst, including representatives from Beagle Research, Gartner, Forrester Research, IDC, Jupiter Research, and the Yankee Group.

"My conversations with RightNow customers confirmed that RightNow's origins in customer service and support strongly position it to deliver the customer loyalty and return-on-investment companies are looking for," Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal of Beagle Research Group, said. "This is an important differentiator for RightNow."

Attendees benefited from a wide range of informative breakout sessions on key CRM topics -- as well as an "Ask the Experts" resource room where they could spend one-on-one time with RightNow technical experts to work on their companies' specific challenges and objectives.

The success of RightNow's user conference is particularly meaningful in light of the difficulties other CRM vendors are facing-including acquisition, stalled growth, and loss of product direction.

"As other enterprise software vendors' prospects decline and ours ascend, there is clearly a changing of the guard taking place in the CRM market," Greg Gianforte, CEO and founder at RightNow, said. "Our user conference demonstrated once again how excited RightNow's customers are about what we are doing for them today and the even greater things we are going to help them achieve in the near future."

About RightNow Technologies, Inc.

RightNow (Nasdaq: RNOW - News) provides organizations with industry-leading on demand CRM solutions to build customer-focused businesses. RightNow's acclaimed technology, comprehensive services and commitment to customer success deliver high returns on investment for its customers. More than 1,300 organizations worldwide use RightNow solutions including British Airways, British Telecom, Cisco Systems, Continental Tire North America, John Deere, Nikon and the Social Security Administration. Founded in 1997, RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, with additional offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For further information, please visit www.rightnow.com.

RightNow is a registered trademark of RightNow Technologies, Inc. NASDAQ is a registered trademark of the NASDAQ Stock Market.

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