Mitchell Kramer's Research

Customer Service Company and Product Update - 1Q2009

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The recession slowed KM-based customer service in 1Q2009. Customer growth and financial performance slipped for all but two of our suppliers—IntelliResponse and salesforce.com. Both had record quarters. There were three significant product announcements: eGain Solution-as-a-Service bundles hosting deployment, packaged implementation services, and pay as you go pricing. RightNow February ’09 adds support for product registration. Salesforce CRM for Twitter lets companies search, monitor and join Twitter conversations through the Service Cloud. Company-wise, empolis merged with Attensity and Living-e to become Attensity Group, And, Consona CRM acquired SupportSoft Intelligent Analyst Suite, customer service for supporting complex, high technology products and services.

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hybris Commerce 3.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

hybris Commerce Release 3.1 is the current version of the ecommerce offering of hybris AG, a privately held Munich software supplier. The product is a framework of flexible technologies and powerful tools that must be customized to implement ecommerce sites. To date, 160 customer organizations, mostly large European organizations, have implemented ecommerce sites based on hybris Commerce. We recommend hybris Commerce to large organizations with significant budgets and the skills and resources for customization. We also recommend hybris Commerce for small organizations that want a low cost, fast, ecommerce deployment because hybris partners offer packaged hybris Commerce functionality for SaaS licensing and deployment.

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Customer Service Company and Product Update - 4Q2008

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

4Q2008 was the seventh consecutive quarter of growth for KM-based customer service. Customer growth improved as customer acquisition rebounded. Product activity was pretty high in 4Q2008 with the introduction of many new releases and versions. Good customer growth means good financial performance. eGain, InQuira, and Salesforce.com all had record quarters and record years. The biggest company news came from Consona and nGenera. Consona Corporation rebranded and consolidated its KNOVA and Onyx product lines to Consona CRM. nGenera sold its Talisma brand and the Talisma CRM products and kept its knowledge management, email management, chat, and click-to-call software and software business under the nGenera Customer Interaction Management brand.

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FiftyOne: Enabling International Customers to Buy from U.S. E-Tailers

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

How would you like to be able to market, merchandise, sell, and deliver offer your products to potential customers in Europe and Canada? If you’re a U.S.-based ecommerce merchant, then FiftyOne might be just what you need. It’s a software and services offering that can make it easy for international customers to do business you and easy for you to do business with them. FiftyOne extends your existing ecommerce system with comprehensive support for checkout, fulfillment, and customer service. FiftyOne was introduced in 2007 by New York City-based, privately-held E4X. To date, 25 organizations, many of them very recognizable brands, have licensed and deployed it.

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RightNow Service, a Solution for Organizations of All Sizes in a Wide Range of Industries

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

RightNow Service is the KM-based customer service offering from RightNow Technologies. This offering has been implemented by more than 1700 organizations. Against our evaluation framework for KM-based customer service, it scored very well. Its capabilities are strong enough to be considered by organizations of all sizes within the consumer-oriented industries for which it’s positioned. Four factors are key to our recommendation: fast implementation and SaaS deployment, flexible customizable and personalizable functionality, included assisted-service and case management functionality, and product and company viability.

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Customer Service Company and Product Update - 3Q2008

Mitchell Kramer — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

3Q2008 marked the sixth consecutive quarter of growth for KM-based customer service. Customer growth continued at a high level, although most of the action was additional business with existing customers. Product activity increased a bit. Financial performance was very good. eGain and KANA bounced back from relatively slow second quarters. And InQuira, RightNow, and Talisma are again the financial performance stars of this quarter. The biggest company news was Consona’s rebranding its suites of customer CRM and KM products as Consona CRM.

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Demandware eCommerce 2.8.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Demandware eCommerce is the B2C ecommerce software offering from Demandware, Inc. and the leading on-demand B2C offering available today. More than 50 customer organizations have deployed their online stores using the product. We recommend that you consider Demandware eCommerce as the software to run your B2C ecommerce site. Its SaaS deployment, which promotes fast, low-cost implementation; its easily customized technologies; and the reusable resources of its Reference Application let you create an ecommerce site that can make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

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empolis:Service Lifecycle Suite

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

empolis:Service Lifecycle Suite is the knowledge management-based customer service offering from empolis GmbH. Introduced in 1996, it has been implemented in 500 customer accounts across many industries. The suite is more a set of customizable and configurable technologies than it is a set of deployment-ready, packaged facilities. If you have the resources and the organizational style to undertake the development work necessary to implement e:SLS, then we recommend that you should consider it to help you deliver key elements of your cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service experience—especially for customers’ activities to diagnose and resolve problems with your products both on self-service and assisted-service channels.

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Customer Service Company and Product Update - 2Q2008

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

2Q2008 was the fifth consecutive good quarter for customer service. Customer growth was very good as companies in a wide range of industry segments are buying KM-based customer service products to improve customer retention and reduce cost to serve in tough economic times. Good customer growth translates to good financial performance. empolis, InQuira, RightNow, and Talisma are the financial performance stars of this quarter. Product activity had been slow for two quarters but picked up a little in 2Q2008. M&A was the big news in company activity as Salesforce.com acquired InStranet. We now have a billion dollar player in KM-based customer service!

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IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite 6.0

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

IBM WebSphere Commerce is IBM’s ecommerce offering. WebSphere Commerce was introduced in 1996. It was and is one of the leading software offerings for B2C ecommerce. IBM claims that 1,500 customer organizations have implemented the product. We recommend that you consider IBM WebSphere Commerce as the software to run your B2C ecommerce site. Its packaged services and easily customizable technologies provide excellent support for the activities that your customers want to perform. IBM provides a wealth of samples and examples to simplify and speed your implementation.

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Customer Service KM Evaluation Framework

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Knowledge management-based customer service products can help you deliver answers and solutions to your customers and agents through your implementation of their content management and search facilities. We’ve developed a framework for evaluating knowledge management-based customer service products. The framework has these nine top-level evaluation criteria: cross-channel cross-lifecycle support, knowledge management, UI, search, escalation, analytic functionality, architecture, product viability, and company viability. In this report, we describe these evaluation criteria in detail. In future reports, we will offer our framework-based evaluations of specific products and services.
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ATG Commerce Suite 2007.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

ATG Commerce Suite is ATG’s primary B2C ecommerce offering. Introduced in 1997, its current version is 2007.1. Commerce was and remains one of the leading software offerings for B2C ecommerce. The suite includes the services and configurable and customizable technologies that support your customers’ B2C ecommerce activities, tools for marketing and merchandising, and a data warehousing system for analyzing customer, marketing, and merchandizing activities. “Commerce” was introduced in 1997. Its current version is 2007.1. Commerce was and remains one of the leading software offerings for B2C ecommerce. ATG claims that approximately 600 customer organizations accounts have implemented the product, many of the largest and best known retailers among them. We recommend that you consider ATG Commerce Suite as the software to run your B2C ecommerce site. Its packaged services and flexible technologies provide excellent support for the activities that your customers want to perform, especially their activities to find and learn about the products that they’d like to buy—the core operational functionality of ecommerce.

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Customer Service Company and Product Update - 1Q2008

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer Service suppliers began 2008 with a bang as a customer growth spurt that began in 2Q2007 continued in 1Q2008. Good customer growth meant good financial performance for all the customer service suppliers that we cover. eGain and KANA set company records in quarterly revenue license and license revenue. Product activity was slow. Customer service suppliers are gearing up for delivering major new product versions in the next two quarters. However, like clockwork, RightNow introduced its regular, quarterly release. Company activity was generally slow, too. KANA made the biggest news by expanding its partnership with IBM to include joint development, marketing, and sales, and OEMing IBM technology.

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B2C Ecommerce Evaluation Framework

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Many of your customers prefer doing business with you online. They go to your Web sites to find, learn about, and buy your products that address their needs. They also set up and manage accounts with you. When those customers are consumers, we call these activities B2C ecommerce. B2C software products and services help you implement and deploy Web sites that support these consumer customer activities. In this report, we present our framework for evaluating B2C ecommerce software. Use the framework to reduce the time, cost, and risk for evaluating and selecting the B2C ecommerce software product that is best for your organization.

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IntelliResponse 5.6

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

IntelliResponse is the customer service offering of IntelliResponse Systems Inc. IntelliResponse was introduced in 2001. To date, 91 customer organizations, mostly universities and colleges, have implemented it, although the product has also been adopted by large commercial enterprises including some of the world’s largest banks. IntelliResponse 5.6 is the current version of the product, the version that we evaluate in this report. We recommend that you consider adding IntelliResponse to your customer service portfolio. Add it to your Website to let customers ask questions about the capabilities of your products and services, your policies and practices for doing business with them, and, even, for helping them navigate your site’s content. IntelliResponse is a great complement to site search and Internet search. It delivers answers to customers’ questions, not lists of documents.

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ATG Commerce Service Center

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

ATG Commerce Service Center is ATG’s assisted-service for ecommerce offering. CSC was introduced in June 2007 and is available as one of the separately-priced modules of the ATG Service suite, all of which are add-ons to and tightly integrated with ATG Commerce. To date, ATG claims that approximately 20 customer accounts have purchased CSC. With qualification, we recommend ATG CSC to every organization that has implemented ATG Commerce as the mechanism for delivering assisted-service ecommerce. The qualification is for the lack of packaged reports in the current product version to help you analyze and refine your assisted-service ecommerce experience. For those organizations in the process of selecting an ecommerce platform, ATG CSC makes ATG Commerce a more attractive choice.

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Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 4Q2007

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer Service suppliers closed out 2007 with a very good fourth quarter. No exceptions. All of the customer service suppliers that we cover—ATG, eGain, InQuira, InStranet, KANA, KNOVA, and RightNow—had good fourth quarters Customer growth was the driver in 4Q2007 as it had also been in 3Q2007. Fourth quarter is typically quiet from a product perspective across the software industry. Two customer service companies had significant product activity: RightNow and KANA. There was very little company activity in 4Q2007. Most significantly, despite what appears to be tough economic times ahead, suppliers continue to hire aggressively. Excellent customer service delivered effectively and efficiently keeps customer satisfaction and loyalty high and operational costs low.

IBM Sales Center for WebSphere Commerce

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

IBM Sales Center for WebSphere Commerce is IBM’s assisted-service for ecommerce offering. Sales Center was introduced with IBM WebSphere Commerce V6.0 in May 2006 and is available as a separately-orderable add-on. To date, IBM claims that approximately two dozen customers have purchased it. We recommend IBM Sales Center to every organization that has implemented WebSphere Commerce as the mechanism for delivering assisted-service for ecommerce and a cross-channel customer experience for ecommerce. For those organizations in the process of selecting an ecommerce platform, IBM Sales Center makes IBM WebSphere Commerce a much more attractive choice.

Framework for Assisted-Service for Ecommerce

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ecommerce systems are your self-service Web marketing and sales applications. They let customers learn about your products, compare them, configure them, price them, buy them, and even return them. Ecommerce systems also have account management capabilities, letting your customers create accounts for payment, shipment, and order processing. Sometimes customers need your help to perform ecommerce activities. They’d like to escalate from self-service to assisted-service in order to complete their work. We call that help assisted-service for ecommerce. We’ve extended and combined our evaluation frameworks for ecommerce and customer service to create an assisted-service for ecommerce framework, which is the topic of this report.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 3Q 2007

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Fueled by excellent customer growth, customer service business was very good in 3Q2007. That customer growth produced excellent financial performance almost across the board. Product activity for the quarter was slow. Only RightNow made significant announcements. There were only a few company announcements. The most significant was InQuira’s creation of a customer advisory board. The real company action is in hiring. Customer service suppliers are hiring aggressively. eGain, InQuira, InStranet, and KANA are trying to grow their staffs by 10 percent or more!

Human Digital Assistant v2.2

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Virtual assisted-service is the use of technology to simulate the activities of your customer service agents to help customers. Human Digital Assistant (HDA) is a virtual assisted-service offering from H-care, a software startup based in Treviso, Italy. HDA’s virtual agents are quite lifelike. They deliver personalized customer service that is seamlessly integrated with your self-service systems. HDA is a visionary product, a technology breakthrough in virtual assisted-service. You should consider virtual assisted-service as an effective and efficient half step between Web self-service and contact center assisted-service and you should consider HDA for its implementation.

LiveLOOK CoBrowse

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

LiveLOOK CoBrowse is an assisted-service application that lets your customer service agents help your customers answer questions about and solve problems with your products and services by browsing your self-service Web pages with them. This is an SaaS offering with excellent browser and desktop support and no software deployment. It lets your customers escalate from your Web self-service applications yet stay within their self-service context. LiveLOOK introduced LiveLOOK CoBrowse in March 2007. To date, nine customer accounts have implemented the product.

Customers’ Requirements for Customer Service

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Through our work with customers, we’ve learned that customer service remains a critical factor for their satisfaction and loyalty. Cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customers service; support for common Customer Scenarios; finding answers quickly and easily; access to fresh/current information; using forums for “how to” information; escalating easily to assisted service; receiving notifications for key events; having a customer service Web place to go to; and being able to manage their account, product, and entitlement information are customers’ key customer service requirements. In this report, we describe how you can address those requirements to deliver an excellent customer service experience.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 2Q 2007

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

2Q2007 was a quarter of mixed but mostly strong results among the suppliers of cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service products. Most of the suppliers we cover rebounded to record very good to excellent second quarters. Two produced flat results. Some of the highlights: InQuira produced record financial performance; InStranet grabbed a foothold in two new market segments; eGain signed more major deals than in the previous three quarters combined; ATG and RightNow each introduced significant products.

RightNow 8 Service

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

RightNow has a well-deserved reputation for fast implementations of rich functionality within small and mid-sized organizations. The newest version of its CRM product offering, RightNow 8 CRM is a collection of six applications including RightNow 8 Service, its customer service application, and RightNow 8 Analytics, its application for analytic functionality. We evaluate these two applications against our evaluation framework for customer self-service in this report. The applications score very well. Capabilities are strong enough to be considered by organizations of all sizes.

InQuira 8

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

InQuira 8.0 is a collection of these five cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service applications: Intelligent Search, Information Manager (a content management system), Information center, Discussion Forums, and Analytics (a comprehensive business intelligence platform). InQuira 5, the first version, was introduced in February 2002 and, to date, approximately 50 organizations have implemented one or more of its applications. We evaluate all five applications of InQuira 8.0 against our evaluation framework for customer self-service in this report.

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Best Practices in Customer Self-Service

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This report presents PSGroup’s 10 best practices in customer self-service. The 10 represent the current ideal based on our research on self-service technologies and on our consulting work with companies of all sizes across many industries. The 10 are driven by our axiom, “make it easy for your customers to do business with you,” and cover key self-service Customer Scenarios within the entire customer lifecycle.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 1Q 2007

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 17 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the ninth of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. Performance in 4Q 2006 for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service suppliers was mixed, mixed when comparing companies and mixed when analyzing results within companies. There were some excellent fourth quarter results such as ATG’s financial performance, but no company delivered excellent results across customers, products, and financials and there were too many poor or flat results to characterize the quarter any more positively than mixed.

Research, Compare, and Select Running Shoes

Mitchell Kramer — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth to retail for a customer’s research, comparison, and selection activities for a pair of running shoes. More specifically, our customer persona, Hardy Rhodes visits Dick’s Sporting Goods, Roadrunner Sports, RunningShoes.com, and Runners Warehouse to select a pair of running shoes that meets his requirements for a fit, brand, and price.

Research, Compare, and Select a Travel Rewards Credit Card

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this Test-drive report, we apply the Product Select and Buy Customer Scenario pattern and its “I want to find the product or service that best addresses my requirements” Moment of Truth to financial services for a customer’s research, comparison, and selection activities for a credit card. More specifically, our customer persona, Miles Maxim visits American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citi, and Discover to select a credit card that meets his requirements for a rewards program, rates and fees, and customer services.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 4Q 2006

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the eighth of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. Performance in 4Q 2006 for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service suppliers was mixed, mixed when comparing companies and mixed when analyzing results within companies. There were some excellent fourth quarter results such as ATG’s financial performance, but no company delivered excellent results across customers, products, and financials and there were too many poor or flat results to characterize the quarter any more positively than mixed.

Customer Self-Service at Xerox

Mitchell Kramer — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer-self-service case study report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at xerox.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. The site delivers excellent support in recommending products that address customer requirements, diagnosing and resolving problems, and managing account information. On the other hand, the site does not provide self-service entitlement initial purchase or renewal, notification facilities, or self-service for case/incident management.

BEA AquaLogic User Interaction 6.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This report presents our evaluation of the BEA AquaLogic User Interaction (ALUI) 6.1 portal technology platform against our evaluation framework for customer portals. Formerly, the Plumtree Corporate Portal, this is a widely-used and well-proven portal platform with 1,000 implementations. ALUI is strong in the areas of portlets, UI content management, search, and analytics. It deploys in both J2EE and .NET environments and addresses requirements for cross-lifecycle customer service quite nicely.

Customer Portal Survey

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Customer portals are the ideal mechanisms for delivering your online, cross-lifecycle customer experience. In order to understand the adoption, functionality, governance and organization, and technology selection, usage, and management of customer portals, we surveyed our community of readers, subscribers, and consulting clients. Key conclusions drawn from more than 200 responses are that customer portals: support broad functionality, have been deployed beginning more than two years ago and will continue to be widely deployed in the future, have been deployed rapidly, vary widely in governance and organization, contain a small number of custom-built portlets, and deploy on a wide range of portal platforms.

InStranet Contact Centers In-Line 5.5

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Contact Centers In-Line (CCIL) is the cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service offering of InStranet Inc. CCIL was introduced in February 2003. To date, approximately 35 organizations have implemented it, mostly Global 1000 companies and many in the telecommunications industry. CCIL 5.5, the current product version and the version we evaluate in this report, was introduced in September 2006. 5.5 is a big release with significant new capabilities and many enhancements. From the perspective of self-service, the top new capabilities are in the areas of content management, search, process management, and analytics.

KNOVA Self-Service 7.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

KNOVA Suite is a collection of these six cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service products: KNOVA Contact Center, KNOVA Field Service, KNOVA Forums, KNOVA Guided Selling, KNOVA Knowledge Desk, and KNOVA Self-Service. KNOVA has offered the suite since January 2000 and approximately 100 organizations have implemented one or more of its products. KNOVA Suite 7.1 was introduced in September 2006 and included significant and innovative improvements in content management, UI content management, process management, and search. We evaluate KNOVA Self-Service 7.1, the latest version of the module of KNOVA Suite for creating and delivering a self-service customer experience, against our evaluation framework for customer self-service in this report.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 3Q 2006

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the seventh of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. Performance in 3Q 2006 for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service suppliers was mixed, mixed when comparing companies, and mixed when analyzing results within companies. RightNow was far and away the top performer with excellent results in customer growth, products, and financials. The others were, well, mixed.

Customer Self-Service at Sovereign Bank

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer self-service case study report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at Sovereignbank.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. Overall, Sovereignbank.com does not make it easy for you to help yourself to perform customer service activities. The site exceeds requirements only for its UI content and it needs improvement for supporting many activities in all but the explore lifecycle phase and for its implementation of content, search, escalation to assisted service, and mobile device support.

Customer Self-Service at Apple

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer-self-service case study report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at Apple.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. Overall, Apple.com makes it pretty easy for you to help yourself to perform customer service activities. My evaluation is that the site exceeds requirements for customer self-service in the areas of support for use and maintain lifecycle activities, for content and UI content, and for globalization/localization. The site needs improvement for supporting explore lifecycle activities, for search, for escalation to assisted service, and for mobile device support.

IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.0

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report presents our evaluation of the IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.0 against our evaluation framework for customer portals. This is a widely-used and well-proven portal platform with 4,000 implementations. Major improvements in 6.0 to portlet development and standards support, UI usability and management, and document management in 6.0 on top of a strong base let you implement easier-to-use customer portals faster.

Customer Self-Service at Comcast

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer self-service case study report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at comcast.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. Overall, comcast.com does not make it easy for you to help yourself to perform customer service activities. My evaluation is that the site exceeds requirements for customer self-service in the areas of support for maintain lifecycle activities, especially for accessing and updating account information and for escalating from self-service to assisted service. The site needs improvement in all other areas, especially in content and search.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 2Q 2006

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the sixth of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. After a quiet 1Q 2006, customer growth resumed, significant products were introduced, and company performance improved in 2Q 2006. KANA and InQuira had excellent quarters. eGain was quiet in every respect—not a good sign. ATG, InStranet, KNOVA, and RightNow all had good quarters—nothing outstanding either positively or negatively.

Customer Self-Service at Verizon

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer self-service test-drive report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at verizon.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. You can help yourself to perform a wide range of customer service activities on verizon.com. Support for most activities is excellent, especially for the key activities: diagnosing problems, and accessing and updating customer information.

Customer Self-Service at Verizon Wireless

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this customer self-service case study report, I describe my experience in helping myself to customer service at verizonwireless.com by performing key activities of self-service Customer Scenarios and evaluating that experience against our framework for customer self-service. You can help yourself to perform a wide range of customer service activities on verizonwireless.com. You’ll be able to learn about products and services to manage your account information very easily, but you’ll have a hard time trying to diagnose and resolve problems because the site’s content is so FAQ-centric and its search capabilities are quite limited.

KANA Solutions for Web Self-Service

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

KANA Solutions for Web Self-Service is a suite of these three products: KANA IQ, KANA Response, and KANA Response Live. Customers use IQ to find answers to their questions and to help themselves diagnose, isolate, and resolve problems. They use Response to escalate from IQ to email assisted service and they use Response Live to escalate from IQ to chat and co-browsing assisted service. More than 600 organizations have implemented one or more of these products. KANA has offered the suite since March 2004, although its oldest component, Response, was introduced in December 1999. We evaluate KANA Solutions for Web Self-Service against our evaluation framework for customer self-service in this report.

Framework for Evaluating Customer Self-Service Products and Services

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Customer self-service is a subset of cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service. Customer self-service products let you deliver a customer experience that can help your customers use the World Wide Web to find answers to questions about your products and services and to help customers diagnose, isolate, and resolve problems that they’re having with your products and services. We’ve created a framework to help you evaluate customer self-service products and services. In this report, we describe these evaluation criteria in detail. In future reports, we will offer our framework-based evaluations of specific products and services.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 1Q 2006

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 25 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the fifth of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. 1Q 2006 was a typically quiet first quarter. Compared with the excellent, across-the-board performance of 4Q 2005, customer growth slowed, there was only minor product activity, and company performance was pretty much flat. There was nothing outstanding, either positive or negative, to report for any of the cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service suppliers that we cover: ATG, eGain, InStranet, KANA, Knova, and RightNow.

Customer Portals Evaluation Framework, Version 2

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 18 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

We’ve developed and refined a framework to help you evaluate and select the portal technology platform that’s best for your customer portal. We’ve also evaluated seven portal platforms against the framework and published reports documenting those evaluations. In this report, we describe version 2 of our framework for evaluating portal platforms for customer portals and explain how and why we’ve refined it.

Customer Portals Feature Comparison Matrix

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 11 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

In this report, we summarize our evaluations of seven portal platforms in the form of a matrix. The portal platforms are: BEA WebLogic Portal, IBM WebSphere Portal, Microsoft SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server, Liferay Portal, Oracle AS Portal, SAP NetWeaver Portal, and Vignette Portal. Rows of the matrix represent evaluation criteria and sub-criteria. Columns of the matrix represent the portal platforms.

Customer Portals Research Findings

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 04 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

We have completed the product evaluation phase of our research on customer portals, having evaluated seven portal platforms against the criteria of our framework. Along the way, we have refined our framework to match customer requirements, to reflect portal platform capabilities, and to improve the evaluations consistency, accuracy, effectiveness, and usability of our evaluations. The refinements summarize the key findings of our research and identify the key differentiators among the products. We present and discuss those refinements in this report.

SAP NetWeaver Portal

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates SAP NetWeaver Portal, Knowledge Management, and Collaboration against our evaluation framework for customer portals. These offerings create a portal platform with facilities that will help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals that deliver a customer experience that is tightly integrated with all of the SAP enterprise applications. SAP NetWeaver Portal is widely used and well proven. It’s based on technology that SAP acquired with TopTier in 2001. SAP has introduced two major versions of the portal platform since the acquisition. A point release is currently in preview and is planned for general availability later this year.

Vignette Portal 7.2

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates Vignette Portal against our evaluation framework for customer portals. This product, along with tightly integrated add-on products from Vignette for integration, content management, and collaboration, provides the facilities to help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals with rich functionality on a wide range of operating systems, Web infrastructures, and databases. Vignette Portal has been implemented by 450 customer organizations. Vignette has taken the product and its add-ons through multiple new versions. A major new version is coming in the second half of this year.

Lessons in Customer Service

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report is a case study of my experience selecting, purchasing, installing, and using a BlackBerry device for mobile email and voice communication. I purchased it from Verizon Wireless, and Verizon Wireless provides communication services and customer service for it. Through an arrangement called One Bill, Verizon presents the bills for its usage. I encountered and dealt with significant customer service issues with both Verizon Wireless and Verizon. These issues are so blatant, that their solutions, which approach best practices in customer service, become intuitively obvious. They are the lessons in customer service.

IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory 5.11.3

Mitchell Kramer — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most important yet most complex tasks in building customer portals is developing the portlets that implement and deliver applications services to your customers. Portlet development has required the same skills, techniques, and tools needed for all Web application development, and for integrating Web applications with back-office and external applications and data. WebSphere Portlet Factory is a portlet development toolset that can simplify and speed portlet development. It lets your developers use component assembly and mass customization techniques to build portlets. This product was originally developed by Bowstreet, Inc., and introduced in 2002 as Bowstreet Portlet Factory. Bowstreet was acquired by IBM on December 20, 2005 and the product has been re-branded as WebSphere Portlet Factory in March 2006. To date, approximately 200 customers have installed the product. WebSphere Portlet Factory Version 5.11.3, introduced in December 2005, is its current release.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 4Q 2005

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the fourth of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. 4Q 2005 was a good fourth quarter and 2005 was a very good year. While we’re never comfortable giving you just good news, there really is no bad news to deliver for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service in general or for the individual suppliers that we cover: ATG, eGain, InStranet, KANA, Knova, RightNow, and UniPress.

Windows SharePoint Services SharePoint Portal Server

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates the combination of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server against our evaluation framework for customer portals. These offerings create a portal platform with facilities that will help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals that deliver a rich and highly collaborative customer experience. Both SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server are widely used and well proven. Both were introduced in 2001 and both are in the second SP release of their second major version. A major new version is coming this year.

ATG Wisdom

Mitchell Kramer — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

ATG Wisdom is a product strategy that unifies all of ATG’s products and lets you implement them to deliver a comprehensive and consistent cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer experience. ATG fulfills the Wisdom strategy by having built all of its products with the same Java technologies and by supporting their deployment on the ATG7 application platform, in order to leverage common facilities for integrating external resources and for creating and managing customer context. In this report, we discuss how ATG’s products implement Wisdom and how you should consider using them.

Federated Customer Information

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Customer information is the key to delivering the kind of personalized cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer experience that makes it easy for your customers to do business with you. It’s the information that identifies your customers and comprehensively represents their relationships with you. Without customer information, you can’t do business. The problem is that you have too much customer information. Some of it is managed in all of your customer-touching and -facing systems. In this report, we describe a best practices approach for harnessing customer information.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 3Q 2005

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This report is the third of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support. 3Q2005 was a good third quarter. The best aspect of the quarter was customer growth. All of the companies that we watch did well in customer acquisition and retention, although some did much better than others. Product activity was mixed. For example, ATG and UniPress made major product announcements, but eGain and Knova were quiet. Company performance was mixed. For example, RightNow continues to lead the way. eGain and Knova slipped a little.

Liferay Portal 3.6.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates Liferay Portal 3.6.1 against our evaluation framework for customer portals. This open source portal platform packages facilities that will help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals that deliver a rich customer experience. It is a widely-used and well-proven portal platform. Liferay claims that the portal is downloaded hundreds of time every day and reference installations include a few names that you’ll recognize. In addition, Liferay has taken the offering through three major versions since its introduction in 2000. Significant new releases are planned for this quarter, 4Q2005, and 2Q2006.

InStranet Contact Centers In-Line 5.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMT

CCIL is a cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service product offering from InStranet, Inc., a privately-held software supplier based in Chicago, IL. Implement CCIL to let your customers find the information that they need to learn about your products, answer questions about them, and diagnosis and resolve problems with them across self-service and assisted service channels. We evaluate CCIL against our evaluation framework for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer service in this report.

BEA WebLogic Portal V.8.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates BEA WebLogic Portal 8.1 against our evaluation framework for customer portals. This portal platform packages facilities that will help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals that deliver a rich customer experience. It is a widely-used and well-proven portal platform. BEA claims an installed base of 3,000 customers, half of whom have used it for customer-facing applications. In addition, BEA has taken the offering through five major versions since its introduction in October 2001. The next major version is planned for early 2006.

Campaign Management at Nationwide Building Society

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This report is a case study that examines how Nationwide Building Society has made it easier for its customers to do business with them through an innovative implementation of campaign management processes and newly selected marketing automation technology. Nationwide is using Unica Affinium to deliver relevant offers to its customers in-line with their banking activities in branches and through the call center. It’s the latest in a series of Nationwide’s steps toward becoming a more customer-centric organization.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Product and Company Update - 2Q 2005

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMT

2Q2005 was a pretty good quarter for cross-channel, cross-lifecycle companies—good customer growth, a couple of product introductions, and improvements in company performance. The best news was in customer acquisition with lots of new customers and lots of good customer names. Customer growth, of course, results in good financial performance, and there was plenty of that. There really was no bad news. This report is the second of our quarterly update reports on the products and companies in our practice on cross-channel, cross-lifecycle customer support—ATG Adaptive Customer Assistance and ATG KnowledgeCenter, eGain Service, InStranet Contact Centers In-Line, KANA Service Solutions, Knova Application Suite, RightNow CRM, and UniPress Footprints.

Managing Product Content at Hewlett-Packard

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Hewlett-Packard has designed, built, and implemented a practical yet product content management system called HP Provisioner. It’s practical because it lets HP harness its content incrementally, an existing content management system at a time and a group of content consumers at a time, delivering rapid and significant results with little or no break-age. It’s innovative because its design: classifies all of HP’s products within a hierarchy that encapsulates product content, is represented in XML Schema, and is implemented in an XML database. This report is a case study that describes the motivation, approach, design, development, and implementation of HP Provisioner.

IBM WebSphere Portal 5.1.0.1

Mitchell Kramer — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This report evaluates IBM WebSphere Portal Version 5.1 against our evaluation framework for customer portals. This portal platform packages facilities that will help you design, develop, deploy, and support customer portals that deliver a rich customer experience. It is a widely-used and well-proven portal platform. IBM claims an installed base of 3,500 customers, 40 percent of whom have used it to support external users. In addition, IBM has taken the offering through five major versions since its introduction in early 2000 and the next major version is planned for 2Q2006.

Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Service Feature Comparison Matrix