Express Response 5.4 by Island Data Improves Companies' Online Support Interaction Experience

Business Wire, March 21, 2001

Business Editors

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2001

Improvements in Customer Follow-up, User Feedback

and Knowledge Management Increase Customer Satisfaction

Island Data Corporation, the leading solutions provider for the online customer service market, today announced the release of Express Response(TM) 5.4.

The latest version of the award-winning solution expands a company's ability to increase customer satisfaction by following up on abandoned service interactions, enables feedback from end users on the quality of automated replies and broadens the set of knowledge base management tools. With Express Response 5.4, companies can continuously improve the online interaction experience for their end users.

Designed to effectively handle the end user's support query before it reaches the call center, Express Response 5.4 utilizes an innovative closed-loop architecture that allows the system to follow up with the user who has not selected any of the documents sent to them in response to their query. In the case of these "abandoned" sessions, Follow-up Manager gives the end user a chance to comment on why they did not select a document, which is information that can be used by a customer service representative to follow up directly with the end user for resolution. Across many users, this information can also be used to improve a company's knowledge base, which improves the online customer support experience for all of a company's end users.

Document Feedback allows Express Response customers to ask their end users whether a selected document solved their problem or answered their question. Companies can measure the effectiveness of their existing knowledge base based on the answers provided by their end users, and documents in the knowledge base can be enhanced to deepen and expand the quality of future responses.

Enhancements to Express Response's Knowledge Base Manager (KBM) allow companies to enter information easily, review documents and publish them to the knowledge base with one touch of a button. New functionality enables a company's knowledge managers to gather customer insights and feedback by showing how their end users are selecting information supplied from the company's knowledge base. This allows knowledge managers to add, delete or edit information to provide the most effective answers to end users' questions.

New KBM features also enhance work processes. Multiple authors can work on the system at the same time. Modified documents are then placed in a queue and the authorizing manager is alerted by e-mail for approval before making them live. This newly implemented system, designed to be in step with how knowledge managers want to work, is based on input from Island Data's key customers.

"Express Response 5.4 is an even more powerful version of a very successful customer loyalty and retention tool," said Dale Hazel, senior vice president of Marketing and Business Development at Island Data. "By improving the methods of following up on end users' sessions, increasing the functionality of document management within the knowledge base and closing the loop with feedback regarding the value of the answers provided, we are delivering an ever more satisfying approach to online customer service."

Express Response is a hosted online customer service application that receives Internet-based customer queries from web forms, e-mail and FAQs, analyzes the queries using natural language processing techniques and generates, within seconds, relevant, usable responses from its existing knowledge base.

Inquiries requiring additional information or those that do not have documented answers are escalated to appropriate call center personnel. By answering frequently asked questions without requiring interaction from live agents, Express Response delivers significant return on investment through dramatic call center cost savings and frees agents up to conquer additional challenges.

Express Response's sophisticated message analysis can also be used to identify customer satisfaction issues and attrition risks, thereby improving customer retention.

Express Response 5.4 incorporates features from all previous releases and further entrenches Island Data as an integral part of the support operations for companies seeking to reduce high volumes of e-support service requests. The company has been providing innovative CRM solutions since 1995 for companies such as Canon, Compaq, Dialpad, Juno Online and Real Networks, among others.

About Island Data

Island Data Corporation transforms online customer service and support into a strategic customer loyalty and retention tool -- through fast, accurate, relevant and personalized responses to customers' electronic inquiries -- achieved with substantial cost savings in call center operations.

Island Data provides the most advanced Automated Response solution in the marketplace today through Express Response. Express Response allows companies to quickly and cost-effectively web-enable and email-enable their customer service processes -- integrating all electronic communication channels, interpreting unstructured inquiries and leveraging their existing business knowledge to automatically deliver personalized responses to online user inquiries in seconds.