MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- October 30, 2006 -- eGain Communications (
OTCBB:
EGAN), a
leading provider of customer service and contact center software for
in-house or on-demand deployment, today announced a major new release of
its customer interaction hub (CIH) software suite.
Jointly conceived and developed by eGain and its blue-chip customers, eGain
Service 7.6 suite includes nine new applications and directly addresses the
mindset of today's consumers, who expect choice of communication channels
and superior service quality when interacting with their favorite brands.
The software suite combines deep knowledge management and process
automation tools with a rich set of applications for managing the
ever-growing volume of interactions through traditional as well as emerging
communication channels. The CIH approach centralizes channel management,
knowledge bases, business rules, and analytical engines in one place, and
drastically reduces the cost of managing multiple channels while improving
customer experience and process efficiencies.
eGain's new suite is the first to support short message service (SMS)
customer service interactions, as well as next-generation web self-service,
chat, cobrowsing, email, fax, postal mail, notification management, call
tracking and resolution, knowledge management, and service fulfillment.
eGain Service 7.6 is built on eGain CIH™ Platform, the industry's most
comprehensive, integrated, and flexible customer interaction hub platform.
Based on a 100% J2EE architecture, it includes out-of-the-box integration
with leading business applications, content management systems, and call
center infrastructure solutions. The fine-grained service-oriented
architecture of the platform enables rapid development of powerful custom
applications.
"To gain competitive differentiation during the next five years, leading
enterprises will invest in building a customer interaction hub," said
Esteban Kolsky, Research Director at Gartner. "The CIH model enables the
business to learn and meet or exceed customer expectations across all
communication channels."
Penn Foster Career School, one of the oldest and largest distance learning
institutions in the world, has recently implemented eGain Service 7.6.
Currently used by more than 60 agents, the solution has already enabled the
institution to reduce response times by half. Furthermore, Penn Foster
expects to handle a 50% increase in customer service traffic while curbing
service costs. The school is also using the software to automate service
processes involving subject matter experts, within and outside the contact
center, when student inquiries require resolution that extends beyond the
initial interaction. As part of its customer interaction hub vision, it
plans to implement the chat and web self-service solutions in eGain Service
7.6 to further improve the quality of interactions with students.
"We are committed to meeting the lifelong learning needs of adults," said
Rob Bruno, Vice President of IT at Penn Foster Career School. "eGain
Service 7.6 will enable us to provide prompt and effective service to our
student base. This service level, together with the quality of our
education offerings, will help ensure that we are the preferred institution
for distance learning."
New applications in eGain Service 7.6
Self-service
-- eGain MessageCenter™: Enables secure communication of sensitive
information through email between the customer and the business, and
enables customers to view all their interactions through an authenticated
website.
Assisted service
-- eGain Adviser™: Empowers agents -- whether they are novice, expert,
in-house, or outsourced -- to handle complex customer interactions that
entail not only informational and transactional customer service, but also
contextual upsell and cross-sell, follow-on service fulfilment, and value-
added advice through conversations that are compliant with regulations and
corporate best practices. The solution includes a highly flexible user
interface, integrated workflow, and interactive process guidance, powered
by eGain's Inference® reasoning engine, a proven technology used by
enterprises for over 15 years.
-- eGain CallTrack™: Provides phone call logging, tracking,
resolution, and follow-on service fulfillment.
-- eGain SME™: Allows customer service agents to collaborate with
subject matter experts (SMEs) within and outside the contact center to
speedily respond to an inquiry.
-- eGain SMS™: Provides a flexible system for managing customer
interactions done through SMS, an increasingly popular channel of
interaction.
Process automation
-- eGain AutoClassify™: Helps companies shorten the turnaround time on
inquiries by intelligently classifying and routing incoming emails and
other inquiries. The solution uses eGain's Inference® reasoning engine
for more advanced and robust classification of inquiries than simple
keyword matching.
-- eGain AutoWorkflow™: Works with eGain Workflow™ Engine and eGain
Adapters™ to execute service processes that do not need human
involvement.
-- eGain Notify™: Helps manage and deliver event-based reminders,
alerts, and updates at any stage of a customer transaction or the overall
customer lifecycle.
-- eGain Survey™: Helps contact centers, ecommerce sites, and customer
portals solicit and act on customer feedback to improve and grow customer
relationships.
"eGain continues to win deals on the strength of its platform and an
increasingly process-centric message," writes Chip Gliedman, VP of CRM
Research at Forrester. "The vendor's attention to business processes has
made it a leader in eService process orientation and it is winning deals,
particularly in Europe, where modeling and executing processes are key deal
attributes." (The Forrester Wave: eService Suites Q2 2006, Forrester
Research, Inc., May 2006).
"eGain has delivered a series of industry-firsts over the last decade, and
we continue that tradition with eGain Service 7.6, the most complete
customer interaction hub solution available in the market today," said Ashu
Roy, CEO of eGain. "A direct result of our collaboration with leading
clients, who are at the forefront of customer service innovation, the
solution can enable any enterprise to differentiate itself through
stand-out customer service."
Immediately available on a worldwide basis, eGain Service 7.6 can be
deployed on-demand or on-premise. Details on the solution are available at
http://www.egain.com/products/index.asp.
About eGain
eGain (
OTCBB:
EGAN) is a leading provider of customer service and contact
center software for on-premise or on-demand deployment. Trusted by
prominent enterprises worldwide, eGain has been helping organizations
achieve and sustain customer service excellence for more than a decade. 24
of the 50 largest global companies rely on eGain to transform their
traditional call centers, help desks, and web customer service operations
into multichannel customer interaction hubs. These hubs enable dramatically
improved customer experience, unified multichannel customer service,
end-to-end service process efficiencies, and enhanced contact center
performance.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, eGain has an operating presence
in 18 countries and serves over 800 enterprise customers worldwide. To find
out more about eGain, visit
www.eGain.com or call the company's offices:
800-821-4358 (United States), 1753-464646 (UK and rest of Europe).
eGain, the eGain logo, Inference, and all other eGain product names and
slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of eGain Communications
Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names
and products mentioned in this release may be trademarks or registered
trademarks of the respective companies.
Contact Information: Media Contacts:
Carlos Mangandy
The Hoffman Agency for eGain
Tel: 408-975-3004
Email: cmangandy@hoffman.com
Maeve Naughton
eGain Communications Corporation
Tel: 650-230-7449
Email: pr@egain.com