New eGain software includes nine new applications, and enables customer service innovation through customer interaction hubs
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — (MARKET WIRE) — October 30, 2006: eGain Communications (OTC BB: EGAN.OB), 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.”
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