RIGHTNOW GUIDE: Unified Agents, Universal Queues and Customer Experience

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1 RIGHTNOW GUIDE: Unified Agents, Universal Queues and Customer Experience 2010 RightNow Technologies. All rights reserved. RightNow and RightNow logo are trademarks of RightNow Technologies Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TARGET AUDIENCE... 1 EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW/ABSTRACT... 1 UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM... 1 ADVANCED TOOLS FOR MANAGING CUSTOMER CARE... 2 Universal Queuing and Routing... 3 Unified Agent... 5 OPERATIONAL GOALS... 6 HOW UA AND UQ DELIVER EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER CARE... 7 Without Universal Queue or Unified Agent... 8 With Universal Queue and Unified Agent... 8 Unified Agent Desktops and Universal Queuing for Operational Excellence... 9 CONCLUSIONS/SUMMARY LIMITED GLOSSARY OF CONTACT CENTER TERMS ABOUT RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES DISCLAIMER COPYRIGHT... 15

3 TARGET AUDIENCE Contact Center customers, solutions consultants, client success managers, and account executives with a need to understand how Unified Agent functions and Universal Queuing and Routing can help manage operational and customer care goals. EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW/ABSTRACT Call Centers and Contact Centers are constantly challenged with providing enhanced customer care at the lowest cost. These seemingly contrary goals can be managed together through use of Universal Queuing, where resources are managed through a consistent set of business rules, and Unified Agents desktops, where multiple communications channels and a unified view of customer data and applications can be managed within a single Agent skill set. In order to manage these goals together, it is key to understand when to apply and how to apply these concepts. Within this white paper we will see that right channeling (where the appropriate channel is applied to the proper customer support situation) and using Universal concepts across a set of skill-segmented resources is actually superior to assuming one Agent can handle any communication channels concurrently. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM This is the final installment of our four-part series on Contact Center, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and Customer Care best practices. In the initial paper the focus was on the business value of Computer Telephony Integration; where the integration between telephony systems and computer systems can deliver better operational results and customer experiences. In the second paper, the focus was on existing technologies and best practices related to implementation of CTI and integration to an existing Contact Center infrastructure. In the third paper, background on the evolution of Call Centers and Contact Centers was presented and a maturity model for implementing contact center operations was outlined. In this paper, we examine first principles related to customer care and see how concepts of Universal Queuing and Routing and Unified Agent capabilities can contribute to customer experience and customer care operational goals. Universal Queuing, where a single set of business rules govern allocation of requests for service across a set of unified set of agents and self-service resources, is a relatively new concept that has been implemented in Leading Contact Centers (as discussed in RightNow s maturity model of Customer Care Centers.) Unified Agents, where a single agent can manage multiple interactions across different channels (for example Telephone and or and Chat) has been promoted broadly, but the actual practice of Unified Agents requires strict business rule and training practices to gain the benefits promised. Instead, as discussed below, the concepts of reallocating Agent resources for traffic load balancing to match customer requests is an immediate benefit when combined with Universal Queuing and Routing. 1

4 Customer care focuses on two simple and somewhat opposing goals; reducing costs through operational efficiency, and meeting customer expectations (Customer Experience; CX) around treatment and service. From the operational perspective of a contact center, every technology, every operational process, and every management process is focused on minimizing costs and maximizing agent utilization. Minimizing cost is frequently equated with employing less expensive resources (for example outsourcing to less expensive geographies) or automating processes through self-service applications, whether those are web-based, based, or IVR/speech-based. However, as one considers the factors that go into minimizing costs of operating a contact center, other factors including agent retention 1, training, overall staff shrinkage, and rates of right party connect dramatically influence the costs of running a contact center. Along with minimizing costs within the contact center comes the task of maximizing agent utilization. Getting the most productivity out of agents is only achieved when one aligns agent resources against customer needs. While this sounds simple in concept, simply staff agents to handle customer inquiries, in practice this is not nearly so straightforward. Customer needs are not static and fluctuate dramatically from month-to-month, week to week, and continually throughout the day. Therefore, the tricks of maximizing agent utilization include understanding needs of customers, forecasting traffic levels, training, recruiting, and scheduling agent resources against those dynamic needs and then moving agents into the proper queues and skill groups to meet these needs. As we explore the intersection between operational effectiveness and customer experience, we will see how Unified Agent capabilities (cross-channel communications) and Unified routing and queuing of customer requests play a crucial role in meeting unexpected demands and managing through transitional traffic periods. Meeting customer expectations related to customer care is not a straightforward task either. Many metrics are associated with meeting expectations around the process of connecting a customer to an agent quickly (Average Speed of Answer) and being connected to an agent that can handle the customer service request (Right Party Connect/Transfer Rate) but the measurement of how effective the agent is when interacting with the customer is not so well defined. Tools such as Service Observation and Call Recording, and related work-force management and training solutions are all used either ad-hoc or post-call to attempt to measure and continually improve this process. ADVANCED TOOLS FOR MANAGING CUSTOMER CARE As outlined in RightNow s Contact Center Maturity Model(See the RightNow Guide The Unified Contact Center: Raising the Bar on Call Center Operations and Customer Experience), there are many tools applicable for managing against operational and customer 1 See Limited Glossary of Contact Center Terms at the end of this document 2

5 care metrics focused on monitoring individual Agent behavior and subsequently training or coaching. These tools include skill-based routing, operational reporting, service observation, quality monitoring, and call recording. However, two important concepts not covered were Universal Queuing and Unified Agents. Universal Queuing and Routing As Gartner Group states in their Glossary of Technical Terms 2, a universal queue is A process (and technology) whereby all contact channels and media such as phone, interactive voice response, fax, Web and are integrated into the same queue to standardize processing and handling. Most call center managers are familiar with the concept of queuing callers for call center agents. In a call center the call is triaged within the call center software using the caller s dialed number ( get-help ), a simple query within the automatic call distributor (ACD) ( press 1 for sales, 2 for service ), or a more sophisticated interaction within the Voice Response System (IVR) ( If you are an existing customer please enter your account number.) This initial triage then routes the call to an available agent (if an agent is available) with the proper skills, or queues the caller for an agent to answer when an agent becomes available. A single queue concept can be applied across most kinds of interaction channels; for example, routing and queuing a text chat request from a customer to an agent prepared to chat with the customer or delivering an to an agent who can work an response. When one considers unifying these different kinds of routing and queuing requests the operational and customer service goals need to be examined more closely. As Gartner states, a benefit of universal queuing is to standardize processing and handling. But is processing an the same as processing a telephone call? Different channels are good for different kinds of customer support needs. Telephone calls are useful for requesting immediate assistance related to certain kinds of interactions. For example, when someone is reconciling their credit card charges the immediacy of knowing who and where a charge was made is most important. In addition, that request can be fairly easily described ( my account number is xxx and I didn t buy anything from Raging Irons Golf ) and a direct telephone interaction between customer and knowledgeable agent can resolve issues quickly and efficiently. It is important to be aware that the knowledge that an agent must possesses to perform quickly and efficiently includes both knowledge of facts to support the customer support request and knowledge of support processes that are required by the business

6 is often used for documenting labor or process intensive steps for resolution of an issue. While a customer may find a 20 minute session on the phone a frustrating affair when trying to reset a Cable TV receiver, an documenting this process can be examined and reviewed offline when time and patience are available. On the other hand, communication can require additional elapsed time that a telephone call might not. For example the time for the customer to compose an , the time for the Agent to compose a response, and the latent time where an may be sitting in a customer s inbox waiting to be read. Chat is a hybrid between these communication methods that offers the immediacy of the phone call and the documentation ability of . While this is often a perfect intermediary solution customers must be in a position to use this communication channel. For example, chat might work well in resolving a credit card dispute (to a point) but might not work as well when diagnosing and resetting a Cable TV Receiver. Mobile Chat provides a variation on Web Chat where various use-cases of the customer may need to be considered. For instance, a customer may have a short amount of time (waiting for the rest of their party to arrive at a restaurant) to resolve an issue. Social Channels are distinct in that the communication request may or may not be directed at the enterprise which sold the good or service. In these cases awareness may be a first step of communication ( customer intent or need is noted ) but the resolution may need to be answered directly through the stated channel (e.g. Twitter or Facebook messages), directly through another channel (e.g. response via a follow-up ), indirectly through another channel (e.g. public relations or social announcements), or even addressed through a resolution of the issue without a stated acknowledgement. In each of these cases the particular business, customer relationship, sentiment and company approaches must be systemized a priori. Communication Channel Works well for Works not as well for Agent Skills Telephone Channel Immediate Response where a sense of urgency is required; Either simple requests requiring few steps for resolution or initiating more sophisticated requests to be worked offline After-hours Support Requests; Documenting Processes or Steps for Resolution; Maintain a Record of the interaction by the customer Good verbal and real-time problem solving skills. Patience and process-following skills. Channel 24-hour access; Capturing Details and communicating standardized responses. Communicating multiple Immediate responses. Resolving simple support requests that still require a confirmation or clarification step Good written and grammatically correct language skills. Typically more sophisticated 4

7 steps to be worked offline. Maintaining a 2-way written record of the interaction problem-solving skills. Chat Channel Immediate Response where a textual description can resolve simple requests. Capturing details and communication standardized responses. Maintaining a 2-way written record of the interaction Capturing and communicating a sense of urgency. Communicating multiple steps to be worked offline. Good written and grammatically correct language skills. Ability to multi-task effectively (often performing multiple concurrent chats) As one can see, unifying these for standard processing requires an understanding of Agent Skills (who is a good at verbal or written communication) Agent Capabilities (who can manage multiple concurrent sessions for Chat) Customer Expectations o For Telephone Contacts: Immediacy, Intimacy, Professionalism, Immediate Resolution, Customer Situations o For Contacts: Responsiveness, Proper use of grammar, Knowledge o For Chat Contacts: Responsiveness, Customer Goal of the Contact o For Social Contacts: Observation and Resolution, Permission Overall traffic loads and service levels Core shared knowledge that is o Accurate Any answer must be accurate o Consistent Any answer must be consistent across channels or you will a single customer repeatedly asking the same question looking for different answers o Aligned with specific business processes o Aligned with company policies o Aligned with company brand Universal Queue solutions can help deliver these skills in a variety of work-load situations and can right channel a customer to meet and exceed their expectations. Unified Agent A Unified Agent by definition doesn t require a Unified Agent Desktop, but without this kind of tool the contact center is effectively asking the agent to be human glue trying to tie 5

8 together both multiple communications channels and multiple business processes. A Unified Agent desktop describes two (complementary, but not identical) sets of capabilities. On one hand a Unified Agent desktop brings together all the information and tools that can address a Customer need including Customer Records, Product Records, Support History, Knowledge Base, Communications Tools (more on this in a moment), and many businessprocess specific tools. A Unified Agent Desktop then orchestrates this information and tools based on customer context and defined process. The RightNow Dynamic Agent Desktop is a state-of-the-art example of this form of Unified Agent desktop. The second set of capabilities are the Communications Tools and processes that are supported within a Unified Agent desktop. As illustrated above, each communication channel is distinct in the sets of requirements for the Customer and Agent to communicate effectively. The communications tools are no exception and these tools need to be designed into the overall Agent Desktop to be effective. Unified Agent Desktops can support multiple concurrent channels of use by an agent, however the effective use of these communications tools requires coordination with Unified Queues and attention to the specific skills that an agent needs to posses. OPERATIONAL GOALS As stated in the introduction, operational goals in a contact center revolve around cost controls and managing utilization of agents. While these goals would seem to be identical (after all, doesn t maximizing the utilization of agents mean minimizing costs?) these elements have to be worked in concert. If a contact center over-utilizes its agents burn-out occurs and the operation incurs the costs of replacing a full-trained and effective agent with hiring, training, and additional supervision costs. The operational goals that contact centers are frequently concerned within include: Maximization of agent resources (again balanced with HR considerations) by o Alignment of agent resources against customer needs: Performed through identification of needs as early in the channel contact cycle as possible Using a rich skills-based model to determine the agent requirement to best satisfy the needs Balance utilization against agent needs such as skill development and fairness o Minimize Costs By balancing automation, determination of customer intent and segmentation, against a variable cost structure within an agent workforce 6

9 Up skill agents by providing tools to dynamically increase the knowledge of the agents around customer context Up skill agents around business process by providing tools to dynamically adjust workflow to react to new business process workflows o Managing Workforce By better use of workforce management and scheduling software to predict customer traffic needs and manage workforce against overstaffing (where agents are idle while waiting for contacts) and service level issues (where customer are abandoning their contact requests) Creating better upside potential for career development within the contact center to reduce attrition of the most skilled staff Minimizing costs Create consistent sustainable service HOW UA AND UQ DELIVER EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER CARE Unified Agent capabilities and Universal Queuing, while different concepts, work together to deliver exceptional customer care. Great customer care comes from maximizing the customer experience through understanding the customer s needs, if possible before the customer may even know those needs. Once those needs are identified, being able to resolve those issues quickly and effectively in a professional and empathetic nature is important to exceeding expectations. So how can a Universal Queue technology resolve those issues? Universal Queuing provides a set of consistent routing and service rules to apply across communications channels. Universal Queuing looks across available resources and bring those agent or automated resources to the issue. By managing against the skills, proficiencies and availability within an agent group, business rules can quickly be changed to react to customer needs. Not only do Unified Agent Desktops bring multiple communications tools (phone controls, chat consoles, consoles, etc.) in a single framework but also access tools and business processes that can dynamically up skill or cross-skill agents. With tools such as the RightNow Dynamic Agent Desktop Workflow, a solid Knowledge Foundation, and Agent Scripting, agent work is orchestrated within a universal customer context. Unified Agents Desktops and Universal Queues work together to provide customer access for whatever channel the customer chooses making anytime, anywhere access to customer service possible. 7

10 To see how these two concepts play out let us examine a situation of a customer contact customer support and how two different contact centers might handle this. In the first case we will not have Universal Queue or Unified Agent capabilities while in the second we will add those and examine how the customer experience is accelerated. Without Universal Queue or Unified Agent A customer has contacted a company using the telephone and spoken to an agent about a problem with their DVD player. The company has staffed most of their agents to work on telephone calls and the customer reaches an agent quickly. The customer uses the information provided to them during the phone call to try to fix their issue. Unfortunately the issue is not resolved and so the customer now goes to the company website for additional help. During this website visit they notice that they can chat with an agent and so select this option. Unfortunately the company has not staffed the chat agent groups to the level for their incoming chat volume. Even though they have telephone agents sitting idle waiting for more calls, these agents are not staffed to take chats and don t have the tools available to communicate with customers. After 20 minutes the customer finally gets a response from one of the overwhelmed chat agents. This chat agent has been coached to speed up chat handles and take on more conversations as the contact center is starting to miss service level expectations. Once on the chat the customer and the agent has to go through the same diagnostics that the customer has dealt with on the previous telephone call as this chat has no access to the notes or conversation history that took place with the telephone agent. The customer is ultimately given an alternative approach which doubles the amount of time to resolve their DVD player issue. With Universal Queue and Unified Agent With Universal Queuing and Unified Agent capabilities the customer experiences changed dramatically. The initial telephone call proceeds as in the first case, but in this case a workflow is driven from customer knowledge, registered product knowledge, and any other prior interaction history. This integrated approach allows the agent to use the communications tools (telephone controls) in concert with a core common knowledge base to deliver a superior problem identification and resolution experience. All interaction and tool usage history is stored with agent entered notes into a universal customer experience record. Even with this approach, the problem with the DVD is not easily resolved and so the customer goes to the website for further support. On the website, relevant answers are 8

11 highlighted based not simply on the symptoms the customer is entering, but also on the history of answers and customer conversations that took place on the telephone channel. Again the customer selects a chat agent for further assistance. Like the other contact center, this contact center has more agents staffed for voice, however increasing volume in chat requests and a decrease volume in telephone requests allow a supervisor to restaff using a change in the business rules for routing. Although the agents in the contact center could have been staffed to accept both telephone and chat requests on after the other, the best practice developed is to alert an agent of a change in communication and process changes and reallocate agents through a manual process. The supervisor administer skill changes so some of the telephone-only agents are now skilled within the Universal Queue to receive a combination of and chat requests. One of the newly assigned agents now picks up the customer chat request. Even though this agent doesn t often perform chat, instead usually focusing on Telephone interactions, the system presents chat-based workflows and provides contextual information to up skill their chat capabilities. The agent is able to see the prior phone conversation s interaction history and context of the problem resolution on both the phone channel and the web interactions. At this point the agent picks up where those prior diagnostic efforts ended and provides a complete resolution to the customer. Unified Agent Desktops and Universal Queuing for Operational Excellence Meeting service levels (for example responding to 80% of customer telephone calls within 2 minutes) is an ongoing challenge within a single channel contact center that only becomes more complex when one adds additional interactions channels (now also respond to 80% of chat requests within 60 seconds.) This is really the flipside to the customer experience problems we examined above and it is here that common goals between customers being served quickly and accurately aligns with the goals of contact centers to move customers quickly and efficiently to resolution. Complications come from providing multiple channel support within siloed queuing mechanisms and siloed Agent communications channels. As an example, consider the diagram below where a fictional staffing level of a Telephone Call Center and the hourly demand on those staffing needs is illustrated. In this example, even with work-force scheduling software the client has understaffed in the mid-morning and perhaps slightly overstaffed in the early evening. Ironically there is a challenge in a single channel contact center that while a single channel should be easier to manage, supervision is left with less tools and flexibility to deal with mismatch in demand situations. In this case the client is likely to have to pull agents out of training, adding supervisors to the pool, and call in reserve agents due to this unforeseen spike. Even with all that, it s likely that service levels and customer satisfaction measures are being missed as agents are being encourage to lower 9

12 their call handle times and shortening their after call work to a minimum. The results? Worse customer satisfaction, sketchy notes, increased wait times leading to increased abandons. Staffing Level Telephone Staffing and Demand Potential Service Level Issue Telephone Staff Telephone Demand 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 12:00 AM When one adds another channel (chat enabled agents) a new pattern emerges. In this case demand for chat services falls below the staffing levels for most of the day, although demand does exceed staffing in the mid-evening. In this case the contact center has to deal with paying for extra staff without sufficient work to perform. 10

13 14 12 Chat Staffing and Demand Potential Overstaffing Staffing Level Chat Staff Chat Demand 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 12:00 AM Combining these two queues makes the picture a bit clearer. Although it is fairly difficult to see in the following picture there are synergies that can be had by combining the workforce skills and demands. Historically this was easier said than done as communication skills (written vs. verbal) are different between telephone agents and chat agents. However this is where some of the magic of Universal Queuing, skills-based routing, and Unified Agent capabilities come together. Staffing Level :00 AM 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 12:00 AM Telephone and Chat Staffing and Demand Telephone Staff Telephone Demand Chat Staff Chat Demand 11

14 In this final diagram the staffing and demand curves have been combined but also the principles of Universal Queuing and dynamic up skilling through a Unified Agent desktop have been applied. In cases like this, where the demand curve is changing rapidly between telephone and chat demands, the contact center operations and supervisors can work together to quickly add and remove skills, effectively turning an agent from a telephone agent to a chat agent by modifying the skills. In some cases where communications channels are aligned to support common base skills and customer expectations (for example chat and ) the agents will be staffed to accept multiple concurrent communication channel requests. In this case the agents are alerted by their supervisors and the same Unified Agent desktop now allows them to start accepting requests for chat requests. By making use of both dynamic workspaces that allow the context of the customer contact to determine the need for the telephone or chat request and by using common tools based on a consistent knowledge foundation, combined with agent and workspace scripting, an agent not highly skilled in a secondary communications channels can quickly take on occasional contacts from this backup channel. Using capabilities such as proficiencies combined with skills, the contact center can rank the proficiency of their primary channel as high and their secondary channel as medium. This allows skills-based routing to make decisions to take agents into those contacts only when operations goals require those resources to meet service levels. Telephone and Chat Staffing and Demand Staffing Level Total Staff 6:00 AM 7:00 AM 8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM 9:00 PM 10:00 PM 11:00 PM 12:00 AM Total Demand 12

15 CONCLUSIONS/SUMMARY In this paper the concepts of Universal Queues and Unified Agents were introduced and their impact on both customer experience (as a proxy for customer satisfaction) and operational performance were examined. When queues and agent skills were examined in isolation both customer experience and operational performance were impacted. Customer experience was impacted in cases where understaffing affected hold times, rushed contact handle experiences, and short-cut after contact work leading to subsequent sub-par customer experiences. Operational performance was likewise affected with service levels missing goals in understaffed situations or unnecessary staffing costs for over staffing around a communications channel queue. When the queues are combined and a number of agents were cross-trained on communications channels, a basic foundation for Universal Queuing is put in place. As dynamic up-skilling and access to multiple communication channels are added through a Unified desktop, agents can be quickly be brought into and out of queues to manage service levels. At the same time a Unified desktop provided a solid baseline for customer experience across channels and provides extra help in managing channels and processes that may be less familiar for the agent. Universal Queuing and Unified Agent capabilities together combined to address both customer experience and operational metrics meeting common goals of providing customer choice of channel, resolution, and operational effectiveness at a lower cost structure. LIMITED GLOSSARY OF CONTACT CENTER TERMS Abandoned Calls: An incoming contact is counted as abandoned when the customer terminates the request (hangs up call; closes chat window) before the contact is answered by an agent. Agent: A general term for someone who handles customer contacts within a call center. Agent Retention: The ability to retain desired Agents Average Wait Time before Abandon: The average amounts of time per Abandoned contact the customer waited to be answered before abandoning the contact Average Speed of Answer: Average speed of answer (ASA) represents the average wait time of all calls in the period. 13

16 Call Recording: A tool within a Contact Center to record Agent/Customer interactions for quality or compliance needs\ Right Party Connect: The percentage of time that the contact request is routed to a properly qualified and enabled Agent that can process the request (and doesn t have to reroute the contact to a supervisor or alternatively skilled agent) Transfer Rate: The inverse of Right Party Connect; the transfer percentage is an indication of what percentage of contacts have to be transferred to another person or place for handling Service Observe: A tool found in Contact Centers to allow a Supervisor or Quality Monitoring person or system to observer and listen to Agent/Customer interactions Staff Shrinkage: The percent of total productive hours (answering contacts) out of all potential hours for a Contact Center Agent Staff Supervisor: A team-leader that coaches a group of Agents on proper work habits, acts as real-time quality management, and helps with ongoing management issues for the contact center team ABOUT RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) is helping rid the world of bad experiences one consumer interaction at a time, 7 million times a day. RightNow CX, the customer experience suite, helps organizations deliver exceptional customer experiences across the Web, social networks, and contact centers, all delivered via the cloud. With more than 8 billion customer interactions delivered, RightNow is the customer experience fabric for nearly two thousand organizations around the globe. For more information, please visit. RightNow is a registered trademark of RightNow Technologies, Inc. NASDAQ is a registered trademark of the NASDAQ Stock Market. DISCLAIMER The content contained herein may represent customizations made to our standard commercially available software and should not be construed to represent or guarantee our standard product capabilities. By sharing our product capabilities with you, we are not undertaking an obligation to develop the commercially available software with the customizations or features that may be demonstrated or reflected herein. Standard commercially available software capabilities are subject to change. RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR 14

17 STATUTORY, AS TO THE PRODUCT CAPABILITIES REFLECTED IN THIS DOCUMENT. COPYRIGHT This is a preliminary document and may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of the software described herein. The material contained in this document represents the current view of RightNow Technologies on the topics discussed as of the date of publication. Changing market conditions may impact the positioning and challenges faced by the consumers of the material in this document, the content should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of RightNow Technologies, and RightNow Technologies cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. This publication is for informational purposes only. RIGHTNOW TECHNOLOGIES MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of RightNow Technologies. RightNow Technologies may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from RightNow Technologies, the furnishing of this document does not give a license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property RightNow Technologies. All rights reserved. 15