RightNow Technologies next week is expected to unveil the latest version of its hosted CRM suite, which features a revamped client architecture, new software for soliciting customer feedback, and enhanced analytic and reporting capabilities.
RightNow 8, which is due to be available in December, is aimed at helping companies better manage and improve the quality of their customers’ experiences, says Greg Gianforte, president and CEO of the company. It’s the result of a two-year, $25 million engineering effort, he says.
New to RightNow’s browser-based software – which it delivers via a multitenant hosting model – is a feedback module that lets companies capture customer feedback in real time and take action. For example, a company could route product-related customer comments to design teams, which might then contact customers to solicit more detailed information for future product revisions.
Built-in escalation rules let companies decide how they want negative feedback handled. “If a response is below some minimum that a company establishes, that feedback will go directly to a supervisor in the customer service area, or a manager, or whoever is designated,” Gianforte says. “Because it’s in real time, the company can take intervening action before the customer becomes bitter and switches to another vendor.”
Also new to the suite is a workflow engine with a graphical design tool. The Customer Experience Designer includes prebuilt templates that business users can modify to map such processes as handling a customer complaint or registering a product online. “It’s a Visio-like interface that lets you map out the way you want the experience of your customer to be conducted,” Gianforte says.
On the analytics front, RightNow 8 bolstered its capabilities with Report Design Center, a tool that lets users assemble tables, charts and fields to create reports and assemble customized analytics dashboards. With historical trending, users can compare current and projected information with historical performance data, such as lead conversion rates and customer satisfaction rankings.
To increase user productivity, RightNow added a workspace design tool that lets administrators customize desktop layouts depending on users’ roles – adding or reorganizing fields, tabs and tasks, for example. Packaged templates include sales, marketing and customer service profiles at the executive, manager, sales representative and agent level.
The technology “allows us to start designing custom processes for particular vertical industries,” Gianforte says. With RightNow 8, the vendor is introducing its first products tailored for different sectors. Each features built-in industry-specific processes, terminology, workflows and analytic dashboards.
The first versions target government, business-to-business and business-to-consumer environments. Traditional CRM vendors with premises-based software, such as SAP and Oracle, have long offered industry-specific versions of their software. But it’s a new approach for vendors that deliver CRM software-as-a-service – a market that includes Salesforce.com and NetSuite.
RightNow has not finalized pricing for RightNow 8. With past versions, a two-year license started at $1,250 per user.
