Vendors bolster self-service software

Despite sluggish corporate IT spending, Web-based self-service software is picking up steam and helping companies cut their technical support or customer service costs by letting users answer their own questions via the Web rather than by telephone.

Among the companies announcing enhancements this week are search specialist Jeeves Solutions and tech support vendor Motive Communications.

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Self-service software can be used to assist customers on external Web sites or employees on intranets. Increasingly, the software features leading-edge artificial intelligence and analytic capabilities in addition to hooks into other customer relationship management (CRM) packages.

Self-service investment

Vendors and industry analysts report that companies are continuing to invest in self-service tools - which cost $100,000 or more - because they offer an immediate return on investment.

"It costs less to serve people online vs. what it costs to field a telephone call or answer an e-mail," says Allen Bonde, director of management consulting at Extraprise, a CRM consultancy.

"This technology has moved from the outer fringes to the mainstream over the last six to 12 months," he says.

Among the companies that purchased self-service software in recent months are AT&T Broadband, EarthLink, 3Com, SBC Communications and Logitech.

A new customer of self-service is Aspect Communications, a San Jose maker of call center software. Aspect began rolling out self-service software from start-up noHold Communications to its tech support staff earlier this month and will soon make the capability available to its customers.

"Our customers want to be able to do more on their own, and they want to do it in a Web environment," says Tom Neary, director of support technology at Aspect.

"While this won't make the proverbial phone call go away, it will enable the phone call to become a more intimate, value-added tool," he says.

With noHold's software, Aspect created a "knowledgebase" out of its existing technical data, customer notes and software patches. Aspect's customers will use noHold's simple, natural language interface to answer their questions by querying that knowledgebase. Meanwhile, noHold provides real-time statistics to Aspect's tech support staff on the performance of the software.

NoHold's software "will provide increased customer satisfaction and shorter time to [problem] resolution as well as allow us to roll out more complex products without additional hiring," Neary says.

Crowded market

The market for self-service tools is crowded, with leaders Primus Knowledge Solutions and Kana Communications recently beefing up their offerings by purchasing rivals with natural language processing and analytics.

Other vendors targeting this market include eGain Communications and RightNow Technologies, as well as venture-funded start-ups noHold, iPhrase Technologies and Kanisa.

The continued strong investment in self-service software is prompting innovation by all the major players. For example, the following announcements were due this week:

Jeeves, a spin-off from the popular Web site Ask Jeeves, will ship its first enterprise software package called Jeeves One. Until now, Jeeves offered hosted question answering services to companies such as Compaq, Dell and RadioShack. Jeeves One features advanced natural language processing and analytical capabilities, which let companies learn more about what their customers want. The first customer is Compaq.

Motive, which provides self-service tools for corporate IT help desks, will unveil a product that provides broader business support to employees.

Enhancements include the ability to embed help in applications, error messages and dialog boxes. Motive for Employee Support uses external content such as other Web sites, and it supports Microsoft's Windows Installer Service.

The first customer for Motive for Employee is Target.

Vendors bolster self-service software

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