New version of CustomerFirst®
Editorial Contact: Frances Y. J. Wheeler Wheeler PR & Marketing (508) 475-7970
RTI’s Integrated System for Customer Service, Defect Tracking, and Problem Resolution Now Supports a Wide Variety of Maintenance Contracts and Billing Options
SAN FRANCISCO, California – August 27, 1996 – At the Support Services Conference & Expo held here this week, RTI (Repository Technologies, Inc., Woodridge, Illinois) announced that it has added comprehensive support for maintenance contracts to the new version of CustomerFirst, the integrated solution for customer service, defect tracking and problem resolution. In addition, a number of customization mechanisms have been incorporated into the system. These new features, as well as a number of other new capabilities, are part of Version 3.0 which is scheduled for commercial availability at the end of the fourth quarter of 1996. Version 3.0, will be available in both 16- and 32-bit versions. "Companies are learning that offering superlative service comes at a cost," stated E. James Emerson, PhD, President of RTI. "Effective managers are making customer service pay for itself through careful tracking of maintenance contracts. CustomerFirst makes it easier for companies to meet and exceed customers’ service expectations while keeping a firm grip on costs. This is particularly critical in support-intensive businesses such as the software industry."
Making Customer Service Pay
Version 3.0 adds "pay by the call" support to CustomerFirst’s already comprehensive maintenance-tracking capabilities. CustomerFirst's flexible maintenance features address a wide variety of contract options including periodic (e.g., annual, monthly) maintenance contracts, billing by time, billing by number of calls for support, prepaid, or "pay as you go." CustomerFirst maintains complete information on support contracts, upgrades, and related incident history. It even enables companies to assign different response guarantees to various contract types. When customers call for assistance, support representatives have all relevant contract information right on their desktop.
CustomerFirst makes it possible for companies to prepare periodic or advance support invoices, or invoices that reflect actual time charged to the account. For prepaid contracts, CustomerFirst generates a report that shows how the time was used and how much remains. Using the information provided by CustomerFirst reports, companies can correctly analyze and forecast maintenance revenues. CustomerFirst reports also provides usage information (e.g., number of calls, types of calls, time required to close call, number of bugs reported, etc.) that enables companies to develop viable new service offerings. To ensure that maintenance contracts are renewed in a timely fashion, CustomerFirst automatically notifies users of contracts that are due to expire soon. To help companies keep on top of support contracts and maximize revenues, CustomerFirst tracks contract expiration dates and provides a warning message when a call is taken from a customer whose maintenance contract has expired. Service representatives may still opt to respond to the service request; reports show all calls that have been taken for customers without current maintenance contracts, enabling salespeople to follow up. A separate report shows maintenance agreements that are due to expire in the near future, so companies can produce maintenance invoices in a timely fashion.
Customizing CustomerFirst
To enable companies to tailor individual CustomerFirst screens to their unique needs, CustomerFirst 3.0 includes a variety of customization capabilities. Customization is easily accomplished by authorized users at the individual, group, or enterprise level through the use of familiar "point and click" and "drag and drop" techniques. Users may change labels, move and hide fields, and add user-definable fields to screens. CustomerFirst’s sophisticated design ensures that companies may customize their systems without jeopardizing ongoing product support and enhancement.
Many Additional Features Enrich CustomerFirst 3.0
In addition to the new maintenance and customization capabilities, CustomerFirst Version 3.0 contains a number of other new features. New capabilities include:
· Mass Shipments - An option on the CustomerFirst 3.0 product panel enables users to specify that a software version be shipped to all licensed customers.
· Selecting Multiple Incidents for Action - CustomerFirst 3.0 enables users to select multiple incidents or problems shown in a list box, so users can transfer, reassign, change the status, or print multiple incidents or problems at a time.
· Reusable Custom Queries - Version 3.0 of CustomerFirst enables users to save queries for future use.
· Enhanced Search Techniques - Version 3.0 enhances the case-based reasoning already supported in CustomerFirst by giving users the ability to create hierarchies of characteristics to focus searches on the most relevant solutions. It also allows users to use additional characteristics to perform secondary searches that further narrow the possible solutions, thereby increasing the chance that a support representative will be able to resolve a customer’s problem while the caller is still on the line. CustomerFirst 3.0 also supports user-defined synonyms for keywords and other characteristics.
· Beeper Support - CustomerFirst now has the ability to initiate a call to a beeper to alert support representatives to critical situations. For example, CustomerFirst can be set to automatically dial a manager’s pager number if a premier service account has not received a call back within the prescribed response period. CustomerFirst’s beeper capability enables companies to leverage support organizations to the fullest, helping to ensure that valuable employees can be reached whenever needed.
· Creating Subsets of Work Items - Version 3.0 gives users the ability to create a separate work list consisting of multiple incidents and/or problems drawn from their complete list of work items.
CustomerFirst supports most local-area network (LAN) environments; operates with Microsoft Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT, and WIN OS/2; and supports popular database-management systems such as Oracle, Sybase, SQL/Server, DB2/2, and DB2/6000. CustomerFirst provides a Lotus Notes interface.
RTI, headquartered in Woodridge, Illinois, develops and markets software systems for customer service, defect tracking, and problem resolution. Founded in 1990, it serves major software vendors and other organization with significant external or internal development and support requirements. RTI’s flagship product, CustomerFirst, offers unparalleled integration of customer support, development, quality control, and documentation.
PRESS HERE FOR CONTACT INFORMATION
Send mail to webmaster@custfirst.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1996 Repository Technologies, Inc.
Last modified: April 21, 1997