iPhrase OneStep: Knowledge, at Your Service

Call it knowledge central. Through its flagship OneStep suite, iPhrase Technologies, an e-business and e-service solutions provider based in Bedford, Mass., enables organizations to leverage the vast amounts of valuable content housed within their enterprises and other pertinent sources to deliver a superior service experience to business customers, partners and consumers.

More specifically, iPhrase addresses a problem that’s long-plagued customer service organizations trying to harness the Web as a vehicle for practicing call deflection to reduce costs — primarily, the inability to offer up targeted content during a self-service session for first-contact resolution, and, further, to seamlessly escalate that session to higher-level tiers when self-service attempts fail. Even organizations who’ve garnered respect for world-class customer service through phone-based communications have seen spectacular failures when it comes to developing self-service strategies. Unnavigable Web sites, simplistic keyword search mechanisms, scattered and often contradictory content presentation, disconnected channels, and labyrinthine escalation processes contribute to user frustration, dependence on more costly channels, and even defection — typically to businesses with better service models.

With iPhrase’s OneStep platform — based on sophisticated technology developed in MIT’s Spoken Language Systems laboratory that's been applied to the understanding of textual communications — businesses can treat each and every customer interaction as an opportunity rather than the annoyance it’s been traditionally considered. Aptly named, OneStep integrates a set of interface capabilities — natural language processing, adaptive learning, dynamic result rendering, and search precision optimization — with such content services as document filtering, metadata extraction, linguistic analysis, and content integration to enable users to ask questions or choose intelligently suggested answers instead of having to waste valuable time browsing a site in search of help. Thanks to its integrated, multichannel capabilities, OneStep enables users who can’t find their answer to easily escalate their search by sending an email or opening a Web case, or to move to a live agent session through chat or the phone. OneStep intelligently captures any search steps the user has taken and passes those along through the chosen channel so the problem doesn’t have to be reiterated, minimizing frustration.

“Traditionally, if a customer using a search tool can’t find what they need, they end up hunting for contact information [for escalation], but many businesses make finding that information difficult as they’re trying to deflect calls. We avoid that frustration,” says Roy Rodenstein, director of e-service solutions for iPhrase. “We start a dialogue with the customer if they’re having problems with their search to offer them the opportunity to escalate, and we capture all the routes they’ve taken and package that for escalation.”

The ability for businesses to develop an intuitive interface to back-end knowledge has long been a goal of CRM initiatives. While CRM vendors themselves excel in collecting and centralizing operational customer data, they don’t typically provide the sophisticated search and navigation capabilities needed to fully leverage key content for a satisfactory service experience across the customer lifecycle. iPhrase’s suite of applications, which integrate with CRM and ERP databases and other applicable content sources, act as the service interface for an enterprise’s agents, customers and partners. The suite includes three e-service applications: WebResolve, for self-service resolution; ContactUs, for automated email and Web support requests, and AgentKM, an agent portal that interfaces to pertinent CRM systems. In addition to being able to search both structured and unstructured data sources, OneStep incorporates business logic that, for example, makes cross-sell and upsell recommendations at the point of contact and personalizes interactions based on past customer behavior. The product also integrates sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities that enable administrators to improve service content and delivery.

Says Rodenstein, “We don’t try to be a fullblown CRM suite, as there are many of those already out there. iPhrase is the interface that best enables users to solve support and service issues, whether through search and navigation, email or the phone.”

Such capabilities are aggressively sought by its customer base, which comprises Global 2000 companies in vertical industries where customer service is a competitive differentiator, such as high tech and financial services. “Our customer base tends to be the kind of company that places a high priority on the customer experience,” says Rodenstein.

One such company is Waltham, Mass.-based Netegrity Inc., a well-known provider of access and identity management solutions that was acquired by Computer Associates for $430 million in Q4/2004. Given the importance of its solutions to the continuing operations of its customers, which comprise more than 850 organizations worldwide, Netegrity has to deliver timely and superior customer service. Five years ago, company executives abandoned a set of inefficient, manual support processes in favor of an automated service and support infrastructure. Critical to the company’s new strategy, according to director of business systems Todd Clayton, was the ability to push customers’ less complex, more repetitive problems to self-service channels.

Initially, Netegrity built its own searchable knowledgebase but found it wasn’t dynamic enough to deliver the service levels required. After adopting CRM applications from Onyx Software for its sales and marketing efforts, it moved to build a more sophisticated knowledgebase, but found that front-end search and navigation capabilities were still lacking. While Netegrity executives were pleased that the majority of their customers were now opening their own Web cases if they couldn’t find answers to their problems, the costs associated with handling their complex problem sets over the phone meant Netegrity “wanted to get to the point where customers weren’t opening cases at all,” says Clayton.

After launching an initiative around improving knowledgebase content, Netegrity looked for technology that would integrate with Onyx to provide customers with guided navigation and search capabilities that closely paralleled the way they might interact with agents.

“We conducted a number of surveys and found that customers didn’t just want keyword searches; they wanted to be able to ask questions as if they were talking to an agent on the phone,” says Clayton. A seamless, multichannel experience was also key. “Customers wanted to know that if they opened a Web case, it would route in the same way as if they’d picked up the phone,” Clayton says.

After an extensive search, Netegrity chose iPhrase’s OneStep and went into production last October, following a six-week pilot. “iPhrase impressed us with its guided navigation and sophisticated search capabilities,” says Clayton. After deploying the suite’s WebResolve application, they implemented ContactUs, which not only escalates a self-service session via email or Web case, but first makes an additional attempt at suggesting high-probability resolutions; and AgentKM, to improve knowledge management in the support center. OneStep incorporates personalization capabilities, so that Netegrity users only have to identify themselves the first time they seek support, and makes customers part of continuous knowledgebase improvements by capturing suggested solutions from their self-service sessions so that other customers can try them.

Among the metrics Netegrity established for its new support infrastructure were content quality and searchability, and overall satisfaction with their site; they wanted both the site and their knowledgebase to climb from an approval rating of 50% to 80% within a year of full deployment. Since implementation six months ago, Netegrity has already earned an approval rating of 74% for its site, and 77% approval for its knowledgebase. For self-service sessions that require escalation, the improved search and streamlined knowledgebase have decreased hold times from 14 minutes to two. According to Clayton, if the company can deflect just 10% of the 22,000 cases it handles a year — a solid goal given the complexity of the problems it fields — it can expect to save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in support costs.

“Our goal is to keep customers on our Web site, where they can solve their own problems and even make suggestions as to what works to other customers,” says Clayton. “Our customers are people who support the infrastructures in their companies — they want to help themselves and avoid picking up the phone.”

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