'Ask TOM' System Provides Fast, Accurate and Consistent Answers Across Phone, Email, Web and Chat Channels
RightNow® Technologies, the leading on-demand CRM company focused on customer service, today announced the University of Memphis has successfully deployed its acclaimed technology to provide fast, accurate and consistent answers to students' questions across phone, email, web and chat channels. The system, dubbed "Ask TOM" after the school's tiger mascot, consolidates a wide range of information that was previously scattered across the University's various academic and administrative departments into a common, easily searchable knowledge base -- enabling students, prospective students, faculty, staff and other University members to quickly find the answers they need.
The University's Ask TOM web site averages nearly 9,000 answers viewed per month. Only about 130 of those views result in students escalating their questions to University staff via the online "Ask a Question" form, successfully answering visitors' questions 98.5 percent of the time. The University's RightNow-enabled online service-and-support capabilities are also helping the University build its distance learning program by creating effective mechanisms for students to get answers to their technical questions right from their PCs.
"RightNow enables us to get the right information to the right person at the right time while keeping our operational costs down," Dr. Doug Hurley, the University's vice president for Information Technology and CIO, said. "That's a tremendous benefit for both the quality of the student experience and for the University's business performance."
The Ask TOM system is hosted by RightNow, which relieves the University of the Memphis of the costs and workloads typically associated with in-house software deployments.
The University of Memphis joins the growing list of more than 50 higher education institutions around the world embracing RightNow as a strategic platform for improving the quality of student service and the efficiency of administrative operations. Those universities include Azusa Pacific University, North Carolina State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Miami and the University of South Florida.
"As universities face increasing competitive pressures, they're realizing how much of an impact their customer service practices have on student recruitment and retention," Sean Forbes, vice president of Marketing and Business Development at RightNow, said. "RightNow has proven to be an extremely effective technology platform for optimizing those practices and thereby ensuring their ability to compete."
The University of Memphis' RightNow-powered Ask TOM system can be viewed at http://asktom.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/asktom.cfg/php/enduser/home.php.
About the University of Memphis
The University of Memphis, established in 1912, is a doctoral degree granting, metropolitan research university. The University enrolls nearly 20,000 students and offers 15 bachelor's degrees in more than 50 majors and 70 concentrations, master's degrees in over 45 subjects, and doctoral degrees in 21 disciplines, in addition to the Juris Doctor and a specialist degree in education. The U of M campus is located on 1,160 acres with nearly 200 buildings at more than four sites in Shelby County, Tennessee.
About RightNow Technologies
RightNow Technologies is the leading on-demand CRM company focused on customer service that improves the effectiveness of service and support operations with easy-to-implement technology, replicable best practices drawn from the industry's broadest base of successful implementations and engagement terms that create accountability for delivering quantifiable results.
RightNow has delivered these benefits to more than 1,000 customers worldwide such as: Air New Zealand, Ben & Jerry's, Briggs and Stratton, British Airways, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories, Inc., Electronic Arts, Pioneer, Raymarine, Remington, Sanyo, Specialized Bicycles and more than 150 public sector clients including the Social Security Administration and the State of Florida.
Founded in 1997, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, San Mateo, New Jersey, London and Sydney, with an associated office in Tokyo. RightNow's products are available in 17 languages worldwide. For further information visit http://www.rightnow.com/.
