RightNow to be Granted Patent for User-Driven Approach to Ranking the Relevancy of Knowledge Items
Customer Service Leader’s Innovative Technique Speeds Information Searches By Automatically Moving Most Helpful Answers to Top of Retrieved Lists
Bozeman, MT (July 29, 2003) — RightNow Technologies, the world’s leading provider of hosted customer service and support solutions, today announced it has been given Notice of Approval by the United States Patent Office for an innovative, user-driven technique for implicitly ranking the relative helpfulness of knowledge base items used in customer support databases. This will be the third patent the company has been granted, and it has seven additional patents under review. The patent inventors are Mike Myer, vice president of development at RightNow, and Doug Warner, RightNow’s head of applied research.
This novel technique significantly improves the speed and efficacy of knowledge base searches by ensuring the answers that have proven most helpful to customers automatically rise to the top of retrieved results. The technique also ensures this helpfulness ranking continuously improves over time and adjusts to users’ changing needs.
Titled “Implicit Rating of Retrieved Information in an Information Search System,” RightNow’s newly patented technique will be a substantial improvement over conventional explicit helpfulness/value ranking systems used by others in the customer service and support industry. With explicit systems, customers and/or users are requested to provide a numerical ranking of the answers presented to them by the knowledge base. While this feedback can be helpful, only a very small percentage of users usually take the time to respond to this request. Explicit systems are therefore not typically driven by a statistically significant sample. They can also be skewed by the fact that rankings tend to be given by users with extreme opinions. Therefore, other techniques need to be leveraged in order to provide more accurate and relevant rankings of information in a customer service environment.
RightNow uses both explicit and implicit techniques. The company’s implicit techniques ensure every customer and/or user provides feedback to the system. Each person who uses the knowledge base therefore improves the quality of search retrievals.
The implicit feedback is determined by each user’s behavior. When answers are viewed, their rating is increased. If the user continues his or her search after viewing the answer, its rating is reduced. If an answer terminates the user’s search, its rating is increased—based on the assumption it satisfied the user’s need.
“The effectiveness of RightNow’s unique, artificial intelligence-based approach to knowledge ranking has already been proven in the field by the extraordinary results our clients have achieved in answering their customers’ questions quickly and efficiently,” Sean Forbes, vice president of marketing and business development at RightNow, said. “We are committed to continuous improvements in our underlying technology platform, so that our customers can achieve even greater business success as a result of deploying our customer service solutions.”
About RightNow Technologies
RightNow Technologies is the leading customer service and support solutions company that radically and rapidly improves the effectiveness of service and support operations with easy-to-implement/easy-to-own 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 100 public sector clients including the Social Security Administration and the State of Florida.
Founded in 1997, RightNow has offices in Bozeman, Dallas, San Mateo, 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/.
RightNow Technologies, Inc.
40 Enterprise Blvd.
P.O. Box 9300
Bozeman, MT 59718-9300
Phone: 1-406-522-4200
Fax: 1-406-522-4227
Toll Free: 1-877-363-5678
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