eGain gains prominence

Public relations at Mountain View, Calif.-based eGain Communications Corp., provider of customer service and contact center software for in-house or on-demand deployment, were pleased as punch to announce that the company has been rated a leader in the Forrester Wave first quarter 2006 report. eGain actually gained two nods, one each in the “strategy” and “current offering” categories. Forrester evaluates eService vendors across 80 criteria.

The “current offering” category evaluates and ranks the product capabilities, technology and architecture of eService software products that are available in the market today, with the “strategy” category evaluating the product vision, sales and implementation strategy, and channel partnerships of these companies. eGain and its eService solution, eGain Service suite, received the top score in email response management with a perfect 5. eGain garnered high marks in cost with 4.4, technology / architecture with 4.26, knowledge base with 4.6, product vision with 4.0, and sales and implementation strategy with 4.0.

Forrester Research VP / research director John Ragsdale singled out eGain, by praising its long history of email management and case-based reasoning, saying the company “should be included on the shortlist for companies needing a highly scalable email response solution or for agent and customer-facing knowledgebase tools.” Not even praise? He continues: “The vendor’s attention to business processes has made it a leader in eService process orientation.” “We are honored to be rated as a leader two years in a row in the Forrester Wave report,” said eGarin CEO Ashu Roy, proudly going on to say that “this validates our position as a pioneer and innovation leader in eService interaction management as well as contact center business process management.”

eGain Service suite boasts features such as effective and efficient customer service and experience across channels using a centralized knowledge base; a common, complete view of customer interaction; assistance in agent productivity; reduction of dependence on agent-assisted service through comprehensive and flexible self-service; automated service processes; interaction management; knowledge management; service fulfillment; and increases in upsell and cross-sell.

Available for on-demand hosted or in-house deployment, the suite includes integrated applications for adaptive self-service, email management, multi-channel knowledge content management, live web collaboration through chat and co-browsing, call tracking and resolution, proactive service, automation of fax and paper-based service interactions, and service fulfillment. The applications are built on the eGain Service Management Platform.