eGain Powers Customer Service at UK Energy Giant

Released on: April 28, 2008, 11:52 pm

Press Release Author: eGain Communications

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: Scottish and Southern Energy Plc enhances customer service
infrastructure with eGain's intuitive web self-service system

Press Release Body:
Slough, UK - April 29, 2008 - eGain (OTC BB: EGAN.OB), the leading provider of
multichannel customer service and knowledge management software, today announced
that one of the largest energy companies in the UK has chosen eGain SelfServiceT.
Scottish and Southern Energy Plc (SSE) will use eGain to further develop its
customer service strategy, enabling customers to resolve queries through a
sophisticated online portal. Once implemented, eGain will help support the
organisation's fast-growing customer base, further develop customer loyalty and
lower overall support costs.
SSE's extended online presence and the introduction of new services such as
e-billing has driven its organic growth, expanding its customer base from 4.5
million in 2004 to 8.5 million in 2007. In turn, the volume of customer enquiries
has increased dramatically and SSE looked for additional methods of customer service
to complement the telephone, e-mail and SMS options already available.
John Evans, Senior Technical Architect at SSE comments: "We've experienced a steady
but relentless growth in email volume; from 2,500 four years ago to 42,000 today.
Having deployed eGain's email management system in 2002, our customer service teams
have been able to cope with this dramatic increase efficiently and effectively.
However, we wanted to give our customers more options and further reduce the strain
on our customer service team by introducing web self service technology. With the
eGain Mail solution a proven success, it made sense to work with eGain to implement
the next stage of our customer service strategy."
With a centralised knowledge base already in place with eGain Mail, eGain
SelfService will enable SSE to offer its customers a new range of ways to access
information in the common knowledge base including FAQs, search, browse, guided help
and virtual agents. The software will provide SSE's web customers with dynamic and
intuitive service on the frontline, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Evans explains: "Our customer service agents currently have at least a 10-fold
repetition with email enquiries. Encouraging more customer interaction through our
website, the eGain self-service system can take away that repetition and free up our
customer service staff to concentrate on more complex tasks. With the new web self
service system, we are aiming for 20% email deflection. This will not only reduce
support costs but shorten queues and improve the customer experience all round."
In addition, eGain's self-monitoring feature automatically identifies knowledge
bottlenecks through self-service usage analysis and user feedback, generating alerts
and review tasks for appropriate content owners. The powerful context-sensitive
escalation provided by eGain SelfService will provide SSE with a continual record of
each individual session, while escalating the interaction to an appropriate agent.

In addition to the eGain SelfService, SSE is also upgrading its existing eGain Mail
software to the latest version. The solution will be rolled out in SSE's Perth
headquarters and its offices in Basingstoke, Reading and Portsmouth and is due to go
live in July.

Andrew Mennie, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA at eGain concludes, "In such
a cost-competitive environment, customer service is a critical differentiator for
utilities companies like SSE with such a wide spectrum of customer type and inquiry.
Embracing the next generation of web customer service will provide the speed and
accuracy of information that will enable them to reap cost benefits, increase
customer retention and continue their growth as a business."
About eGain
eGain (OTC BB: EGAN.OB) is a leading provider of multichannel customer service and
knowledge management software for in-house or on-demand SaaS deployment. For more
than a decade, the world\'s largest companies have relied on eGain to transform their
traditional call centres, help desks, and web customer service operations into
multichannel customer interaction hubs. Based on the Power of OneT, the concept of
one unified platform for multichannel customer interaction and knowledge management,
these hubs enable dramatically improved customer experience, end-to-end service
process efficiencies, increased sales, and enhanced contact centre performance.
Headquartered in Mountain View, California, eGain has an operating presence in 18
countries and serves more than 800 enterprise customers worldwide. To find out more
about eGain, visit www.eGain.com or call the company\'s offices: 800-821-4358 (US
headquarters), 1753-464646 (UK and Continental Europe).
eGain, the eGain logo, and all other eGain product names and slogans are trademarks
or registered trademarks of eGain Communications Corp. in the United States and/or
other countries. All other company names and products mentioned in this release may
be trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies.

eGain EMEA media contact:
Hilary de Rover
eGain Communications Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 464689
Email: hderover@egain.com



Web Site: http://www.egain.com

Contact Details: eGain EMEA media contact:
Hilary de Rover
eGain Communications Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 464689
Email: hderover@egain.com

  • Printer Friendly Format
  • Back to previous page...
  • Back to home page...
  • Submit your press releases...
  •