RightNow CX among the 2014 CRM Service Leaders

The CRM Magazine published an article “The 2014 CRM Service Leaders” coming out of their annual Service Awards. Oracle RightNow CX (aka Oracle Service Cloud) was again among the leaders, the winners and the ones to watch.

This is a summary of what I found interesting…

Customer Case Management

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM: … Prior to the acquisition of Parature was missing core multichannel capabilities and knowledge management… [Parature] excellence at serving midmarket customers.

• Oracle RightNow CX: highest scores were for depth of functionality… capabilities are strong… for firms wanting to streamline service and support to enable agents to handle multiple support channels.

• Salesforce.com: highest score for company direction… not proven as a scalable B2C case management system… still missing key capabilities for success in the B2B world.

Web Support

• Salesforce.com: struggled somewhat in the depth of functionality… great CRM functionality, but a poor multichannel customer interaction functionality.

• Oracle RightNow CX: breadth of customer service functionality is excellent

• Oracle Knowledge (InQuira): I’s the best-in-breed Web self-service solution; however, as a standalone solution, it is missing the escalation channels from knowledge.

• Moxie Software: fairly basic Web self-service offering

• eGain: good balance between cost and ability to customize
  

Contact Center Search

• Salesforce.com: Though still fairly new, the Salesforce1 Service Cloud promises to improve search capability and make the process even more practical and intuitive for agents.

• Coveo: has struggled to explain its very powerful technology and make its value resonate in the marketplace.

• eGain: Though a very good product, it is not customer-customizable, and not a core selling feature.

• Oracle Knowledge (InQuira): has a very powerful and very complex search engine, but its technology is essentially unchanged.

• Oracle RightNow CX: following the acquisition of InQuira, Oracle is working toward de-emphasizing the search engine and slowly weaning users off.

Notice that CRM Magazine assessed the major vendors in 8 service categories. In here I just present 3 of those categories where RightNow CX and its direct competitors play. The scores were based on the following criteria: Reputation for customer satisfaction; Depth of functionality or services; Company direction; Technology costs over a 5-year period.