New FootPrints For eService Delivers Affordable, Web-Based, Multi-Channel Service Desk To Manage And Automate 24/7 Customer Support

UniPress Software, Inc., a leading provider of web-based service desk automation software for mid-market organizations, today announced FootPrints for eService, a comprehensive new solution to deliver centralized, multi-channel customer support automation. Easily deployed in days, FootPrints for eService provides an affordable, web-based service desk that includes customer issue tracking and self-service online tools for call centers and customer service centers to effectively manage their support operations.

Addressing the growing need to deliver 24/7 "user-friendly" customer service options, FootPrints for eService provides organizations with a strategic platform to increase service levels, offer more support options, and reduce incident handling costs. The solution is designed to provide the maximum benefit to customers seeking self-service, while minimizing the need to engage a live agent.

With FootPrints for eService, external customers can search the 'solutions' database and FAQ system to search for their own solutions. They can also submit their issues and track the progress of pending trouble-tickets – all through easy-to-operate web screens or email. Leveraging its two-way email management capabilities, FootPrints for eService makes it easy to deliver proactive notifications to customers with status and tracking information. These capabilities provide a way to scale customer service operations and improve responsiveness.

"FootPrints for eService helped transform our customer service operations, providing a multi-channel platform that processes more than 25,000 inbound requests received via phone, email, and the Internet each month," explained Calvin Dennis, Chairman and CEO at Crossroads Customer Solutions. "In addition to its attractive price, the web-based system was very easy to customize, and allows us to continuously improve and expand the functionality to meet our customer's growing needs."

According to Forrester Research's Planning Assumption report, titled "Criteria for Selection: Evaluate E-Service Vendors By Viability, Functional Breadth and Architecture," published on December 23, 2003, customer interactions are on the rise, increasing by as much as 20 to 30 percent year over year in some industries. At the same time, customer service budgets to address this rising volume are often flat, or even decreasing. The report underscores the importance of eService solutions, and how they have been proven to stem the rising tide of customer interactions, without sacrificing quality of interactions.

By design, FootPrints for eService is extremely easy-to-use, manage, and customize "on-the-fly" without any programming. The solution gives organizations flexible and scalable capabilities without requiring consulting, training, or dedicated staff to run it. FootPrints for eService can be up and running in days on an organization's existing infrastructure. UniPress also offers the FootPrints Hosting Service, an affordable outsourcing solution where UniPress hosts and manages the service desk infrastructure. FootPrints for eService can be easily integrated into an organization's existing web infrastructure, incorporating logos, color schemes, etc.

FootPrints for eService includes a centralized, web-based repository to track and manage all incoming trouble-tickets and service requests received from multiple communications channels, via phone, the Internet, email, web chat, and wireless devices. Comprehensive capabilities include knowledge management for agent and customer knowledge bases and FAQs, task automation and business rule support, incoming and outgoing email management, dynamic access to LDAP-based address books, live e-support, telephony integration, and automated reporting and metrics.

With the system's integrated telephony capability, organizations can streamline the support process by automating inbound telephone calls and linking them directly with contact data to pre-populate trouble-tickets. FootPrints for eService supports most major databases and works with Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Unix web servers.

Unlike other customer support automation tools in the market, FootPrints for eService enables organizations to have multiple-partitioned projects or databases, with customized interfaces, at no additional cost. This flexibility enables organizations to set-up individual databases for all types of customers, products, projects, as well as other request-oriented processes, such as a help desk, software development, and facilities management.

FootPrints for eService can also improve workflow by automating support tasks and unique business rules, giving organizations a way to monitor and maintain service level agreements (SLAs), regardless of interaction channel. Organizations can integrate business rules based on time, service level, problem type or any other criteria, and can create and designate agents (and teams), making trouble-ticket assignment, routing, and escalation a seamless process. To manage complex projects, parent/child relationships between issues can be created and dynamically updated.

Pricing & Availability
Available today, FootPrints for eService can be purchased as software or via a completely hosted model. Both versions offer the same functionality, with the hosted option managed by UniPress Software's data center. For ten-agents, FootPrints for eService is priced under $14,500, with one year of maintenance included. Pricing for the hosted version of FootPrints for eService is the same with the addition of an annual $2,500 (18% of the software license cost) for the hosting infrastructure and ongoing management. In contrast with other hosted services and ASP pricing models, the FootPrints Hosting Service pricing includes full ownership of the software. Volume, concurrent, and site license pricing is available. For more information, contact UniPress at 800-222-0550.

About UniPress Software, Inc.
Headquartered in Edison, New Jersey, UniPress Software, Inc. is a developer of web-based service desk automation software targeting mid-market companies, departments within large enterprise organizations, and small businesses. The company's FootPrints product line, launched in 1996, provides a comprehensive range of capabilities to significantly improve help desk and customer support operations, and is widely used by nearly 2,000 corporate organizations, government offices, and educational institutions worldwide, including Prudential Financial, BHP Petroleum, IBM, Kampgrounds of America, Schwab Capital Markets L.P., Hunter Fan Company, the IRS, and the University of Pennsylvania. For more information, contact UniPress at 732-287-2100, or via the web at www.unipress.com.