The Market

Increasingly tech-savvy consumers are constantly searching for the fastest way to meet their support needs, leaving many companies seeking vendors with comprehensive Web self-service capabilities ranging from traditional to newer offerings. Virtual agent solutions, for example, have long been on the Web support radar, but have recently become invaluable, as leaders in the airline, telecommunications, and financial services industries have begun relying on them heavily. “Virtual agents deliver one answer to a customer’s question, not tens or hundreds or thousands of possible answers,” Mitch Kramer, senior vice president and analyst at the Patricia Seybold Group, says. Virtual agents can escalate easily to live chat for more in-depth support, he explains, and some can also integrate tightly with case management systems. With high customer satisfaction ratings and low costs, virtual agents are the future of Web support and are here to stay, analysts agree. 

The Leaders

Although a major player in the field, InQuira lagged behind competitors due to a post-acquisition identity crisis, some analysts say. Though Oracle has rebranded InQuira to fit under its Oracle Knowledge umbrella, “still missing is an integrated knowledge management system, a tight integration to case management, and cloud deployment,” Johan Jacobs, independent research consultant and former Gartner research director, says. Nevertheless, the company scored an impressive 4.3 for depth of functionality and shows promise. “It’s the best-in-breed Web self-service solution; however, as a standalone solution, it is missing the escalation channels from knowledge,” Kate Leggett, principal analyst at Forrester Research, maintains. 

Moxie Software reclaimed its spot on our leaderboard for another year as it continues to evolve its Spaces offering, moving from traditional search and knowledge management capabilities to focus on social and collaborative customer service. The company earned 4.0s for both company direction and customer satisfaction and has demonstrated a “good, appropriate vision for 2014,” Kramer says. Despite a solid overall performance, the company has a “fairly basic Web self-service offering” in comparison to competitors in the space, according to Leggett. Faced with stiff competition this year, Moxie Software still earned respectable marks for depth of functionality, scoring an overall 3.9.

Despite mixed reviews from analysts, Oracle RightNow returned to our leaderboard this year. Dropping from a 3.5 to a 3.4 for company direction, Oracle RightNow has become Oracle Service Cloud and constitutes Oracle’s “strategic cloud-based customer service offering,” Kramer explains. However, since Oracle acquired RightNow in 2011, “its direction in the market [has been] poorly defined.... If it has a direction, then it is a closely guarded secret,” Jacobs argues. After dropping from a 4.0 to a 3.8 customer satisfaction score in 2012, RightNow regained its 4.0 in the category this year. Its “breadth of customer service functionality is excellent,” according to Kramer. 

The Winner

Our winner for the third year in a row, Salesforce.com was unbeatable this year, with an unmatched 4.6 for company direction. “Salesforce has an excellent vision for customer service—a vision that is highly social and highly mobile,” Kramer suggests. Salesforce has an innovative roadmap centered around Salesforce1, the new social, mobile, and cloud customer platform that the company unveiled in November. The platform, which allows companies to make all of their existing Salesforce apps mobile, social, and virtually future-proof, “extends [the company’s] vision much beyond CRM,” and makes it a force to be reckoned with, Leggett suggests. Salesforce received a 4.0 for customer satisfaction, but struggled somewhat in the depth of functionality category, earning only a 3.6. According to Jacobs, Salesforce.com has a “great CRM functionality, but a poor multichannel customer interaction functionality that is tightly coupled with the Sales or Service Cloud solutions.”

To improve in the depth of functionality category, Salesforce.com needs to fine-tune the way its many solutions synchronize and couple with each other. Though there are already deep, effective integrations in place, there is always room for improvement, analysts agree.  —Maria Minsker

ONE TO WATCH

EGain is this year’s One to Watch, even though it beat category winner Salesforce.com in the depth of functionality category with a score of 3.8. Though the company received a 3.6 for direction due to its “limited vision” and “incremental improvements,” it strikes a “good balance between cost and ability to customize,” Leggett says. At the end of 2013, eGain introduced eGain Mobile—a solution designed to simplify mobile customer engagement through apps and unify it with other customer touchpoints—and analysts expect to see big things from the company in 2014.  —M.M.