PALM DESERT, Calif., Jan. 28 // -- Pathworks Software Corporation today unveiled Helpstream, the company's flagship on-demand collaborative customer service solution, at the DEMO 08 conference. Taking Web-enabled customer service to the next level, Helpstream tightly integrates all the essential elements of effective customer service -- including case management, knowledge management, and community collaboration -- into one highly collaborative, easy-to-use, cost-effective solution. The community collaboration feature makes Helpstream the first solution to incorporate "wisdom of crowds" capabilities into a comprehensive customer service solution.
Developed to meet the needs of mid- to large-sized organizations struggling to provide highly collaborative, cost-effective, high-quality support to their customers, Helpstream gives organizations everything they need to provide effective customer service with zero entry cost. The standard Helpstream service is ad-supported and free. The service can be deployed rapidly due to its highly-intuitive user interface. Combined with an on-demand deployment model, the result is a quicker time to value and lower cost of ownership than any other customer service solution in the market.
"Our business is growing quickly and we really needed to track customer service activity to make sure customer needs are being handled efficiently," said Doug Moeller, chief technology officer at Autonet Mobile. "Helpstream provides everything needed to deliver highly effective customer service, all in one easy-to-use application, which saves our company valuable time and money and allows us to pass those savings along to our customers."
Chris Shipley, industry pundit and executive producer of the DEMO conferences, states, "Organizations with fast-growing customer bases and lower profit margins -- the majority of Web-based businesses today -- require a cost-effective solution for providing high-quality, highly-collaborative customer service to their user communities. Helpstream addresses this critical need and represents the next step in the evolution of business process applications, combining elements of Software-as-a-Services with consumer applications and open source business models."
Specific features of Helpstream include:
-- Community collaboration -- an innovative community Q&A feature that
enables users (which can include company employees and business
partners) to bring their issues to the user community and quickly
receive solutions to their problems. In addition to being available
by searching community answers, these solutions can be easily brought
into the solutions knowledge base, reducing the workload on a
company's solution experts. Knowledge base solutions and community
answers are both made available to customer support agents and Web
portal visitors alike.
-- Knowledge management -- integrated features allow the easy creation
and storage of a variety of content. Similar to a document content
management system, Helpstream's knowledge base stores multi-media
files, text documents, PDF files, Adobe Flash files, and Helpstream's
own Interactive Checklist content.
-- Case management -- powerful case management capabilities provide the
business process automation required to effectively manage case
workflow. A highly-advanced business rules engine, email integration,
and integrated reporting capabilities give customer support
organizations the necessary tools to effectively manage, monitor, and
report against business objectives, including those related to
community collaboration and self service.
-- Helpstream Interactive Checklists -- this technology brings deep
visibility into the customer service experience, allowing case
management processes to be tightly integrated with self-service
problem resolution. These easy-to-follow checklists guide users
step-by-step through problem resolution instructions while
automatically tracking their progress and allowing quick and easy
access to customer service agents when needed. This feature lets
organizations turn practically any set of instructions into a
collaborative self-service activity that can be performed by users of
any experience level.
"We are incredibly proud to have designed a powerful and highly-collaborative on-demand solution that uniquely meets the demanding needs of the customer service market," said Anthony Nemelka, CEO of Pathworks Software. "By coupling years of customer service and help desk expertise with advanced Web 2.0 capabilities, we are able to offer customers a next-generation customer service application that transforms support into a highly-collaborative experience for customers. For the first time ever, organizations using Helpstream can reap the benefits of rapidly deploying an all-inclusive customer service application at zero entry cost."
Helpstream is available immediately worldwide and supports all Unicode (multi-language) content. The user interface is currently available in English. The standard Helpstream offering is ad-supported and free. RSS feeds and other unobtrusive ads help pay for the standard service and are kept out of the way so they don't negatively impact productivity. Premium options include the removal of advertisements, contracted support, enhanced security, customized business rules, reports, and email response templates, and re-branding of the application user interface to match an organizations' Web site.
About DEMO
Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit http://www.demo.com.
About Pathworks Software Corporation
Pathworks Software Corporation, the provider of Helpstream, is leading the development of highly collaborative customer service and help desk solutions. Designed as an enterprise-class SaaS solution built for collaboration from the ground up, Helpstream allows organizations to greatly improve the customer service experience while keeping cost to a minimum and vastly increasing visibility into the customer experience. Helpstream has over 70 customers, representing a variety of industries, including high tech, consumer electronics, government, healthcare, financial services and professional services. For more information, please visit http://www.helpstream.biz.
Press Contact:
Kari Curto
Voce Communications
650-228-5167
kcurto@vocecommunications.com
