RightNow announces new product at conference

RightNow Technologies http://www.rightnow.com/ started out as a company geared toward helping other companies do better customer service.

Now, after seven years and a recent public offering of stock, RightNow is evolving.

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL, Chronicle Staff Writer

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/10/05/news/rntconference.txt

The Bozeman-based tech company still offers its customer service software package for companies that do business on the Web, but last year added a telephone application. And at RightNow’s annual user conference here Monday morning, founder Greg Gianforte announced another addition to the RightNow package of services.

"This is the largest announcement we’ve made as a company," Gianforte said. "It’s the logical next step."

The new product, RightNow 7.0, combines three different software applications: the customer service option plus new sales and marketing tools.

"This dramatically increases the size of our potential market," Gianforte said. "This triples the size of our market."

He made the announcement to 300 clients and about 100 employees at the conference center at Big Sky Ski and Summer Resort, while three giant screens flashed with information behind him. RightNow customers traveled from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland and all over the United States for the conference that runs through Wednesday.

Decked out with RightNow tote bags and jackets, clients chatted with each other between sessions Monday morning. They cheered when RightNow’s vice president of product development, Mike Myer, explained how the new software answers their questions and solves problems associated with the old product.

Gabriel Turk of LeapFrog Enterprises, a toy company, and Gary Bolduc of Activision, an electronic gaming company, both said they have already upgraded their RightNow systems to 7.0.

"The marketing piece, for us, it’s perfect," Turk said. "We are using that new feature to up-sell."

The marketing software can track the products certain customers are interested in and derive a list of similar products they may want to buy. It also focuses on key words, Myer said, to create a customer profile.

For example, he said, if a customer types in the address field that he or she is from Montana, the company may want to suggest that person buy a warm winter coat or an engine block heater.

Overall, the conference opening had an up-beat atmosphere as clients and employees basked in RightNow’s continued success, many saying how happy they are about the company’s decision to go public.

"If we didn’t believe in the company," Turk said, "we wouldn’t be using the products."