The E-mail headache: getting relief
The recent explosion in E-mail poses two problems for businesses: first, how to handle the inflow, and second, how to make use of stored messages that have the potential to become part of a knowledge base. E-mail management entails records management issues, privacy issues and other legal ramifications.
More and more businesses have become -- or even start up as -- as Web-centric. In the past, a Web site might have been designed to catch the attention of customers who then contacted the organization by phone or mail. Now an increasing amount of business is conducted directly over the Web, such as selling products and providing technical support. Forrester Research predicts that by 2001, nearly 25% of corporate sales will come through electronic means and 20% to 30% of customer contact will shift from phone or fax to the Web.
Yet most companies are ill-prepared to respond. According to an IDC report, only 30% of Fortune 500 companies responded to a question directed at their Webmaster, and a Computerworld study of E-mail at large companies found that only a minority answered within a day; some did not answer at all. Numerous studies show increases in profit margins, customer loyalty and repeat purchases when services are satisfactory to customers.
The first set of products discussed here is designed to facilitate responses to Web inquiries. All of the products store the transactions in a database that becomes a source of valuable data. The E-mail management software products can provide reports on that data, and online analytical processing (OLAP) or data mining tools can be used. The second set of products is designed to make use of E-mail messages as documents, which are, in general, an untapped source of knowledge. Finally, a specialized E-mail archiving system intended for records management is described. Those three groups provide alternatives that can be considered as possible solutions for the E-mail explosion.
Incoming messages: managing the stream and mining the data
When Mustang Software began offering online technical support for a software product, the company struggled to keep up with customer inquiries. To better manage the incoming E-mail, Mustang developed a program for internal use that has become its leading product. Internet Message Center (IMC) routes messages that are addressed to alias mailboxes such as sales@company.com, automatically sends an acknowledgment, provides reporting capabilities and stores the messages in either SQL Server (for the Enterprise Edition of Mustang) or MS-Access (for the Business Edition). In addition, IMC has a library that stores standard replies developed by the company, and a new toolkit, IMC Architect, which allows customized responses based on the content of the message. IMC Agent Add-in for Outlook also has been released, which integrates all of the IMC Agent functionality directly into Microsoft Outlook or Exchange.
"The fact that the customer gets an acknowledgment within minutes of sending E-mail gives a reassuring message," said John Leslie, VP and chief technology officer of Wall Street On Demand. "It tells them we are responsive and organized. This helps to set the tone for future interactions." Wall Street On Demand prepares financial reports for investors and sells them from a variety of Web sites, including Charles Schwab's and those of several leading mutual fund companies. Because the firm manages E-mail from 15 domains, careful tracking is vital. "On the reporting side," said Leslie, "we have the ability to find out who responded to the message, how it was answered and how long it took." The Business Edition costs $1500 for the server and two agents; additional agents are $250 each for either product.
WebLeader E-Mailroom from ErgoTech reads incoming E-mail and assigns messages to individuals or groups for response or sends out an automated response. A rule-based system is set up so that a number of response options are presented to employees, who select the best match or generate an individual response if appropriate. WebLeader is installed on the server only (no client software is needed) and has a browser interface. Users can respond either from within the product, where they have access to template libraries and correspondence history, or from their E-mail systems. Basic reporting capabilities such as volume of mail traffic are provided, but ErgoTech decided that customers would have greater flexibility in getting reports if the "hooks" were provided for various reporting tools such as Crystal. A full search function is provided that allows users to locate all the messages that mention certain words, and then follow-up E-mail can be sent to those customers. The product supports leading databases such as Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft SQL. E-Mailroom is priced at $30,000 for a license and 100 users; additional seats are $150 each.
Early in the development of its Customer Messaging System (CMS), Kana Communications recognized the potential for converting inquiries into leads and the value of stored information from the inquiries. Thus it focused on bringing inquiries into a workflow so that messages could, for example, be routed to sales for follow-up with subsequent promotional campaigns. In addition, CMS includes a reporting client interface that allows managers and executives to view information about customer inquiries as well as customer service team performance.
The core components of CMS are a scalable relational database, a Java-based application server and a dedicated client for response. Because not everyone in an enterprise will be focused on responding to inquiries, however, CMS can interact with regular E-mail so that other employees can respond to CMS inquiries on an occasional basis. An example would be an engineer who did not regularly interact with customers but who might be routed a technical question. The engineer's response could be sent back to CMS via E-mail. Moreover, if a response was not received within a specified amount of time, CMS would automatically pull the routed E-mail back into the system. A browser-based client has been added to Kana CMS 3.0, as well as Kana Link, a package that enables CMS to integrate with existing knowledge management/customer information systems. With Kana Direct, customers can create proactive outbound targeted mailings to customers.
The application server has a rule-based automation engine that initiates message activity, a case management component that tracks individual messages, a collaboration engine to manage the movement of E-mail throughout the enterprise, a performance management component that reports on staff performance, and content management that provides data on demographics, frequency of contact and other customer variables. Product manager Ross Rosen said, "One of our customers is Netscape Communications, which has told us that they are now able to get back to customers two to three times faster than previously." Kana ranges in price from $50,000 to $100,000; list price for a 10-seat license is $79,000.
Brightware, introduced in June 1998, is a high-end, AI-based product. It uses case-based reasoning and pattern-matching information extraction to interpret and respond to incoming messages. "We aim to automate 50 to 80% of incoming messages," said John Knightly, marketing director. The company claims a reduction in mail response costs of as much as to 80%. Not all responses are automated; one of the decisions the Brightware software makes is whether to deliver an automated response or to send the inquiry to a person who will respond. Brightware 2.0 also has some new components such as real-time dialog on the Web.
Brightware supports Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, and through APIs can support other mail platforms. For storage of messages, it supports Oracle and Sybase directly, and is ODBC-compliant so it can be integrated with any ODBC database. The purchase price includes eight weeks of support and an individual on site who will work with the customer to set up the rules and responses.
Brightware is an expensive product ($95,000 per year or $190,000 for a perpetual license), but for a company with high-volume, sales-oriented Web business, it can be cost-effective. For example, a Forrester Research estimate shows that a phone support person costs $60,000 per year; reducing staff by only four individuals can cover the cost of the product. On the other hand, even the most intelligent software cannot compete with a resourceful individual, and an important part of the system's setup is providing the proper rules to direct the question to a person when the human touch is required. Brightware is delivered with some information already built in regarding common words and phrases as well as typical business policies on certain types of messages.
E-mail documents become knowledge
Some types of E-mail messages are better treated as documents and have much more potential to become knowledge if that route is followed. They are messages in which the content is more technical, extensive or otherwise information-rich. Although E-mail programs have a "find" function, the search capability is primitive compared to that of search/retrieval engines. Therefore, several software producers have integrated text search engines with E-mail packages to allow more sophisticated searching. The two examples below are each based on Folio's search engine. Folio, purchased this year by Open Market, is an authoring tool widely used in creating CDs containing legal and other reference material. All of the products described are self-contained; it is not necessary to own the Folio authoring tool to use them.
ITM Products' Fusion 4.0, the Accelerator for Lotus Notes, integrates with Lotus Notes to provide an archiving and search/retrieval capability for E-mail messages or any other type of Notes database. Fusion converts Lotus Notes databases into Fusion Infobases with its archiving capability, which compresses the Notes databases 50% or more and indexes them. Fusion also can simultaneously search multiple Lotus Notes databases (in native format) and Fusion Infobases, and provides links within and between the two types of databases. The Fusion InfoViewer also allows commercially produced infobases to be viewed within the Lotus Notes Workspace and to be accessed by clicking on an icon as they would be for any Lotus Notes database. The product can also be used to search archived legacy Notes databases containing vital corporate information.
Because Lotus Notes is strong in dissemination but not in search and retrieval, the combination uses the advantages of both products. In addition, Fusion allows integration with workflow via Lotus Notes.
Archiving can be automated, based on message date or other criteria. For searching, users can specify profiles related to departments, individual users or job functions that simultaneously search active Lotus Notes mail databases along with archived infobases. The first license is $795; additional licenses are priced at $80, with the per-user cost decreasing as the number of users goes up. A typical installation of 300 seats costs about $15,000, or slightly over $50 per seat.
From a knowledge management viewpoint, one of the most valuable features of Fusion is its hyperlinking capability. For example, if an E-mail contained the title of a reference document in either Folio or Lotus Notes, a hyperlink could be created by the user directly from the message to the reference document. Links are dynamic because after a link to a particular word is established, new ones will be created when additional documents containing that word are archived. The linking capability is a critical step in turning E-mail into knowledge, by allowing association to other related information. Version 4.1, released in September 1998, incorporates improvements in navigation and administration.
ILinx and ILinx Pro from InfoDynamics are designed to collect all the applications in an enterprise and present them under one interface or console. However, in addition, ILinx integrates the Folio engine into those applications and the applications' capabilities into the ILinx/Folio infobases. For example, database links can be established to connect an infobase to an ODBC data source so that query results are presented for viewing within an infobase. The grammar-checking capabilities of Microsoft Word can be used in infobases, and Word users can utilize the search capabilities of the ILinx engine and incorporate the search results into a Word document.
One of the add-ons to ILinx is Email Archiver, which automatically organizes, fields and optimizes each message for search and navigation. The resulting infobase can be personalized in a variety of ways, including by highlighting and adding electronic sticky notes. Attachments can be compressed and embedded or discarded in the archiving process. Email Archiver supports Outlook and GroupWise directly, and with a development kit can support MAPI. ILinx and ILinx Pro are priced at $149 and $995 respectively, and Email Archiver is $39. In development is IRespond, a product that uses a natural language engine to parse a customer's questions and then retrieves relevant information for the archive.
Producers of text search/retrieval products such as Verity and Open Text also are addressing E-mail management, through systems that allow broad access to various document types across the enterprise. For example, Verity's Information Server indexes text and uses a browser interface for searching. The documents are stored in native format and when located, are viewed either through the original application or Verity's KeyView. Within Open Text, E-mail can be saved into a project; it then becomes comparable to any other document in Livelink 8 (a Web-based collaborative knowledge management for enterprises). Entire E-mail threads can be checked in to a project, and any document can be viewed in the context within which it was originally created, whether it was a discussion group, word processing document or other category.
E-Mail archiving and records management
Some organizations, particularly federal agencies, need to archive E-mail messages and other electronic files to comply with government regulations. Smart Storage, a producer of CD recording and jukebox management software, and SMS Data Products Group, a supplier of CD towers and jukeboxes, have teamed up to provide @CD-Rkive, a specialized solution for E-mail archiving and records management. The philosophy is to make it easy for the user to archive an E-mail by following the same workflow as paper documents would. The system is set up to comply with records management regulations such as NARA 94-4, NARA 98-02 and DOD 5015.2 Std.
Messages are stored to CD simply by forwarding the original E-mail to the archiving address. The system can be configured as a personal archiver, for small workgroups, or as an automated workgroup or departmental solution. The system relies on Smart Storage's packet writing scheme, allowing each document to be recorded to CD as it is sent to @CD-Rkive. Discs can be labeled by @CD-Rkive to indicate contents so that they can be either forwarded to permanent storage or disposed of. Meanwhile, they remain searchable and retrievable. Like a number of the other products discussed here, this system is new and does not have a base of users, but also like the others, was designed to solve a real problem and has good potential.
Trends in E-mail management
Prospective users of products that manage incoming E-mail should consider the way in which the product interfaces with existing E-mail packages, the degree of built-in intelligence and reporting capabilities. Additional software products will emerge to address the challenge of managing E-mail as documents. Increasingly, those products will provide integrated, enterprisewide solutions that treat E-mail and other documents similarly, creating a uniform, searchable knowledge base.