SUNNYVALE, Calif.
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Remedy(R), a BMC Software
company (NYSE: BMC), today announced the
availability of a new version of Remedy Citizen
Response, the company's customer support application
for the public sector. The new version improves
agent productivity through automation, intelligence
and reporting, thereby helping public organizations,
such as federal, state, or local government
agencies, respond faster, more consistently, and
more accurately to citizen requests, resulting in
improved citizen satisfaction and reduced costs.
Today, citizens and businesses expect public sector
organizations to provide service comparable to that
provided by the most efficient commercial
organizations. Additionally, government services
organizations are under increased pressure to
provide improved services without further taxing
overburdened budgets. Designed specifically for the
needs of the public sector, Remedy Citizen Response
is the only application for the public sector that
provides out-of-box functionality to manage the
non-emergency support calls made to a government by
its constituents. It also takes advantage of the
business process automation capabilities of Remedy's
Action Request System to
allow unique functional needs to be quickly
incorporated. This functionality allows public
organizations to log and track citizen issues,
suggestions, and requests for information received
via any channel, and provides the capability to
manage and track the entire resolution process, even
when other departments' involvement is required.
According to John Kost, managing vice president for
Government at Gartner, Inc., "Today's public
organizations are struggling with how to affordably
close the service expectation gap that exists
between their current service delivery capability
and the service levels demanded by the citizens they
serve. By implementing well-planned, effective
eGovernment contact center
solutions, such as 3-1-1, public organizations
enable citizens to get answers and services more
effectively and with less hassle while at the same
time improving the efficiency of service delivery."
A specific focus of Remedy Citizen Response 5.01 has
been the quickly emerging need for the consolidation
of citizen facing call centers in city and county
governments. Known as 3-1-1 initiatives, these call
centers provide a single point of access for all
non-emergency citizen inquiries and requests for
service, whether the request must go to the
department of public works, department of licensing,
traffic, or sanitation, for example. These 3-1-1
call centers centralize citizens' inquiries and
complaints, which greatly improve a municipality's
service to its constituents, but also provide new
challenges to the locality including the need to:
-- Handle very diverse inquiries which requires
significant agent
training and support
-- Track and provide complete visibility for all
requests, until resolved (regardless of the
department from which they require service).
-- Provide citizens with multiple channels to submit
requests
-- Integrate to multiple legacy and enterprise systems
Remedy Citizen Response addresses these challenges and
improves agent productivity through automation,
intelligence, and reporting, regardless of whether
the citizen inquiry concerns road repairs,
contractor licensing, or tax questions, Specific
features new or enhanced in this version of Remedy
Citizen Response include:
-- Automated scripting for data collection -
intelligent scripting that guides staff or citizens
through the process of recording data, ensuring that
the right information is gathered to resolve the
inquiry more quickly.
-- A knowledge base to store commonly used solutions,
policies/procedures, and solutions from previously
resolved issues,
improve resolutions statistics, and leverage time
previously invested in solving citizen problems.
-- Dedicated user consoles to combine a task-oriented
approach with specialized data organization and
display user consoles to enhance the productivity of
agents and supervisors.
-- Web self service screens to facilitate citizens'
access for issue logging and smart searching,
providing 24X7 support while deferring calls into
the call center.
-- Remedy Service Level Agreements to help define and
manage performance down to the individual inquiry
level for either internal or external benchmarks.
"With more than 1,100 customers in the public sector,
Remedy has acquired a unique knowledge of
governmental needs, said Harold Goldberg, vice
president of worldwide marketing and business
strategy for Remedy. "This version of Remedy Citizen
Response leverages that knowledge, and extends the
solutions
available to meet the changing needs of citizen
facing eGovernment."
About Citizen Response
Based on technology used in the award-winning Remedy
Customer Support, Remedy Citizen Response enables
support staff to quickly log inquiries, review call
histories, view attachments, and search for
solutions. It can also automatically assign issues
to appropriate support representatives based on
specific criteria -- such as area of expertise,
department, request type or workload -- ensuring
requests get assigned to the right person at the
right time. Federal/Central government agencies use
Remedy solutions to collect economic survey data
from businesses; manage citizen complaints from
telemarketing organizations; track and resolve
consumer complaints concerning
financial institutions; respond to requests from
program beneficiaries for info on entitlements;
manage employee requests for health insurance and
pension benefit information. State and local
governments use Remedy solutions to record, track,
and resolve citizen inquiries and requests; provide
ubiquitous access to citizens, whether by kiosk,
walk-in, phone, or Web; consolidate citizen inquiry
history for better responses; meet service level
agreements in responding to information requests
from the public; help agents improve productivity
and performance.
About Remedy, a BMC Software Company
Remedy, a BMC Software company, delivers Service
Management software solutions that enable
organizations to align internal and external service
and support processes to business goals. More than
10,000 customers worldwide, from small and mid-sized
businesses to global enterprises, have chosen
Remedy's IT Service Management and Customer Service
and Support software to automate their support
processes, improve service levels, manage assets,
and lower costs. Remedy's highly flexible,
best-practice applications enable enterprise-wide
Business Service Management and allow customers to
easily adapt to unique and changing requirements.
Remedy customers include 80 percent of Fortune 100
companies and 50 percent of Global Fortune 500
companies. Remedy customers worldwide have employed
solutions developed throughout the company's 14
years of product evolution and investment. Locate
additional company and product information at
http://www.remedy.com.
Remedy and Action Request System are registered
trademarks of BMC Software, Inc. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
05.11.04 
