[0] Mindmaker Unveils FlexAnswer Web-Based Question Answering Engine At eCRM 2001.

Business Editors

eCRM Expo Spring 2001

BOOTH 6827

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2001

Next-Generation Customer Service Solution Features Advanced Natural Language Processing for Greatly Improved, Automatic Response to Common Questions

Mindmaker, Inc., a leading developer of Intelligent Assistants, advanced Speech I/O Interfaces and other Artificial Intelligence technologies, today unveiled FlexAnswer(TM), a highly advanced, automated, Web-based question answering service, at eCRM 2001 in Los Angeles. FlexAnswer improves on existing online question answering solutions through its next-generation Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, helping companies to provide significantly improved, Internet-based customer service for technical support, sales support, and eCRM.

The NLP technology underpinning FlexAnswer was developed over nearly 15 years in both academic and commercial environments by 3F Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Mindmaker Inc. that specializes in natural language technologies. FlexAnswer is being initially marketed as an Application Service Provider (ASP) solution with an enterprise version available later in 2001. The ASP solution is ideal for small-to-medium businesses that are looking for a best-of-breed automatic customer response system to supplement the efforts of live Customer Service Representatives (CSRs).

"Datamonitor estimates that e-tailers lost more than $6 billion in uncompleted transactions in 1999 due to poor customer service. FlexAnswer exists to help reverse that trend," said Roberto Garigliano, General Manager of 3F Ltd. "With FlexAnswer, companies can not only improve the cost-efficiency of their customer response, but also they can also gain highly detailed customer information for later CRM analysis."

Next-Generation Natural Language Processing

Unlike conventional NLP, which uses superficial, statistical, or pattern matching to process queries, FlexAnswer incorporates spelling correction, morphological forms, grammatical structure, as well as semantic, pragmatic, and dialogue information. The result is a highly logical representation of the question which results in more accurate and useful responses to customer questions. FlexAnswer is also able to learn from previous questions and their answers, thus allowing the service to automatically improve over time.

"With traditional search engines, users are presented with a long list of pages which may or may not contain the answer the user is looking for," said Garigliano. "The result is a time consuming and often frustrating search experience. Even most NLP-based engines address questions in a very superficial way. FlexAnswer contains state-of-the-art classification technology, an advanced learning mechanism, and a vocabulary of more than 160,000 word meanings, making it very likely the most powerful system of its kind in the world."

Useful Management Tools

The back-end functionality of FlexAnswer provides project supervisors with a number of valuable features, including:

- Knowledge Management--the ability to powerfully control the information made
available to customers;

- Service Customization--helps supervisors improve their CSR deployment; and

- Performance Monitoring--by logging in to the management area on the
FlexAnswer Web site (www.flexanswer.com), managers can view past questions by
date, knowledge base, and other criteria.

FlexAnswer is configured for use by CSRs, technical support, and sales support personnel as well as customers. Employees and contract service personnel can conveniently use FlexAnswer from any Web-enabled PC at any time.

Easy, Fast Deployment

As a fully-hosted Web service, FlexAnswer is a quick and cost-effective way for companies to gain powerful customer support. The service offers low start-up costs, no specific hardware or software requirements, and accessibility via any computer with Internet access and a recent version of a major Web browser. The building of FlexAnswer's knowledge base can easily be bootstrapped using existing FAQs.

FlexAnswer's forthcoming Enterprise Version will be available for on-site installation on a corporate user's Web servers. For more information about Mindmaker's FlexAnswer question answering service, visit Booth 6827 at the eCRM Show or log on to www.flexanswer.com.

About Mindmaker, Inc.:

The mission of Mindmaker, Inc. is to become the world leader in Intelligent Assistant-centric computing by developing intelligence enabled development platforms and a wide range of intelligence, speech and Internet enabled applications. These applications are primarily Personal and Service Provider Assistants for B2B, B2C and C2C applications. In addition to its corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, Mindmaker has seven subsidiaries, including two in Hungary, two in Singapore and three in the United Kingdom. To learn more about Mindmaker and its broad range of technology offerings, visit www.mindmaker.com or call 408/467-0458; in the UK ring [phone].

About 3F Ltd.:

3F Ltd. is a UK company and was registered in 1995. It is a spin-off company from the University of Durham's Department of Computer Science and is based at the University's Science Park. 3F Ltd. was founded to take advantage of the increasing demand for products capable of analyzing language. This demand was evident from the regular inquiries from a range of industrial concerns as to the nature and applicability of 3F's technology. The natural language technology on which 3F's products are based has been under development for more than fifteen years, and has been productized in solutions for Rolls Royce, Siemens, Unilever and other major corporations.