Self-Service Satisfaction From noHold.

A significant component of satisfying Internet customers is an effective service-side solution. Cybershoppers want the same assistance online they would expect to get in a face-to-face interaction: instant help with specific problems or product information. Unfortunately, far too many Web sites lack a reliable way to provide information or deliver satisfactory service. Customers remain frustrated in their searches for information, having to contend with slow e-mail response times, search engines that yield marginally related links leading to tangential safaris off the information highway and FAQs that are too general to have any value.

noHold, Inc. provides Web-based, self-service solutions that diagnose and solve problems. Its flagship solution, noHold Instant Support, is built on noHold's proprietary artificial intelligence technology. Instant Support helps users solve technical problems online quickly and effortlessly through a chat-like interface built into a company's Web site. It simulates live, person-to-person chat via the Web to troubleshoot complex problems and provide the right solutions. Customers type in their questions or problems in their own words, and the responses pop up on the screen immediately. When the questions are broad or unclear, Instant Support carries on an interactive conversation with the user until it has enough information to present an accurate, relevant response. In most cases, customer problems and inquiries are solved online during the first session. This frees your support staff from handling repetitive, routine phone calls and e-mail so they can address more complicated questions and problems.

noHold's Knowledge Platform is the database that contains a company's information on products and services, no Hold's professional services team, through its QuickStart Implementation program, transfers a company's product information into a central Knowledge Platform created for the company and can deploy it in six weeks or less. The Knowledge Portal is the user interface, a chat-like window that pops up on a company's Web site -- at the technical support page, for example. When users access the Knowledge Portal, noHold's DynamicDialog technology, its artificial intelligence engine, allows them to describe problems in their own words. The Portal Manager, an "always on" reporting tool, captures, analyzes and reports on each Instant Support session as either aggregate data or as individual interactions -- information that provides valuable metrics about each support session that can be used across the enterprise to improve service and product. An optional solution, Dynamic Link, provides integration of all in formation sources within a company, including existing legacy databases and external programs, for incorporation into the solutions.