More Than 140 Higher Education Institutions Worldwide Use RightNow On Demand CRM

Thursday, 15 May 2008 16:28

Sydney – 15 May 2008 - RightNow® Technologies (NASDAQ: RNOW) today announced that more than 140 colleges and universities use its on demand customer relationship management (CRM) solution to recruit and retain students. The RightNow Higher Education solution includes guides and templates, based on industry best practices gleaned from RightNow’s work with universities such as the University of Western Australia and Victoria University of Wellington. It is available under RightNow's software-as-a-service delivery model, which allows institutions to implement quickly, while minimising up-front investment and risk.
Today, higher education institutions consider attracting and keeping qualified students to be a top priority and major challenge given budget constraints, competition from other universities, and Internet-savvy prospective students that expect immediate access to information.

The RightNow Higher Education solution helps learning institutions attract and retain students by providing staff with a single view of each student, including all interaction history, which enables highly personalised service.  In addition, RightNow helps universities to provide immediate, online access to a wide range of information, such as financial aid details, registration requirements and housing.  The RightNow solution also includes guides to help drive student knowledge and track recruiting efforts.

Jon Stubbs, Director of Student Services at University of Western Australia, said, “RightNow makes it easy for students at the University of Western Australia to locate the specific information they need through a combination of keywords, natural language queries, and category-based browsing. Students who have an active password can submit an enquiry for resolution after completing “pass through authentication.” This means the student enquirer is identified immediately and staff can be confident in the appropriateness of their response. 

“With RightNow, we knew we were using the latest advances in artificial intelligence.  RightNow continuously "learns" how students search for information and automatically applies that insight to make it easier for them to find what they're looking for.”

Using RightNow, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, delivers highly personalised information to a diverse range of prospective students while meeting extremely tight cost constraints. “RightNow has helped us quickly, accurately and cost effectively communicate with prospective students, bolstering our recruiting efforts,” said Charles Brooks, the university's international e-marketing manager.

“Universities and colleges are under pressure to develop and maintain relationships with prospects, students, parents, alumni and internal staffs even as their budgets are being reduced.  RightNow provides a tailored solution that leverages extensive industry experience and best practices from our more than 140 higher education clients to help institutions recruit, retain, and inform students,“ said Brett Waters, Vice President Asia Pacific – South, RightNow Technologies.

About RightNow Technologies
RightNow (NASDAQ: RNOW) delivers the high-impact technology solutions and services organisations need to cost-efficiently deliver a consistently superior customer experience across their frontline service, sales and marketing touch-points. Approximately 1,800 corporations and government agencies worldwide depend on RightNow to achieve their strategic objectives and better meet the needs of those they serve. RightNow is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana. For more information, please visit www.rightnow.com

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