Minister's Forerword
Introduction
Credits
Acknowledgements
Creative Labs
PROJECT OBJECTIVE
CREATE AN INTELLIGENT SELF-SERVICE KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR ITS CUSTOMERS
Creative Labs is one of the world’s leading producers of multi-media hardware and software products for the Personal Computer; a multi-national company, it has offices in Europe, America and its headquarters in Singapore. Creative Labs’ product portfolio is extensive and includes Sound Blaster sound cards, graphics cards, multi-speaker systems, CD-ROM and DVD-Rom drives and internet cameras.
The European Operations and Technical Centre (EOTC) is based in Blanchardstown, just outside Dublin and employs 400 people. The technical support call centre is based at the EOTC and it provides technical support and assistance to end-users and dealers in Europe. It supports 19 countries.
Business Case for e-Commerce Infrastructure Project
Creative Lab’s website attracts considerable traffic: 15 million hits, 1.5M page impressions and 160,000 user sessions per week are typical. The site is used to promote and sell the company’s entire product range. Creative identified the need both to take advantage of this traffic and also to use the Internet to further leverage sales and marketing opportunities.
Creative’s belief is that the technical support area of their site should improve customer relationships by demonstrating that the company knows how to serve customers and can attend to each customer’s unique needs. It identified the opportunity to reduce call centre costs and increase productivity by providing customers with a comprehensive set of access options for ‘self-service’.
E-Business Solution
Creative Labs determined that the best solution was the creation of an intelligent knowledge base for its customers to use in a ‘self-service’ manner to troubleshoot their technical problems.
The key features of this self-service technical support system are that it:
- Is knowledge base accessible via the Internet
- Delivers personalised solutions and not document lists
- Enables the web site to act like a ‘best performing technical advisor’
The system is built around the knowledge base, which contains all of the information available within the Creative Labs company about its product range. This includes known problems and solutions and product documentation. Provided this information is kept up-to-date, the effects of team members leaving the Technical Support Centre would be less detrimental.
The system allows instant access to a knowledge base where a customer can have questions answered and troubleshoot problems themselves. An important feature is that customers can enter their queries in everyday natural language. Unlike web search engines, the system uses patented technology and XML to match the context of customer requests with solutions in the knowledge base. Once a customer makes a search, they are given a unique reference number which is automatically included in any follow-up by phone or email.
Key Benefits of Creative Lab’s Self-Serve Solution
Extended global market reach
Streamlined operations and costs
New business opportunities
New market efficiencies
Enhanced competition and ultimately reduced prices
Increase customer convenience and choice
Creative Labs (Ireland) Ltd
Ballycoolin Business Park
Blanchardstown
Dublin 15
Tel: 01 806 6795
www.creative.ie
Richard_Stables@Creative.ie
