Overview
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a RightNow client, has a critically important and highly complex mission. In order to protect human health and the environment across the United States, the agency must address a wide variety of issues—ranging from regulation of vehicle emissions and the proper labeling of pesticides to the protection of wetlands and acid rain monitoring. However, like every other agency, it has limited resources with which to fulfill its mission. So it must do everything possible to operate at maximum efficiency.
At the same time, the EPA is under increasing pressure to communicate effectively with the general public. While its primary mission is essentially regulatory, it’s also important for the EPA to keep citizens and businesses informed about its regulations, programs, findings, and successes.
RightNow proved to be the solution the EPA needed. By enabling the EPA to create an online knowledge base that answers more than 80 percent of users’ questions without human intervention, RightNow has produced a 70-plus percent reduction in email volume in participating offices. RightNow also makes it easy to quickly route the remaining emails to the appropriate subject-matter experts. These inquiries are all tracked, so participating offices can be sure that each one receives a prompt response. And, because all replies use the same approved answers contained in its online knowledge base, the agency provides consistent and accurate information every time.
Greg Gianforte