Answer Systems Corporate Background

Introduction

As the first company to introduce an integrated call and problem management solution for the support market and the only company to be recognized by the U.S. Patent Office for its problem resolution technology, Answer is one of the visionaries in its field and remains a market leader with a compound annual growth rate of over 100%. The company was recently ranked as one of the "Top IPO Candidates" for 1994-95 by The Red Herring.

The Support Challenge

"A variety of forces - macroeconomic, organizational, and technical - will keep the demand for technical support on an upward path through the 1990s. ... All user shops should be examining their support portfolios and acquiring help desk automation tools."
Gartner Group
"Doing More with Less - Support Strategies for the '90s"

According to the Gartner Group, the help desk software market is growing at a rate of 100 percent annually, and is expected to reach $600 million in five years. This rapid growth is indicative of the importance Corporate America is placing on meeting the support requirements of its employees and customers. Delivering cost-effective support has become increasingly challenging for organizations faced with client-server initiatives, downsizing, and rising computing complexity - where problem-solving expertise may be distributed throughout the company and the technical environment is constantly evolving. Many organizations have discovered that what is needed is an intelligently automated, single-point-of-contact help desk - the Corporate Answer Center - that can solve a wide variety of problems quickly and cost-effectively.

Answer has met this challenge with its Apriori® family of client-server solutions for the help desk. Apriori provides fast, accurate solutions to technical, operational, and business questions, and is targeted at today's heterogeneous IT and customer support environments. Answer's help desk applications are designed to adapt to changing needs without any development efforts, which helps users increase productivity within weeks of installation and achieve complete return on investment within one year. Answer is the only support automation company whose revenues do not rely heavily on consulting fees from its customers.

Technology Patent

"Companies are benefitting from problem resolution technologies like Bubble-Up(tm), which require no up-front development efforts and are becoming the foundation for Corporate Answer Centers worldwide."
Gartner Group, 1994

Bubble-Up(tm) is the keystone in a suite of problem resolution technologies provided with Answer's flagship help desk product, Apriori. Answer received a patent on Bubble-Up in April, 1994 and has exclusive rights to its use through 2011. It is the first patent to be granted for the help desk market.

Answer's strategic problem resolution technology is unique in that it is transparent to the user and requires no programming or development efforts. Bubble-Up adjusts automatically to solve the current hot problems by filtering and displaying the top 10 most useful solutions on any topic in the system.

Companies adopting Apriori's Bubble-Up technology typically experience a rapid increase in "hit rate," that is, the number of problems solved on the first call. Training time for new hires is often reduced, and companies cut costs by solving more problems without escalation. For example, the J.C. Penney Store Systems Help Desk realized an 83% reduction in training time using Apriori's Bubble-Up technology, and the French automaker, Renault, experienced an 80% reduction in problem resolution time while handling three times as many calls - with no increase in staff.

Customers

Answer is a customer-focused company that uses its own products to support its customers and manage the entire Apriori product life cycle. The company works in partnership with AUGment, the Apriori User Group, to provide regular product improvements based on market requirements and customer input.

Sales and Support

Answer uses Apriori to support its own customers. Hotline support and product upgrades are provided to customers under maintenance contract. 24-hour self-service access to Answer's customer support knowledge base is also available. Answer offers complete consulting, systems integration, customization, and training services.