Partner Solutions

This month's featured integration allows Angel.com customers to provide a powerful interaction channel for end-users to access support for their products and services. We spoke with Todd Clayton, President and CEO of CoreBlox, Inc., to provide details on the integrated offering from Angel.com and CoreBlox.

Q: What is CoreBlox and what types of customers do you serve?
World-class companies expect to receive world-class support, regardless of the size of the vendor delivering the service. Support organizations are faced with the challenge of providing eService solutions that enable customers to quickly find answers to their questions and issues, while at the same time helping them to feel comfortable interacting with support representatives. Companies must find ways to break the cycle of adding support headcount in the face of a growing customer base and an increasingly complex product set.

CoreBlox™, Inc. is committed to empowering our customers and their end-users with superior on-demand customer service solutions. Through the CoreBlox NetAssist™ platform's intuitive agent tools, combined with the promotion and enablement of end-user self-service, CoreBlox will allow organizations to generate significant value while improving overall customer satisfaction.

Q: What is unique about CoreBlox and the Angel/CoreBlox integration?
The key to effectively supporting your customers is to provide them with the tools to uniformly respond to inquiries, independent of the contact medium. Esteban Kolsky of Gartner Group states, "The CIH [Customer Interaction Hub] brings together channel management, knowledge bases, business rules and analytical engines in one place. It doesn't matter where the inquiry comes from - whether it is the Web, phone, IVR, or email - and it drastically reduces the cost of managing channels." Our integration with Angel.com enables our customers to completely service their end-users through the phone, and to provide superior phone-based self-service tools. Whether the user is opening a case, accessing case status updates, or hearing the latest site news, our integration provides a powerful interaction channel for end-users to access support for their products and services.

Q: What was the business situation which caused CoreBlox to turn to Angel.com?
As a company providing on-demand customer service solutions, CoreBlox searched for a company that could not only handle its phone needs, but could also enhance our NetAssist platform with phone-based capabilities. CoreBlox turned to Angel.com because of its phone and IVR expertise. Angel.com enabled us to focus on delivering our company's platform. Additionally, it was important for us to work with a partner which had significant experience in building out phone-based solutions and understood the value that an integrated phone channel brings to customer service organizations.

Q: What is the advantage of utilizing an on-demand customer service solution?
In today's competitive landscape, companies are unable to appropriately invest in systems development, infrastructure, and support personnel needed to provide excellent customer service that supports their market offerings. This limits a company's credibility and ability to grow. An on-demand, web based product that will seamlessly provide a customer service framework while simulating economies of scale, will allow companies to provide unmatched customer service at an affordable cost.

CoreBlox NetAssist is an on-demand application platform targeted for customers who need to break the cycle of continually developing systems, investing in hardware, and adding incremental service and support headcount as their customer base and product set increases. NetAssist provides the necessary tools for companies to service their own clients without the need to establish and maintain costly in-house solutions.

Q: Why did you choose Angel.com over the competition?
The decision for CoreBlox to choose Angel.com was an easy one. We investigated several options, but chose Angel.com for its powerful Virtual Receptionist capabilities and AngelXML interface. We found Angel.com to be the only company with the needed capabilities for our internal use, the needed integration interfaces to meet our product development requirements, and the partnering framework in place which would make it possible to build our companies' integrated solution.

We continue to be extremely impressed with the capabilities and flexibility found in Angel.com's solution. Due to the ease of setting up our internal phone system and developing our integration, we have been able to quickly accomplish that which would not have been possible using legacy technologies.

Q: What types of applications are you selling into your customer/prospect base?
CoreBlox NetAssist, our flagship product, empowers organizations by providing them with the capabilities needed to succeed with their customer service initiatives. Empowerment starts with providing an eService solution that is easy to use, flexible, and has powerful tools to locate relevant information about products and services. As an on-demand solution, NetAssist eliminates IT costs, ensures that our customers are always on the latest NetAssist version, and secures data assets at a world-class hosting center.

Q: How can Angel.com customers gain access to your solution?
Angel.com will soon be offering CoreBlox NetAssist integration. CoreBlox is actively seeking companies which would be willing to participate in a beta program for the combined solution. Please contact Ahmed Bouzid for more details.

Q: How do you plan to distribute Angel.com's products?
CoreBlox intends to offer the option of signing-up for both the NetAssist and Angel.com platforms through a unified interface. By providing our customers and prospects with an easy and effective way to manage all of their support needs, customers will be able to leverage their investment in both solutions without the overhead and IT costs needed to create a solution on their own. We believe the combined offering addresses the challenges facing our customer and prospects.

Q: Are you planning to rollout other Angel.com solutions?
CoreBlox plans to continue to extend the integrated capabilities of our solutions. There is significant value in expanding the capabilities offered for self-service through the phone. Angel.com's integrated capabilities provide us with a competitive differentiator and enables us to continue to build out our combined solution in order to bring significant value to our customers, partners, and investors.