By Chris Bucholtz

It’s not enough for CRM companies to introduce new features to their solutions – they have to introduce new features that people will actually use. RightNow put out its August 08 Release today, and I think it has a couple of items that its users will find ways to put to use fairly quickly.

One of the more interesting is the idea of co-browsing. Essentially, it’s the idea that a customer service representative can ask to “take control” of a caller’s desktop to accomplish something. While the idea of a computer tech support guy doing this seems natural (especially since many of us have had our IT support staff remotely take control of our PCs for several years now), RightNow envisions it being used in other scenarios. Andrew Hull, the company’s director of marketing operations, suggested a situation in which a customer was having trouble checking out of an e-commerce site, for instance, and an agent could help finalize an order.

Another good idea is the proactive chat feature. This allows the system to monitor transactions between the customer and seller and, when certain factors are met, offer the customer a chat window to help head off confusion or answer questions right as the customer needs help and answers. “We want to be able to offer the same level of customer experience, whether it’s delivered electronically or over the phone,” Hull said.

That’s illustrative of the fact that RightNow is anticipating a generational difference in how consumers want to interact with companies – boomers on the phone, Gen X’ers via email and Gen Y’ers over text and chat. “We want to set up our customers for flexibility,” Hull said.

Customers want to do business the way they want to do business, and they want the power to define the their relationships with companies. RightNow’s new additions seem squarely aimed at helping companies achieve this, at least from a contact center point of view.