Oracle RightNow is an American

customer relationship management Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategic process that organizations use to manage, analyze, and improve their interactions with customers. By leveraging data-driven insights, CRM helps businesses optimize communication, enhance cus ...

(CRM) software service for enterprise organizations which is part of Oracle Service. It was originally developed by RightNow Technologies, Inc., which was acquired by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

in 2011 in a $1.8 billion deal. The main product offered by RightNow Technologies was RightNow CX, a customer experience suite. RightNow CX was divided into RightNow Web Experience, RightNow Social Experience, RightNow Contact Center Experience, and RightNow Engage. Under Oracle Service, the product has predictive capabilities and offers customer service support for website, apps, chatbot, live chat, video chat, co-browse, social messaging, texting, customer portals, IVR, knowledge base, store associates, and other channels. It is part of the

Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX) An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descrip ...

suite of products, which also includes Advertising, Marketing, and Sales cloud products. Oracle Service Cloud is FedRAMP authorized, which means it meets certain cybersecurity standards and is approved for use by federal agencies.

History

The company was founded in 1997 by

Greg Gianforte Gregory Richard Gianforte ( ; born April 17, 1961) is an American politician, businessman, and software engineer serving as the 25th governor of Montana since 2021. A member of the Republican Party, Gianforte served as the U.S. representativ ...

Bozeman, Montana Bozeman ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. The 2020 United States census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it Montana's fourth-largest city. It is the principal city of the Bozeman, Montan ...

as RightNow Technologies. Additional offices were opened in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. The company employed over 1000 people in 2011. RightNow's business model was

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

using

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

. Gianforte started the company in 1997 without external capital and created a software product that was initially focused on

customer service Customer service is the assistance and advice provided by a company to those who buy or use its products or services, either in person or remotely. Customer service is often practiced in a way that reflects the strategies and values of a firm, and ...

with an integrated

knowledge base In computer science, a knowledge base (KB) is a set of sentences, each sentence given in a knowledge representation language, with interfaces to tell new sentences and to ask questions about what is known, where either of these interfaces migh ...

. As the company grew, it added marketing and sales functionality, voice automation, customer feedback management, analytics and a social platform to its product, creating a full

customer experience Customer experience, sometimes abbreviated to CX, is the totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral responses of a customer during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase st ...

suite. In 2006, RightNow Technologies acquired SFA company Salesnet. In 2009, RightNow Technologies acquired social networking company HiveLive. In 2011, the company acquired

Q-go Q-go was a privately owned international company that specializes in semantic search SaaS, based on Natural Language Processing technology. The technology provides relevant answers to users in response to queries on a company's internet website ...

for $34 million. Q-go was founded in 1999. It specialized in

semantic search Semantic search denotes search with meaning, as distinguished from lexical search where the search engine looks for literal matches of the query words or variants of them, without understanding the overall meaning of the query. Semantic search seek ...

service, based on

natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of computer science and especially artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with providing computers with the ability to process data encoded in natural language and is thus closely related ...

technology, providing relevant answers to queries on a company’s Internet website or corporate intranet, formulated in natural sentences or keyword input alike. It integrated automatic statistical reporting of user query behavior for businesses that want to monitor what kinds of questions their customers are asking so they can adjust content to provide the appropriate information for customers and to reduce the load on traditional customer service ports of call, such as call centers and answers by email. The technology has been implemented and deployed in a range of industries, including banking, insurance, pension, telecommunications and logistics, as well as several government agencies.

Oracle acquisition

In October 2011,

announced its intention to acquire RightNow for $1.5 billion, a deal which was completed in January 2012. With the acquisition, the name changed to Oracle Service. In 2014, Oracle acquired LiveLOOK, real-time visual collaboration technology used for

cobrowsing Cobrowsing (short for collaborative browsing), in the context of web browsing, is the joint navigation through the World Wide Web by two or more people accessing the same web page at the same time. History of cobrowsing software Early cobrowsing w ...

, screen sharing, and click-to-call; and TOA (Time of Arrival), a cloud-based field service app which became Oracle Field Service. The capabilities were integrated into the Service software in 2015, along with skills-based routing. In May 2022, the company integrated its Unity Customer Data Platform (CDP) with Oracle Service to better support customer service agents.

References

{{Oracle Software companies based in Montana Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Bozeman, Montana Customer relationship management software companies American companies established in 1997 Cloud applications Cloud computing providers Oracle acquisitions Search engine software Internet search engines Software companies established in 1997 Software companies disestablished in 2012 2012 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States

History

Oracle acquisition

See also

References