1. Creating Customer Self Sufficiency Neeti Seth Sr. Manager, Customer Support, Mercury

2. 2Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Introduction Mercury continues to set the benchmark for online service excellence Leverage the online service experience to build stronger relationships (rather than distance ourselves by avoiding service requests) Benefits: –Scalability –Deeper understanding of customer needs –Real time understanding of customer sentiment –Broader knowledge of customer product feedback –Stronger communication channel with customers

3. 3Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Self Sufficiency Goal 1  Bring Customers and Partners Together  Encourage Community Participation  Monitor Community Activity  Respond to Customer Sentiment Create and Manage a Community

4. 4Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Self Sufficiency Goal 2  On-line Knowledgebase –CSO Knowledgebase –Customer Populated Knowledgebase –Dedicated Subject Matter Experts –Dedicated Technical Knowledgebase Architect –‘Solution of the Week’  User Discussion Forums  Real Time Access to Call Management System  “Ask the expert” sessions Provide a range of Service Choices and Self help alternatives

5. 5Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Self Sufficiency Goal 3  Communication of Product Alerts & Announcements –The latest product news, information about product releases and upgrades, known product issues, and more are posted on the Support Web Site –Subscribe to “Support Updates”, a biweekly email  Download & Patches –Product Patches –User Populated Samples/Download Repository Provide regular Alerts and Announcements

6. 6Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Feedback  Customer Research Analyst –We survey and poll our customers to learn more about how our customers are using our products and services and what their current and future needs may be, trends, sentiment,…  Strategic Support Delivery Team –Provide feedback of the market by proactively reaching out to customers asking for their feedback  Customer Surveys –In addition to quantitative results, we ask customers “What one thing could we do better?”  Support Website Feedback Make Customer Focused Decisions Thousands of customers have responded, impacting corporate strategy, product strategy, go to market plans, mergers & acquisition, and customer service.

7. 7Mercury Confidential & Proprietary User Suggestion for Upcoming ‘Ask the Expert’ Events

8. 8Mercury Confidential & Proprietary CSO Knowledgebase – User Rating System Customers can rate the article, indicate whether or not it solved the problem and provide any other comments Customers have access to our well written descriptive articles

9. 9Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Awareness  Awareness and promotion of electronic services is paramount to our success  Create awareness through cross section of customer touch points –Customer Support –Marketing –Product & Documentation –Training –Sales –Improved E-Support Response –Customer Incentives

10. 10Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Adoption Strategies  Quality information and Relationships with other customers  We offer a wide variety of innovative, useful, and easy-to-use Web- based services including the frequent flier-like Customer Reward Program, Community membership, online company store, and much more –Customer Reward Program (“Frequent Flier Program”) The program rewards community members with “Customer Reward Points” each time they participate in an activity such as: log in, search knowledgebase, post question or answer on discussion forums, post knowledge base article, etc... On-line Company Store - Members can save up their customer reward points to buy merchandise from the On-line Company Store located on the Support Web Site –Promotions places on CSO Web Site Some examples are “Free Load Test”, “3-for-free” performance monitoring profiles, “Refer A Friend” program for Topaz

11. 11Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Adoption Success "We have recently switched to Mercury products from a competitor of yours. Your Knowledge Base is an incredible asset and I mention it often to other groups within my company who are still using the other product. Thanks for all of your hard work on it! It makes my job so much easier!"

12. 12Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Call Avoidance MetricTotalSource/Calculation Number of instances customers indicated “yes” that a problem was solved by Mercury Knowledge Base in Q1 2004 4,922 Mercury Interactive KnowledgeBase data report Number of “4” (helpful) and “5” (very helpful) votes received for User Knowledge Base articles in Q1 2004 930Mercury Cognos statistics Number of Articles Read in Mercury KnowledgeBase that resulted in resolved issue 3,186 Number of articles read multiplied by.01 (318,563 x.01 = 3,186) Number of Posts Read in Discussion Forum that resulted in resolved issue 2,014 Number of forum posts read multiplied by.01 (201,417 x.01 = 2,014) Number of Articles Read in User KnowledgeBase that resulted in resolved issue 799 Number of User KB articles read multiplied by.01 (79,861 x.01 = 799) Users resolving customer support issues by reading and rating content on Mercury support site in Q1 2004. 11,851 Number of call avoidance events (4,922 + 930 + 3,186 + 2,014 + 799) = 11,851

13. 13Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Call Avoidance Formula for Calculation of Call Avoidance: Total # of instances where customer resolves issue (User votes “Yes” on KB article, “4” or “5” in User KB, 1% of searches in forums, KB, and User KB) Number of Cases Avoided –2003 Total: 34,885 Service Request –Q1 2003: 8,837 Service Request –Q1 2004: 11,851 Service Request –34% Increase

14. 14Mercury Confidential & Proprietary Impact Our self sufficiency strategy has been a huge success. Customer adoption of our online services (KB, Discussion forums...) has grown tremendously

15. Questions? Thank You