Chordiant Software has announced Chordiant (News - Alert) Recommendation Advisor version 6.2, a version which allows real-time Next-Best-Action-driven dialog and interaction management at the business-to-business and household level.

The product's multi-level decision capabilities allow Next-Best-Action decisions and recommendations to be made on both an individual and aggregate level at the same time, company officials say, adding that this will enable service agents to work better with customers who "represent an entire company or division within a company, or one or all members of a household."

No doubt there will be companies interested in getting support for hierarchical decisions for complex relationships in an out-of-the-box product.

Large service-focused enterprises, such as insurance companies, retail banks and telecommunications companies often have hierarchical relationships with their small-to-medium sized business customers. Within these relationships, different products and incentives are offered at the corporate level, the departmental level, and the individual level. Existing relationships at each of these levels must be factored into the decision when determining the next best action to be taken during an interaction.

For example, if an individual customer calls in with an inquiry, the system should be able to cough up offers or recommendations to the individual which fall within the parameters of existing departmental and corporate agreements. So if a particular proposition is relevant for a number of individuals, it may make sense to create an "all-in" offer at the departmental or corporate level.

Last month TMC reported that British Sky Broadcasting chose Chordiant Decision Management, Recommendation Advisor, and Contact Center Advisor in its customer contact centers. The Chordiant product, called Merlin, is used Sky customer contact centers.

Possessing Next-Best-Action recommendation functionality, Merlin lets Sky reps personalize product propositions for individual customers. Chris Angell, head of real-time marketing at Sky, said the company is now "able to develop strategies covering our core sales and retention activity."

Recommendation Advisor 6.2 is one of those products that let contact center agents and company representatives negotiate and make offers and recommendations that automatically account for corporate programs at all levels of operation. The same mechanism can also be applied to households, where a proposition can be tailored to a family based on recommendations for individual family members.