RightNow Technologies: Digging for news releases

A sophisticated media release search that potential users may never find.

The Site

RightNow Technologies, a seller of CRM (customer relationship management) software and services, has a sophisticated press release search that potential users may never find.

RightNow’s press release archive is in the News sub-section of Resources but is also linked directly from the home page News panel. The All Press Releases landing page is a list of releases in reverse chronological order (most recent first), with the list segmented into months. It covers more than a decade back to November 1997, so requires lengthy scrolling to review in full.

While there are no navigational aids at the top of the archive page, search tools are provided at the very end, below the last release. These allow a search of press releases and press coverage by publication (from a dropdown menu of scores of titles), by topic (32 are listed on the dropdown) or by keyword. Four country-specific sub-lists are similarly structured.

The Takeaway

It’s hard to imagine RightNow being quite so shy about bringing a relatively sophisticated CRM tool to the attention of potential users as it is in masking its press release search from journalists. And the tool is relatively sophisticated by media service standards; no date categories, admittedly, but publication, topic and keyword search options are a rare and helpful combination. It also puts the main site search, which is keyword only, in the shade.

Quite why no one has thought to raise the search tool from the depths – or why it sank there in the first place – defies analysis. While the tool is visible on the News landing page (one level up in the content hierarchy), where only a selection of recent releases and ‘In the news’ items is listed, this isn’t the one journalists are directed to from the home page. Even if it were, where’s the logic in removing its visibility in the archive?

First published on 11 March, 2008