Reducing the incoming e-mail flood by half results in considerable savings. Companies using AEDs report better customer loyalty, resulting in increased repeat sales, lower cost of customer service departments and improved service by automatically responding 24 hours per day. Java clients and server software are popular choices for many AED products. For instance, MCS's Calypso Mail Center is written completely in Java, opening the option for companies to deploy agent stations on network computers or low-powered systems not fast enough to perform well with Windows client software. Because all AED products revolve around e-mail, remote offices or even home workers can easily be part of the agent pool.
Security is maintained with individual agent user names and passwords.
The company cobbled together an internal system, but the 22,000 or more support messages it receives each month forced it to look for help. I started looking again seven or eight months ago, and Calypso Message Center from MCS offered a similar feature set to another package. But since we use remote game players for support, Calypso's compiled Java applications made the difference. The remote response time is almost the same as that for local network nodes. Jupiter's Allard says interest is high for better e-mail management options.