Search Engine Ask Jeeves To Market Services To Indivdual Car Maker Web Sites

EMERYVILLE, Calif., Sept. 16, 2002 Jeeves Solutions(SM), the enterprise software division of Ask Jeeves®, Inc. , today announced availability of its Automotive Knowledge Pack (KP). Leveraging Jeeves' unique experience in handling millions of questions, the Automotive KP helps content-rich automotive Web sites quickly and efficiently deliver highly relevant answers to their users through JeevesOne(TM), Jeeves Solutions' automated self-service software. Deployed on many of the world's leading automotive company Web sites, such as DaimlerChrysler, Ford and Mazda, Jeeves Solutions' ability to process queries and capture aggregate data about customer behavior make it the obvious choice for automotive companies. The announcement of the Automotive KP builds on Jeeves Solutions unique ability to deliver highly intelligent solutions that address the particular needs of vertical markets. Jeeves Solutions also provides KPs for the pharmaceutical, computer hardware, software, storage and networking industries, as well as financial industry-focused KPs covering brokerage and banking.

Since 1998 Jeeves Solutions has been serving Global 2000 companies in several vertical markets, from automotive to financial services to retail, including serving some of the world's most recognized brands like Hewlett-Packard, Nestle, Nike and Visa. The Automotive Knowledge Pack is drawn from Jeeves Solutions' experience answering more than seven million automotive-related questions per month on corporate customer Web sites and on Ask.com®, and serves as a framework for creating a highly relevant question answering system.

"By combining Jeeves' experience handling millions of automotive questions with the sophistication of JeevesOne, automotive companies can now fully optimize their Web sites for effective self-service," said Tuoc Luong, senior vice president of products for Jeeves Solutions. "Only Jeeves Solutions can deliver this level of experience, enabling automobile companies to increase customer satisfaction and decrease support costs through email and call avoidance."

Cars, trucks, automotive accessories and services are among the most heavily researched categories online. For example, Ask.com, the Internet's second most popular search engine*, receives more than five million automotive questions during its peak traffic months. Increasingly, automotive companies are expected to answer users' questions about vehicle makes and models, automobile maintenance, safety, driving and lifestyle online.

To satisfy this demand for online information access and to decrease site abandonment, automotive companies need to provide relevant answers to product-specific questions. Like all Jeeves Solutions' industry specific KPs, the Automotive KP contains the words, terms, jargon and concepts unique to a vertical industry. Jeeves' unique experience also brings a deeper understanding of which questions are most commonly asked by users and, perhaps more importantly, how these questions are asked.

Within the Automotive KP, an expansive list of recognized vocabulary, pre-built questions and variations on common queries help automotive companies quickly customize JeevesOne for their sites. Hundreds of questions such as, "What are the safety features on my truck?" "How often should I schedule a tune-up for my car?" and "Is the 2003 model available in red?" come ready to deploy on customers' sites.

JeevesOne Analytics, a built-in customer intelligence feature of JeevesOne, further builds on the Knowledge Pack framework by understanding and learning from questions customers ask. Jeeves Analytics captures customer feedback and helps identify where new content should be added and updated, what users most frequently ask, the common terms they use, and overall trends in user interaction.

About Jeeves Solutions

Jeeves Solutions is a leading provider of enterprise class software that delivers self-service and essential customer intelligence. Through an intuitive interface that connects customers with the information, products and services they are looking for, Jeeves Solutions uses the sophisticated Jeeves Analytics(TM) to deliver critical, customer-driven information to corporations. This essential data enables companies worldwide to build profitable relationships with their customers, prospects and suppliers. By learning from every online customer interaction, Jeeves Solutions helps companies cost-effectively increase the quality and depth of customer interactions and leverage customer insight to guide product, sales and marketing strategies. JeevesOne has more than forty corporate customers including British Telecom, DaimlerChrysler, Nestle and Nike, as well as government users including the State of Washington.