Hubbub

Hubbub (http://hubbub.labs.bt.com) is a new online help service. Launched in summer 2006, it was initially aimed primarily at users of BT's new 'softphone' product. Hubbub blends the advantages of newsgroups, user forums and helpdesks. It invites a customer to submit a query as the first step in their interaction. So customers do not have to log in, or look for the right sub-forum in which to pose their question. With a bit of smart matching behind the scenes, Hubbub suggests which existing posts might be relevant to the customer's query. If the customer is satisfied with these existing replies, problem solved and no need for that customer to have wasted time logging in. If the customer does not find an answer amongst the existing replies they can either modify their query (partly based on the keywords thrown up by Hubbub's suggestions) or they can send their query on to the registered members of the forum (which include helpdesk professionals, BT researchers and other interested customers). Questions and answers are all logged by Hubbub so that subsequent customers should increasingly find that their queries are indeed answered in the initial suggestion phase.