E-commerce gets personal

Until recently, e-commerce was a slippery business to be in, a buzz capable of driving retailer valuations through the roof but incapable of stirring measurable profits. As a result, many pioneers and proponents of e-commerce-companies, executives, Web sites and even magazines-were sunk in the wake of its unsteady evolution.

For some, the recent holiday shopping season represented a turning point in that evolution, as shoppers finally began to flock to retail Web sites to spend their money. Others suggest that while interest in e-commerce is increasing, most of the shopping public still is too confused by the Web retail process-or too afraid of posting credit card numbers-to make e-commerce a viable business.

In fact, Zona Research has found that 62% of potential Web shoppers abort their transactions in frustration over the process, and other polls have found that more than 80% of Internet users still have security fears about Web-based transactions.

Both of these issues reflect an important aspect that makes shopping in the physical world more comfortable to most people than shopping on-line: human contact. Despite the conveniences of e-commerce-no long lines and no heavily trafficked parking lots-when it gets down to conducting and confirming transactions, shoppers want to confer with other people.

So far, the Web has been unable to match the experience, which is why many people who surf retail Web sites for products or services often end up finishing the transaction over the phone.

However, strategies and products for bringing better customer service to the e-commerce industry are beginning to emerge. And as it turns out, Internet protocol telephony may be the missing link in the Web shopping process. If vendors can harness IP voice technology to create icons and connections for live-contact and call-back customer assistance, it could vastly increase the efficiency and value of existing retail Web sites, and provide a more solid business model for launching new e-commerce ventures.

Several retailers, IP telephony carriers, customer care software companies and other vendors are making progress on e-commerce customer care efforts, and some of those companies are standing out from the rest.

IDT Net2Phone, a widely known international IP telephony carrier and gateway vendor, recently launched an e-commerce portal consolidating access to several retailers, and it also initiated IP-based live-contact/call-back service to consumers of those retailers who visit the portal.

IDT's venture, ezsurf.com, is available to about 1 million users and listed 14 retailers at introduction, including on-line stock trader E*Trade, American Airlines, Amazon.com and Cyberian Outpost. The site will eventually grow to more than 150 retailers, says Jordan Katz, director of interactive services for IDT Net2Phone.

However, in the increasingly crowded arena of on-line shops and full-fledged e-malls, IP calling features may be a strong point of differentiation. Visitors to the ezsurf.com Web site can use IDT Net2Phone, Click2Talk or Click2CallMe service icons to call retailers on the portal without having to visit the individual sites, making personal shopping assistance only an IP call away. Also, an ezsurf.com icon will be included in the next Net2Phone software release, says Katz.

"The shortcoming of e-commerce is the difficulty of personally contacting the retailers," says Katz. "Web retailers have these dreams that shopping with them is so convenient you will never need to contact them directly."

That type of environment already exists to an amazing degree, as IDT discovered in the process of assembling its venture. IDT found some individual retail sites lacking in such detail and contact capabilities that it had to directly call many of the retailers now on ezsurf.com to collect significant information about ordering processes, payment methods and shipping. "That made it a very painstaking process," says Katz.

The scarcity of detail and contact convenience is especially hard on international visitors to retail sites who may need to ask retailers important questions about currency or overseas shipping, and otherwise must make an international long-distance call to find out that information. This was a major driver in IDT's strategy for simplified contact because many of its Net2Phone users are dispersed globally.

Katz stresses that IDT Net2Phone isn't trying to be a Web retailer, but rather is "providing a bridge" to e-commerce retailers through the advantages of IP calling.

Advancement also is happening on another level. Balisoft, a Toronto-based software vendor barely 18 months old, may be the only vendor devoted to developing e-commerce customer care software. Its offerings, LiveContact and E-MailContact, include capabilities for both IP voice and e-mail contact between consumers and Web-based retailers.

Balisoft's LiveContact software features an icon to activate IP-based calling, and the company licenses IP voice gateway software from third parties. "We're not in the IP telephony business," says Mike Carr, president of Balisoft.

However, like IDT Net2Phone, Balisoft started its strategy with the recognition that "the biggest difficulty with e-commerce is how you get customer service while on-line," says Carr. He says this condition was encouraged by a false belief among the infant throngs of Web retailers that selling on-line was cheap and easy because you didn't have to hire or manage sales people.

The result is that Web retailer customer service ranges from non-existent to inconvenient. Visitors to Amazon.com, the king of e-commerce, will find that the customer service phone number is almost impossible to locate. The only other hope is an auto-response e-mail system that could take seven days to respond. Other sites are more helpful, but not much more. Wal-Mart's on-line store, for example, directs customers to the nearest Wal-Mart store in the physical world-not out of the question since you can't drive in any direction for 15 minutes without seeing a Wal-Mart.

The quickening evolution of e-commerce is dictating that limited customer care strategies will not be enough for much longer.

"E-commerce looks like it's finally coming into the mainstream, and retailers are beginning to realize they need aspects of customer service," says Carr. "The Internet was a marketing tool, and now it's a much more serious tool of commerce."