Web-based walk-through: Customer care system allows CSRs to serve as guides for Web sites

While the World Wide Web allows carriers to offer "self-serve" customer care, the quality of that care is contingent on how well the interface is designed and how well customers can navigate a site.

For customers who may be facing a bewildering array of products, services and pricing plans, a helpful "guide" to the site could be just the thing to curb frustration and encourage customers to return.

While several vendors are trying to provide systems for on-line assistance, many solutions are based on voice over Internet protocol (IP). Unfortunately, most users still lack the hardware and client software to use Internet telephony applications, and standards issues still need to be resolved for these systems to reach a wide audience.

Anticipating a need to reach all Internet users, SiteBridge Corp. has introduced a chat-based Internet customer care application that will allow customer service representatives to walk customers through transactions. The CSRs "take" customers to pertinent areas of their sites, allowing carriers to manage customer interactions in a more positive way.

"While Web sites are a great way to streamline the interaction between businesses and customers, there are always instances when you need to connect with a human," said Wendell Lansford, president and CEO of SiteBridge, a New York-based developer of Web-based call center solutions. "Giving the customer some one-on-one guidance can avoid that feeling of being lost in a site."

SiteBridge's flagship product, CustomerNow, allows CSRs to communicate and "collaboratively browse" sites with customers through a text-based, real-time interface. CSRs can handle multiple customer interactions simultaneously, and the customer's ability to interact with representatives can be set according to how valuable that customer is.

One of the system's most unique features is WorksEverywhere technology, known within the company as "the Nose." "We call it that because it sniffs out the user's environment and lets the system understand what the customer is working with," said Lansford. "Some users have the latest browsers, some don't have Java-enabled browsers, some are using WebTV. We don't assume anything, and we don't make it into a lowest-common-denominator experience. Instead, we adjust to the customer, so we can work with anything he's using on his computer."

The technology allows the system to archive all interactions, rating the effectiveness of responses to customer questions.

The initial version of the system doesn't incorporate voice-over-IP technology, but the next version likely will include it as an option, Lansford said.

For carriers, the system could help major business customers resolve questions of service and help educate users on the self-service aspects of their Web sites. "It's only 10% of the users who need to use the interaction features," said Lansford. "But for those 10%, this makes all the difference in finding what they need or going away frustrated."

Analysts said that while the chat approach is a less than ideal interface, SiteBridge's technical approach is sound.

"They recognize that not everyone has an equivalent browser, and that's critical to getting a mass market to use a Web site," said David Cooperstein, an analyst at Forrester Research.

However, if a carrier allowed all its customers to chat on-line with CSRs, the system's usefulness could be eroded. "Unless carriers can use this to up-sell customers or close sales, they may be reluctant to use a chat-based system," he said.

BAY BRIDGES PUBLIC NETWORK AND IP Bay Networks has introduced the Voice Gateway 4000 hardware/software solution that acts as a bridge between the public network and IP data networks, allowing seamless voice communications. Service providers can use the solution to interface with local telephone exchanges and give customers a toll bypass options.

MCI OFFERS EDI SERVICE MCI now offers its customers Simple Form EC, a Web-based application designed to make it easier for large and medium-sized enterprises to electronically communicate with their non-electronic data interchange-enabled trading partners.