E-Commerce Care

What happens after a subscriber buys service from you online?

Dreams of wireless e-commerce (m-commerce) — buying anything, anytime, anywhere — have e-tailers and wireless-service providers giddy with the possibilities. But the nightmare of support after the sale is giving industry watchers and more than a few customers the sweats.

In the heady world of hyper-competitive e-commerce, how can you couple the allure of mobile shopping with the kind of customer care that keeps buyers coming back?

How you tackle that question will go a long way in determining if you survive or if you sit out the m-commerce boom.

The sell-first, serve-later business model is swiftly becoming a relic. E-merchants have been known to offer products, hope they will fly, then worry about customer care later. Try that with m-commerce, and you may find yourself on the sidelines faster than you can say eBay.

"As these industries mature, you'll see the barrier to entry for new organizations will include a more sophisticated level of customer service from the get-go," Kevin Anderson, Zamba Solutions mobile computing competency director, said. "The ingrained players will have a certain level of customer service. You'll have to at least be on par."

Having both product and after-the-sale customer care ready from day one may never be more important than right now if your e-commerce and eventually m-commerce solution is to succeed.

Amid April's NASDAQ nose dive, there was grim news from Forrester Research, which predicted that most online retailers would be gone by 2001. One estimate predicted just one of every six Internet companies would be alive by the end of next year.

Far more positive predictions remain for wireless. Digital wireless users are outpacing Internet users, and the Yankee Group has said that within three years, more wireless devices will access the Internet than PCs — with Internet-capable handsets reaching nearly 50 million users by 2002. That number, some believe, will more than quadruple by 2005.

All of which serves up a huge opportunity for the handset to advance the e-commerce boom dramatically. Overall e-commerce should reach $15 billion in 2000, and perhaps reach the staggering trillion-dollar mark by 2003. By 2004, it's believed mobile devices will deliver more than 40% of e-commerce revenues. The Yankee Group has estimated there will be more than one billion Web-enabled mobile devices by 2003, with more than 60% of transactions occurring via mobile devices.

"Most people won't have their first experience on the Internet through a PC, but on a wireless device," Edward J. Zander, Sun Microsystems president, told attendees at this year's spring Comdex technology show.

Follow Up on Follow-Through
The potential of all of those wireless Internet users means now is the time to work out the bugs in your own m-commerce solutions. Experts say you should implement a customer-service application that provides an open order-management system and make sure it includes order fulfillment from point of sale right up to the moment of delivery.

Part of Sprint PCS' e-care solution is sending a welcome package to new subscribers.

The welcome packages arrive about 10 days after customers activate their phones. It gives them more information about the service, includes a thank-you note and suggests tips for setting up commonly used features, such as voice mail. All of this information is sent either by regular mail or e-mail.

Then, between one and seven days after receiving their welcome packages, customers are called by Sprint PCS customer-care agents asking if they have any questions.

"Customer-care follow-up is very important because the wireless industry is so competitive that Sprint PCS likes to set itself apart," said Jeff Chaltas, Sprint PCS spokesperson. "We've got to provide better service than anyone else."

Outsourcing your customer care is another option. GERS is just one of the many technical-solutions firms offering customer-care applications.

According to Rich Harmatiuk, GERS vice president, the company's customer-service application, Customer Direct, offers a complete monitoring system that steps in after the purchase and follows the merchandise practically to the customer's door.

There's a confirmation e-mail after the order. When the order gets filled, an e-mail says, 'We've now filled the order and are preparing for shipment.' When it leaves the dock, an e-mail says, 'It's left the dock, and you can expect it in 48 hours,' Harmatiuk said.

Tracking and e-mail notices will help abate misdirected and duplicate shipments, but what about live support?

Customer Direct also incorporates call-center management that can handle phone, fax or e-mail service inquiries and "route those to the right people," Harmatiuk said.

One of the biggest developments in e-commerce customer care is what research firm In-Stat Group calls Web-based customer interaction (WCI). WCI applications use four primary technologies to allow for real-time Web-based interaction — e-mail response, chat, Web collaboration and voice over IP (VoIP).

Of the four types of WCI, Sprint PCS currently only uses e-mail as a way of communicating with customers, but Chaltas said chat services were being evaluated as a way to improve customer support. Likewise, VoIP may be a future offering.

"We find e-mail the most effective of all these means," Chaltas said. "It may not be as quick as the phone, but it is usually more efficient. We e-mail a reply in 24 hours, usually less. This way we can research a situation better and give a more educated response."

In-Stat's research forecasts a potential boom in WCI, with about 1,600 medium-to-large business Web sites using a WCI application. Big names such as Oracle and Quintas are expected to join the WCI parade soon. By 2004, the WCI market could reach $1.8 billion.

"Complementing traditional CRM (customer relationship management) solutions, a combination of start-ups and nimble vendors characterize the volatile landscape of this emerging WCI market," said In-Stat analyst Kirsten Cloninger. "As Web-based customer-interaction technologies integrate with, rather than complement, traditional CRM solutions, the two markets will begin to converge."

WCI indeed may address the promise of e-commerce customer care, with its ability to take customers by the hand after the sale. Customers can get real-time updates about their orders and discuss the purchases with customer representatives. But fully integrating the traditional customer-service experience and shrinking it to the handset will unlock a whole new customer base.

Going Mobile
M-commerce is opening the door to a new era of customer care.

"Ten to 15% of our eCRM solutions are going ahead with the wireless extension," said Shannon Denton, Xcelerate COO. "We expect that to increase by the end of the year to 50%."

And the need for more m-commerce-ready solutions is rising. Donna Auguste, Freshwater, CEO, said her company's involvement in wireless-customer-service monitoring hasn't reached the level of demand it receives from traditional e-commerce merchants — yet. Auguste said Freshwater is taking a closer look at scaling its solution to fit the mobile environment.

A few vendors already are equipping merchants with m-commerce solutions. Xcelerate, for example, has an application specially designed to help emerging companies establish competitive architectures for the wireless Web. The company recently helped virtual start-up Kosherfinder.com — a site devoted to helping consumers of kosher foods find products and services — revamp its site. Xcelerate added WAP-accessibility and an end-to-end solution to Kosherfinder.com's site. Now the company is able to capture mobile users and better serve them, all of which gives it the opportunity to increase its revenue.

Clark (cclark@kc.rr.com) is a freelance writer based in Lee's Summit, MO.