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News In Review
June 1, 1998

Web-Based Customer Care

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PC games maker LucasArts Entertainment Co. says its customer-support Web site paid off by enabling the company to cut seven support positions and reduce phone calls to less than one-fifth of total support inquiries. The site is based on Inference Corp.'s CasePoint Web Server, which uses case-based reasoning to retrieve the right solution to customers' problems from a knowledge base. "It's doing the work of people who would have been answering phones," says Brian Carlson, knowledge base administrator at LucasArts.

Until now, most Web-based customer service systems have been used in in dustries that serve highly connected constituencies, such as technology, financial services, and telecommunication firms. Hewlett-Packard, which has been operating its Customer Care Web since 1995, does 10% more customer service on the Web per month, says Doug Moore, worldwide manager of online services for HP's product support division. A year ago, HP handled about half of its customer service inquiries on the Web. Today, that figure is closer to 80%, Moore says.

HP last week rolled out enhancements to the site that include an E-mail notification service that informs customers of software up- dates and frequently asked questions. "This tilts our whole interaction toward proactively watching out for customers-letting them know when they need to know things instead of waiting for them to call us," Moore says.

In the next six months, HP will implement E-mail tools that will let customers pose questions that generate an automatic database search and provide an automated response. "The next big thing for the industry is to manage knowledge, to be able to search through it efficiently to give customers an automated way to submit trouble tickets," says Moore.

But some observers point out that automated support systems can distance customers rather than pull them in (see column, p. 160). The goal of Web-based service should be to enhance the customer's experience. As companies like Schwab deliver products and services via the Internet, they are looking for ways to deliver support that's built into their offerings. "The ability to provide support in the same medium as the product is really satisfying," says Schwab's Washburn.

Schwab is piloting a 100-user implementation of Acuity's WebCenter to provide technical support to executives. Users can search for their own answers via the intranet, submit trouble tickets, or conduct live chats with support staff. The support group handles 100 to 150 requests per day, about half of which require field calls. With Web-based support, "we predict we'll be able to re solve most client challenges without a visit," Washburn says.

Schwab chose chat software for real-time communications because IP telephony products are still too immature. But networking vendors are trying to change that. Last week, Lucent Technologies announced a line of IP telephony products, including a switch, that will make it easier for carriers to offer high-quality Internet telephony services. "Voice over IP connections will now have the same guaranteed level of service that people get over the public [voice] network today," says Bill O'Shea, president of Lucent's data networking systems. Carrierswill begin testing the Lucent equipment next month.

Until IP telephony improves, some companies are using products that combine traditional phone support with Web support. American Finance & Investment will add to its Web site this month a Java-based application from Webline Communications that lets customers with two phone lines click a button on a Web page and receive a call from an AFI agent, w ho can synchronize his or her browser with the customer's browser and guide the customer through loan documents.

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