InformationWeek

October 4, 1999

Human Touch

A new wave of E-service offerings blends the Web, E-mail, and voice by bringing people back into the picture

By Jeff Sweat

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he promise of Web- and E-mail-based customer service lies, in part, in its ability to lower costs by taking support people out of the picture. But it's an approach that can backfire when frustrated customers take their business elsewhere. Now, a new class of E-service products is bringing support personnel back into the customer-service loop.

New E-mail and Internet customer-management products are marked by heightened human interaction: telephone and chat woven into Web sessions, combined voice and E-mail queues, and integration with traditional call centers and customer-relationship management suites. "The Web is a wonderful thing, but it's only one dimension," says Bill Crager, managing director at Rittenhouse Financial Services in Radnor, Pa. "It doesn't have that human response that's so critical in our business."

E-service vendors are addressing that need in the next few weeks with updated products to better handle the confluence of Web, E-mail, and voice communications. They're also broadening their offerings into more complete customer-service suites.

Next week, NetDialog Inc. will roll out NetDialog 2.5, software that manages live chat and voice activity. The product will give customers the chance to communicate directly with a representative via text-based chat or a conventional phone call, as well as give companies control over which calls go to which reps, and when (see story, p. 53).

WebLine Communications Corp., bought by Cisco Systems last month for $325 million, this week will unveil WebLine Media Router, which routes Internet and E-mail customers to call-center representatives. The vendor plans later this year to integrate the product with Cisco's Internet Call Manager, which handles call distribution.

Later this month, eGain Communications Corp. will debut software that combines E-mail management, live assistance, and electronic-marketing functions. Shortly thereafter, it will deliver a version of the suite that integrates with Aspect Communications Corp.'s call-center applications. And Brightware Inc. said last week that it will link its E-service software to applications from Siebel Systems Inc., the CRM market leader.

The combination of live communication and electronic media typically doesn't cut costs -but it can raise a company's level of service. Retailer Lands' End Inc. just launched Lands' End Live, an E-commerce site that builds on WebLine's Collaboration Server. The goal: to let customers shop online while taking advantage of the product and customer knowledge of Lands' End reps, who average nine years of experience. "We want to make the Internet a very personal experience," says Jeremy Hauser, the Dodgeville, Wis., retailer's research and development analyst.

The system lets customers initiate a Web chat session or phone call with a representative to learn more about specific products. The rep can then take control of the customer's browser and point to the relevant information online.

Rittenhouse Financial Services has taken a similar tack using eGain's Web Collaboration System. When customers with complex financial questions contact customer-service representatives via online chat, the reps can pilot the customer's Web browser through the site and share presentations, graphic charts, and other information in an effort to help.

The system may not save the company money. But Rittenhouse differentiates itself from competitors with high-quality customer service. "It's never been a cost issue. It's about higher-touch service," Crager says.

Not For Everyone
But live chat and telephone communication aren't for all companies. "In a sense, it gets you back to a call-center environment," says Rob Garduno, product support manager for Excite@Home Inc. in Redwood City, Calif. That means having to handle call queues and answer requests almost instantly and around the clock-a complicated effort. "How effective would that be for more than 40 million users?" asks Garduno.

While Excite@Home is considering providing live interaction for promotions or during the holiday shopping season, its main concern is reducing the number of E-mails handled by its staff. To do that, the company is using Kana Communications Inc.'s Kana Response. This week, Kana will unveil a suite that includes Kana Classify, which will send automatic, tailored E-mail replies to online queries.

Other companies are struggling to provide basic customer service over the Internet. Homepage.com, which manages home pages for about 450,000 members, will use NetDialog to handle the 1,000 or so E-mails it receives every day. But the Pasadena, Calif., company isn't likely to add phone or chat interaction soon. "Everybody likes to have a person hand-hold them. But right now, it's a big step to do instant responses to E-mail," says Homepage.com president Mary Lou Fulton.

Still, investors see potential in E-service vendors. Kana and eGain have combined market capitalizations in the billions of dollars after September initial public offerings. Brightware is planning its own IPO.

Not surprisingly, CRM vendors, notably Siebel and Oracle, want a piece of the market. Oracle made its debut last week with E-mail Interaction Management, software that includes context indexing, which helps determine E-mail content for routing and response, and advanced queuing, which pulls together incoming E-mail, fax, and phone messages.

Oracle executives say businesses will be drawn to E-service products that handle multiple contact channels. "You may deploy E-mail first, but it won't be the only channel you deploy," says Mark Barrenechea, senior VP of Oracle's CRM Products division.

But E-service specialists continue to attract customers because the CRM companies aren't providing all the needed functionality. While online furniture company Living.com is using Oracle's applications suite, it's using Acuity Corp.'s Acuity WebCenter to provide Web customers interactive support and sales consultations.

The limited scope of smaller vendors' applications means they can be implemented quickly and cheaply. Rittenhouse's Crager says the WebLine system went up in a matter of weeks. The same can't be said for CRM systems such as Siebel's, which Rittenhouse is also implementing and which usually takes months to go live.

Meanwhile, the smaller vendors continue to integrate their E-mail and Web customer-management functions with CRM and call-center packages from other vendors. They know doing so will keep their own customers happy. For example, Sage Software Systems Inc., a vendor of business-intelligence software, has standardized on Aspect's call centers, so eGain's relationship with Aspect gives eGain the inside track at Sage. Products that don't integrate aren't acceptable, says Jim Moore, VP of customer support and information services for Sage. That's because E-service is most powerful when it makes allowances for customers to leave the electronic world.

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