TeaLeaf Upgrades Its Software For Recording Web Site User Sessions

TeaLeaf Technology this week enhanced its Web site user-experience recording software, adding a repository for storing recorded user sessions and support for Web sites that incorporate Ajax technology.

TeaLeaf's products are used to record and play back online visitors' interactions with a Web site. They help companies improve the designs of their Web sites to make them more navigable and to identify problems with Web site functions. Some 200 companies including Wells Fargo, Priceline.com, and Tower Records currently use TeaLeaf software.

The new release, TeaLeaf CX, includes a repository companies can use to record, store, replay, and analyze every visitor session from its Web site. Four new applications work with the repository, including TeaLeaf cxImpact, which provides reports on Web site problems that affect visitors and analyzes the business impact of those issues. The cxImpact software replaces the vendor's older RealiTea application.

TeaLeaf cxReveal, which can be integrated with customer service applications, makes it easier to provide customer service and support representatives with playbacks of Web site user sessions. TeaLeaf cxVerify creates historical records of visitor Web site interactions for audit purposes, as well as for dispute resolution, such as when a company needs to determine just what a customer did or didn't do on a Web site. And TeaLeaf cxConnect offers a way to integrate the TeaLeaf CX apps with other Web site analysis and business intelligence tools.

Online auto insurance company Esurance has been using TeaLeaf software for more than two years to spot and resolve problems with its Web site, says Marj Davies, Esurance Internet operations director. Using the TeaLeaf replay capabilities, which timestamp when a customer was online, the company has even spotted cases where people signed up for auto insurance and immediately filed a claim--after they had an accident. Davies says the new cxVerify will make it easier to store such sessions for fraud investigations.

Esurance also will use the cxReveal interface to help the insurer's customer service representatives tap into recorded Web site sessions when assisting customers, Davies says. And cxConnect will link TeaLeaf data with the Cognos business intelligence tools Esurance uses for Web site statistical analysis.

The new TeaLeaf software also supports Web 2.0 applications built using Ajax, which shifts some Web site interaction capabilities from a company's Web server out to the user's browser and desktop computer. Such a shift makes data capture difficult for older tools.

The new TeaLeaf products will be available later this month. Prices start around $70,000 to $100,000, based on the size of the online application being monitored.