Call centers feeling Web's impact

By Ellen Messmer
Network World, 08/21/00

Traditional call centers, staffed by customer service representatives taking in-bound toll-free calls, are starting to add Web-based means for interacting with the public. These customer service agents now engage in e-mail, online chat and Web collaboration - in which an agent takes control of a customer's browser to guide the person to specific Web pages - in addition to traditional phone communications.

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However, there's the practical need to keep the number of these interactive Web sessions to a manageable level. For that reason, businesses in greater numbers also have begun using customer relationship management (CRM) software called Web FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), which let customers help themselves.

Self-service FAQ software lets a corporation post a searchable list of answers to the most commonly asked questions about products. That way, customers can read information on the Web before turning to e-mail or interactive chat for help. Web FAQ software typically tracks how many visitors use it.

Putting Web FAQs to use

Polaroid, for example, is using RightNow Technologies' CRM software for Web FAQs and customer e-mail management.

Polaroid's manager of worldwide service communications, Yale Cohen, says Web FAQs are an effective way to keep e-mail volume under control even as the number of visitors to Polaroid.com rises.

If a visitor finds that the Web FAQ is inadequate for whatever reason, that person can fill out a Web form. This form is then routed to the appropriate customer service agent, who would typically e-mail a response.

"The FAQ has cut down dramatically on the number of e-mails to our customer call centers," Cohen says. Polaroid began using the RightNow software for Web FAQs on a hosted basis last winter. Since then, customer contact reports show that customer e-mail volume has dropped by about one-third, while the number of visitors each month to Polaroid.com has roughly doubled to 50,000.

Research firms contend that Web FAQs are also the least-expensive means to answer questions. According to Forrester Research and Giga Information Group, Web self-service overall averages $1 per customer contact, while an 800-number telephone conversation can range from $10 to $33, and e-mail from $3 to $10.

One reason for the upward spike in Polaroid Web visits is that AOL last June purchased Polaroid digital cameras to sell directly online. Polaroid's call centers handle postsale questions for online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

"We can tell retailers 'We have a dynamic help site so you won't have to provide the call center to answer customer questions,' " Cohen points out. "It's a valuable asset for us." So valuable that Polaroid plans to Web-enable its call centers across Europe for multilingual support.

With these kinds of changes, it's no wonder the traditional call center is now being referred to as the "customer contact center."

However, Web-based CRM is still so new that many corporations, including Symantec, have written their own software rather than bought an off-the-shelf package.

Michael Fischer, Symantec's supervisor of online sales, says the company chose to write its own Web FAQ, e-mail management and chat software because the software available a few years ago wasn't that impressive. "We looked at Siebel and other companies at the time and decided to roll our own," Fischer says.

Symantec is now looking at CRM offerings afresh, given that there are now more than three dozen companies selling some form of Web-based CRM products.

Many of the larger CRM vendors are adding Web components to the software suites they have sold for almost a decade to traditional call centers.

Oracle, PeopleSoft (which bought Vantive) and Clarify (purchased by Nortel Networks late last year) are among the big CRM players whose latest call center software suites include Web components.

On close inspection, all have distinct differences. For instance, the Oracle 11i software suite - which requires a corporation to use the Oracle 8i database - includes Web FAQ and e-mail management, but no Web collaboration. That missing component is expected to be added as an upgrade next year when Oracle integrates Cisco software for Web collaboration into its offering (Cisco's Customer Contact Software was obtained via Cisco's purchase of WebLine Communications).

Although Nortel and Cisco are bitter rivals competing in vast network equipment markets, Cisco uses Nortel's Clarify software for traditional call center management, and Web-based FAQ, e-mail and chat at the Cisco Technical Assistance Center.

"I'm not happy about using our competitor's product and giving them money," admits Steve Gordon, the Cisco Technical Assistance Center director.

However, Cisco began using software from Clarify years before Nortel purchased the company. Cisco organized its call center, manned by 1,000 engineers, to provide phone- and Web-based assistance on difficult technical questions to thousands of enterprise customers, ISPs and telephone companies.

The engineers use the WebLine collaborative Web browsing software to guide customers to specific Web FAQ content, letting them review it, then continue the dialog by phone if questions remain.

Several CRM software vendors, among them Cisco, WebDialogs and FaceTime Communications, believe voice over IP can be used for direct voice communications over the Web between customers and customer contact centers.

Although a lot of effort is being put into developing voice-over-IP CRM products and hosted services, many corporations say they just aren't that interested.

"We just don't think it's sophisticated enough yet," says Jean Ballweg, supervisor at the Internet contact center at retailer Lands' End, which uses Cisco's Web CRM collaboration software.