January 2000

BY ERIK LOUNSBURY, EDITOR, C@LL CENTER SOLUTIONS™

Among the many companies that have made the transition from a purely brick-and-mortar business to a successful online product provider is cameraworld.com (formerly Camera World Company), a Portland, Oregon-based retailer of photography, digital imaging, video and consumer electronics equipment. Established in 1977, cameraworld.com turned to eFusion, Inc. to establish channels for its online customers to get help from its call center representatives.

eFusion's Push to Talk (PtT) technology allows cameraworld.com shoppers to connect directly to call center agents from the Internet without disconnecting from their online session. The Push to Talk (PtT) button gives cameraworld.com consumers immediate access to answers, and a convenient way to complete online transactions. When a visitor presses the Call For My Price button, eFusion's Push to Talk (PtT) technology automatically detects whether or not the caller's computer is able to place an Internet call. Then, based on the capabilities of the caller's computer, the system will present the caller with up to three options for completing the call: call cameraworld.com from your computer, where the system will initiate an Internet call to the cameraworld.com call center over an Internet telephony connection (VoIP option); have cameraworld.com call you, also referred to as the Call Me Now option, where the system will initiate a telephone call to a number supplied by the caller and to the call center and then connect the caller and agent; and chat with a cameraworld.com agent, which initiates a text chat session between the caller and the agent.

cameraworld.com President and Chief Operating Officer Walt Mulvey said that "the company with the most channels for consumers is going to win," and in September, cameraworld.com had over 31,000 calls from the Internet (a number that was sure to grow as the holidays approached), versus 9,000 calls from their catalog, with an average call time of four and a half minutes. Mulvey said that his company wants to simplify purchasing for its customers, and the technology from eFusion is helping to do just that. The company expected to reach $60 million in Web-based revenue for 1999.

A Web site that will certainly be busy after the holiday gift season and much-ballyhooed turning of the year is that of NoWonder. "NoWonder's mission," explained NoWonder President and CEO Anthony Lye, "is to create an open marketplace where customers and their problems can be matched up to experts." Through NoWonder's Web site, individuals and companies are put in contact with thousands of application-specific support experts around the world.

A vital part of the NoWonder online support marketplace is NoWonder's Talkback desktop agent, which collects hardware and software data from a user's computer to aid in problem diagnosis, thus cutting down the time needed to come up with a solution.

Through the NoWonder site, customers can build relationships with resource providers, and the users provide a grading system of resource providers. Users can also access self-help through NoWonder's knowledge base, applicable support communities within NoWonder and other sources available on the Internet. NoWonder also provides users with a single invoice for services and offers online reporting and monthly billing.

Microsoft recently announced it would deploy the Talkback Support Server to improve its support for users of Microsoft Windows. The Talkback software solutions interact with Windows systems to gather information on more than 150 system elements. This information is sent back to Microsoft product support or development staff via the Internet. The information can then be used by Microsoft to identify and solve software problems more quickly. Other companies that use NoWonder solutions to enhance their customer support include About.com, Autodesk, Inc., BellAtlantic.net, CNET, Excite@Home, Netscape Communications Corp., Remedy Corp. and Pivotal.

“E-ho, e-ho, e-ho,” Said Electric Santa
Being one who severely abhors the crowds and frustrations of shopping at the mall during the Christmas season (or any season for that matter) and who also would rather not wait on hold on the phone, I figured I was a perfect candidate for online shopping, so I plugged in the computer and a-shopping I went.

The first purchases I made were for my nephew from eToys.com. Luckily, my brother provided me with the brand of wooden toy trains, Richard Scarry’s Busytown made by Brio, so that was a breeze. I then went to Williams-Sonoma and quickly ordered a pasta maker, colander and pasta bowl for my sister-in-law. Being just two weeks before Christmas, UPS 2nd Day delivery came in handy. (To avoid a massive shipping bill, I did break down and make one trip on a rainy Tuesday night to the Williams-Sonoma store in the mall to buy a KitchenAid mixer, but made it in and out in 20 minutes with the mixer, a toaster and a few stocking stuffers.)

Amazon.com was a frequent stop in my online shopping sojourns, buying a lovely book about Cistercian abbeys and one on the meaning of classical architecture, several CDs, video tapes of “The Avengers” and even a Black and Decker hand sander. Amazon.com’s order history is a nice feature, providing you the ability to check order status. I also had a go on their auction section, and bought a $35 book, John Julius Norwich’s A Short History of Byzantium, for the beginning bid price of $15 (I was the only bidder). My only problem with the Amazon.com site is that they make it too easy and one could very quickly max out one’s credit card if not paying attention. At least in a brick-and-mortar bookstore one is limited by the sheer weight of the books one can carry.

At The Company Store’s site it was easy to find the shadow-stripe pajamas my wife wanted, and they even called me the next morning (a Sunday) to tell me the item was backordered.

For one of my brothers, I thought a good gift would be a range finder, which uses a laser to calculate the distance between you and any object, which, in the case of a golfer, would be your ball and the pin. After doing a search, I found the best price for a Bushnell RangeFinder at the ShotSavers Golf site. While looking around on their site, I also found a gift (a left-handed pitching wedge) for my other brother, so I ordered that also. The next morning I received an e-mail confirmation of my order, plus a note to call “J.J.” at ShotSavers on their 800 number. When I called J.J., he wanted to get the specifics of my brother’s game so he could design the club for him (a six-foot-three, occasional golfer). The RangeFinder arrived from Florida at my house in Connecticut in two days — the club had yet to arrive when we headed south for Christmas on the 21st of December.

The big disappointment of my turn as E-Claus was the soaps and shaving set I ordered from Caswell-Massey. They provide a line of fine soaps and toiletries (I recommend the Roger & Gallet soaps), but the only shipping option on their Web site was “standard.” Unfortunately, the standard shipping had not arrived by the time we left for the holiday. By contrast, two gifts I ordered the same day by phone from the Blarney Woolen Mills in Blarney, County Cork, Ireland, arrived on the 20th. (Although they have a Web site, I used the phone for ordering because I like hearing an Irish accent and the operators are always so courteous.)
At one point during my shopping, my wife, who is constantly complaining that the Internet is too slow, bet me I couldn’t order a coat in under five minutes, but since I had the Orvis catalog, I could zero in on the Harris Tweed I wanted and completed my purchase in under five minutes.

So, what did I learn from my online Christmas adventure? I like the convenience of being able to shop at any time and not being forced to jostle with the masses at the mall. But, it is time-consuming — I was so absorbed by my shopping one Saturday night I missed the 10 o’clock showing of “Iron Chef” and also wasn’t paying attention and missed taping the beginning of the 1 a.m. repeat of the “Bamboo Shoot Battle,” thus missing the profile of the challenger.

What I find to be the biggest drawback of buying books online is the fact that one is denied the rapture of a bookstore: rummaging the shelves and coming on unexpected volumes, the smell of the paper and the ink, the size and weight of a book, the typeface, design and illustration of the books. The Internet is a sensually deficient medium and many Web sites are not easy to navigate, especially I would imagine for those who are only occasional users. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned is order early if you want to get everything on time. One can only hope that the successes of this year’s shopping season will lead to a decline in the tons of catalogs that fill up mailboxes (and subsequently landfills) in the months before Christmas. I look forward to more single-sheet flyers pointing shoppers to Web sites in the years to come.

The author may be contacted at elounsbury@tmcnet.com.