August 2000

A Match Made In Cyberspace

BY RICH TEHRANI, GROUP PUBLISHER, TMC

After college, Harris moved from our home state of Connecticut to Georgia, where I would get a chance to visit him on occasion. On one such trip, I spied Harris reading an issue of Premiere magazine, a publication devoted to the film industry. I didn't think much of what Harris was doing until I noticed he had a notebook open and was taking notes on what he was reading. I thought to myself, "Now I know why this kid always annihilated me in Trivial Pursuit." Further examination, however, showed that I was mistaken... Harris wasn't taking notes, he was doing something much more obsessive.

It seems that Premiere magazine always lists the latest movies showing in theaters and includes rankings given to the movies by various critics. Harris decided that he too would rank the individual movies on the list and when he was finished, he would compare his rankings against the rankings given by each critic. Over time, Harris was able to determine which critics had the same movie taste as he. Armed with this knowledge, Harris was able to predict which movies he was predisposed to like, based on certain critics' opinions. I queried Harris, quite suspiciously, as to whether such a ridiculous scheme could work, and he swore that it worked well for him.

That was over 10 years ago and to be honest, I never thought this incident was significant nor did I think it would ever be something I would reference again.

However, a few weeks ago, a similar event took place that I again thought I would never need to further reference. This time, I was using Napster.com to download some music. Napster fascinates me. The very concept of being able to download music from around the globe over a network of computers is so new and so amazing that the technology must have myriad business applications. So I logged onto Napster's site to give it a whirl to see what ideas it might generate. Nothing really exciting happened as I began to search for some music online. That was until I was working late one day in the office and I remembered that I had a disc in my home CD player but not in my car. I felt like listening to a particular song at that moment, so I found it and began to download it. Thirty seconds into the download, I saw a Napster instant message appear on my screen. "Hey, what's up?" is all it said. I noticed the user was the same one from whom I was downloading the song. I, of course, ever so grateful that this stranger was sharing bandwidth, processing power and, of course, music with me, wrote back "Thanks for the song." "No problem," my newfound cyber friend responded. He then asked where I lived. I responded, "Connecticut, about 40 minutes from Manhattan." It turns out my friend lives in Brooklyn, NY. Although I had an absolute avalanche of work to contend with, I thought it would be fun to have a virtual chat with a person I didn't know. Somehow, the fact that we liked the same music helped me bond with this unknown user. I had the feeling that this person was looking for new friends, and what better way to find potential friends than to look for people who have similar musical tastes? My new cyber friend began recommending other songs in his collection and asked me about my favorites as well. I was astounded by what was happening. I was supposed to be working, but this stranger seemed to have so much in common with me that I felt compelled to communicate with him. It was as if an old friend had called to speak with me and the polite thing to do was to speak with him for a while. In fact, long after the download was over, we were still chatting.

In effect, Napster has become much more than just a vehicle for exchanging music; it is the ultimate virtual community maker. There is no need to enter chat rooms of similar interests; all you need do is download a song from someone who happens to be in the mood to converse and in a few seconds, you've made a new cyber acquaintance.

The previous example of my friend Harris shows that if you can measure your taste in a particular area against others, you will eventually find people who have similar tastes. Once you've identified your "taste soul mates," you can collaborate with them and more easily determine whether you are likely to enjoy a certain album, movie, book or work of art. To illustrate this concept, whenever I go into a record store and find either an employee or another customer who seems to have music tastes similar to my own, I usually end up buying three times more music than I had planned. Before I finished this column, I took a trip to my hometown Tower Records and left empty-handed. I was in the mood to buy some new music, but no one seemed inclined or available to suggest any good songs to me. The last time I entered the same store, I went with a friend who shares my musical taste and ended up with 10 CDs, and leaving $160 poorer.

My recent chat experience on Napster exposed me briefly to the concept of finding a taste soul mate. This example is extremely limited as I was speaking to a single individual. Imagine if I could use the entire Napster base of users (who number greater than 20 million) and analyze each of them in an effort to find multiple taste soul mates?

The previous examples, albeit limited, show that the concept of taste soul mates is sound. If you really could apply this concept over a huge population of users, you would have to be even more accurate.

In the Napster example, Napster could easily scan the songs on each user's hard drive (assuming artist and title names have not been tampered with) and with this view of their customer base, could cross-market to users based on their preferences. If Napster was able to accurately predict the types of music you would like with any accuracy, they might even be able to charge for the service. Imagine, Napster with a revenue model.... What is the world coming to?

Whenever I write about controversial topics like Napster, I tend to get volumes of reader mail either praising me or taking me to task, depending on my stance and the reader's point of view. In the hopes of minimizing the latter type of "fan" mail, I will shift to a different and much less controversial example of acquiring music online.

Wouldn't it be great if you could go to a site like CDNOW, enter a few artists you like and have the site suggest other artists and albums you are likely to enjoy? In fact, you can do this just by going to CDNOW.com, clicking on the gifts tab and then proceeding to Album Advisor. I entered Sting, Phil Collins and Dire Straits and was given a list of albums, most of which I liked and a few I definitely didn't. Some of the suggested albums were unknown to me and I can't wait to try them out.

The company behind this technology is Net Perceptions and they call this process real-time personalization or real-time recommendation. In a customer interaction center, you could use this technology to recommend new products to customers who are calling to purchase established products. In one example, Net Perceptions told me they were able to help a cataloger in Britain increase customer upselling from 20 percent to 40 percent. When the agents in the call center were interviewed after the sale, they too were amazed. Prior to using the taste soul mate technology, they were relying on recommendations based on common sense. For example, before installing this technology, they would suggest a sweater to a customer buying wool slacks. Now, the computer can suggest that the same customer purchase something like towels, something totally unrelated to their original purchase.

Harris Sugarman had a great idea and he exploited it to find taste soul mates for himself. He was able to spend his time and money much more efficiently by aligning his movie viewing with those of others who liked similar movies. The ability to leverage this same concept to millions of Web surfers and callers into contact centers will certainly make this technology even more accurate. As real-time personalization technology advances and taste profile databases grow huge, we should be able to accurately predict lots of different things we would like. I look forward to the day when I can use real-time personalization to suggest restaurants, scenic routes, types of food, laptops, MP3 players, vacation spots, cities I'd like to live in and more. Until then, I'll have to rely on the more traditional word of mouth from my friends and, of course, the hit-and-miss process of trial and error. If my experiences are any indication, there is certainly a great need out there to integrate real-time personalization into all of your customer interactions. I would be happy to know that the industry is getting started with this concept, as I am looking forward to making use of this technology to assist me in my future purchasing decisions.

Sincerely,

Rich Tehrani
Group Publisher
rtehrani@tmcnet.com

Well, we did it again, thanks to you. Our Communications Solutions EXPO Fall, held last December in Las Vegas, attracted more than 13,000 attendees (with more than 1,200 attending the Conference sessions), doubling our attendance of just one year earlier. We were all so motivated by our dramatic increase in attendance and the positive feedback we received from readers such as yourself, the TMC editors, the engineers of TMC Labs and I have spent even more time perfecting this year's all-new conference program to make it even better than last year.

Communications Solutions EXPO Fall 2000 will take place in Las Vegas, just as it did last year, only this time it will be in the Sands Convention Center, December 5-7, 2000. The convention center is connected to the Venetian Hotel, one of the newest and most spectacular hotels in all of Las Vegas. Every room is a suite and all rooms have high-speed Internet access (that should keep me out of the casinos!).

During the day, you have the most to gain by attending the Communications Solutions EXPO Conference sessions. By mapping out a schedule that fits your personal needs, you'll be a surefire winner. Plus, if you register early at www.csexpo.com, you will save $200 on your registration. Just visit csexpo.com for more information.

I suggest you peruse the following five tracks to pick out particular sessions you feel are most applicable to you: Corporate Solutions, Customer Contact & CRM Solutions, Call Center Human Resources, Internet Telephony and E-Sales/E-Service.

Although I wish I could detail all of these incredible tracks, space allows me to do justice to only one. I'll focus on Customer Contact and CRM Solutions, as this track is representative of the type of session quality you can expect -- leading-edge and informative. I sincerely hope to see you at the show.

As The World Churns...Or Doesn't -- Thanks To CRM
This session is designed to help you determine how to provide a consistent customer message and quality service across all customer interaction channels with the goal being the ability to provide your customers with the right answers the first time and every time.

Web Portals For Improved CRM
Productivity has been a significant factor in the ever-expanding U.S. economy and nowhere is this productivity more important than in an organization's sales and support infrastructure. In this age of rapid advancements and immediate need-to-know information changes, Web portals provide you with an ideal way to allow your customers and internal sales departments to quickly and efficiently access important information.

If You Put An "e" In Front Of It, They Will Come. (Or Will They?)
Wall Street is punishing companies that don't generate revenue. Regardless of whether you are a dot com, brick-and-mortar or a hybrid, you need consistently growing revenues. The old adage about it taking 10 times more money to acquire a new customer than it takes to keep an existing one is more true now than ever. To succeed, you must have first-rate human interaction in your business to attract repeat business. Nothing keeps buyers loyal like the human touch.

Itchy For New Services? Try Preparation "e"
Focus on your competency! How else can you succeed in such a competitive world? In an age where technology changes so quickly and the need to interact with customers in a never-ending array of new media, you either embrace every new technology yourself or let an expert on the outside deal with it for you. This session is devoted to helping you realize outsourcing possibilities such as application service providers available to your customer interaction center.

The New Call Center... Virtual, Distributed And Profitable Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
Let's face it, if you can implement a virtual, distributed call center, you will be able to take advantage of decreased labor and facility rates while taking advantage of rapid growth potential and the best workers for your dollars. We all know the technology is there...you just need the experience. That's what we have and want to share -- come see (and learn) for yourself.

Outsource! Leave The Call Center Operations To Us
Whether you are a neophyte to customer interaction centers or you can't handle the influx of customer contacts you are receiving, you should explore outsourcing. For the first time, we will present you with a comprehensive outsourcing formula that will help you evaluate the best outsourcing options for you.

A Menu For Success, A Banquet Of Possibilities: IVR
IVR is perhaps the least sexy interaction technology your customers will use, but this field is still growing and your customers are used to getting information through any means they want, whether it's the Web, e-mail, chat or IVR. The best thing about IVR is that customers can access important information without a computer. The worst thing about IVR is that it is easy to set up atrocious menu trees that take too much time to traverse. Come to this session to learn how to keep your customers happy as they use your IVR system.

The Call Center: Cost Center Or Palace Of Profit?
OK, perhaps palace of profit is a bit of exaggeration, but what else can you call something that enables you to improve customer service and at the same time increase profits? If your call center isn't generating the revenue you think it should, come to this session and learn how to improve your call center's bottom line.

The Web-Enabled Call Center 1: Business Case
Catalogers and online brokers are touting their ability to provide you Web-based customer service through the use of live agents. We can soon expect that every Web site that wishes to transact business must also allow Web chat and callback. With every technology, there is a right way and wrong way to do things. We invite you to come learn the right way, before you get started.

The Web-Enabled Call Center 2: Implementation
This is where you learn how to connect Web site and call center. If done properly, you will forge unbreakable bonds with your customers and increase sales dramatically. Examine the applications that allow agents to synchronize their browsers with customers, helping upsell and cross-sell almost every contact they make.

Listen To Your Customers: Using Feedback To Improve Sales
A staggering two-thirds of Internet commerce shopping carts are still abandoned! It is time for us to start implementing systems that will drastically reduce that number. Some of the common reasons for abandoned carts include confusing Web site design, lack of live agent support and others. Come and gain insight on how you can reduce customer churn and increase sales online.