March 2001

BY ERIK LOUNSBURY, Editorial Director
CUSTOMER INTER@CTION Solutions

While words can be used to paint a picture or tell a tale, sometimes words just aren't enough, and they present another layer of abstraction. In his essay, "Nature," Emerson compared words to ciphers, "signs of natural facts." Show me what it looks like. It is difficult to imagine a world without vision. One reason the Internet is so popular is that it is a highly visual medium; one can show the world the world. (George W. Bush should forget about the education problem in the U.S., as pretty soon people won't need reading skills anyway.) How many products do you buy "sight unseen"? While clickthrough banners have sprouted like so many dandelions on the lawn, their effectiveness appears to be less than anticipated; they have become as flat as the frozen pond of print media. We need to go beyond sight. Combine sound, video, the ability to attach documents and a mechanism for interacting with customers (phone, chat and e-mail), and the Internet becomes the multimedia communications vehicle for the delivery of targeted, rapidly refinable messages combining voice, text and images to specified recipients: narrowcasting plastic information rather than broadcasting static (commercial) information like the one-way medium of television. Multimedia communications can also provide great tools for enhancing training -- not only of in-house employees, but also of partners, distributors, resellers and customers.

Xerox Corp. (www.xerox.com) has been using MacroMedia Flash technology to produce "virtual demos" since May 1999. Visitors to Xerox pages can click on a virtual demo and see a product, "open" various parts to look inside or get a better idea how a product operates. This helps the potential customer to better understand a product. Xerox also provides "call me" buttons on selected Web pages, and calls from these pages are answered by virtual sales representatives in one of Xerox's 14 contact centers around the globe. Mary Donato, vice president of Xerox's Global Teleweb, said, "The virtual demos are a way to show clients how easy a product is to use and also a way to close the sales cycle without having to go to an outside sales rep." Virtual demos can also be e-mailed to clients and alert them to the finer points of a product before closing a sale.

Donato said Xerox looks for Internet skills, a four-year college degree and selling skills in its virtual reps. All the virtual reps are "demo certified" and all of the top products have virtual demos, which gives the virtual reps a higher comfort level when dealing with customers. Donato added, "not only has the feedback from the virtual reps been incredible, but customer reaction has been very positive. Virtual demos have become a competitive distinction."

If you are short on the resources to create your own multimedia presentations, SSP Media (www.sspmedia.com) can provide not only the studio production facilities, but also creative content and delivery options. Kosh Das, director of marketing and partner programs, explained that SSP Media can provide a variety of media formats to its clients, such as PowerPoint, Flash, QuickTime, Windows media, RealPlayer, video, CD and DVD presentations.

But while the technology is important, Das said that SSP always keeps the clients' marketing goals in mind to come up with the best formats and solutions to reach the widest audience. For example, for one client's trade show presentation, they taped a message from the CEO (who could not be at the show) and played it on plasma screens, inviting attendees to come to the booth, where SSP had set up kiosks for multimedia DVD demonstrations that gave a complete presentation potential clients could navigate to find the products they needed. "What it comes down to," said Das, "is the thought process. Even though the technology is important, it's using the technology to create qualified leads." Das recommends taking a three-tiered approach -- first a phone call, then an e-mail follow-up and then the multimedia presentation -- to achieve the best results.

For companies looking to provide product information or training support, How2TV (www.how2tv.com) is a company that produces rich media packages containing digital video, animated graphics, audio, diagrams and text that are designed to help consumers or support personnel understand or use products or services a company offers. How2TV produces a variety of types of Pacs: Instruction Pacs, which show consumers how to assemble, install and use recently purchased products; FAQ Pacs, which answer frequently asked questions about a product's assembly, operation, use or maintenance; Feature Pacs, which highlight product features and benefits; and Training Pacs, which educate internal personnel on products and services their company provides. How2TV can deliver both low- and high-bandwidth solutions, depending upon the customers' needs.

For those of you with video production facilities already in place who are looking for a solution to translate video files into different formats (since we are still in the early days of the Internet, different player preferences have different capabilities and different connectivity options), Telestream Inc. (www.telestream.net) offers FlipFactory. FlipFactory is software that transcodes source video into multiple streaming formats and bit rates and sends it to FTP servers, Web servers, caching networks and individual mailboxes in the format each destination requires. High-quality video, created in any source format, is automatically re-coded by FlipFactory and delivered to servers for distribution anywhere with an Internet connection, so those images, sounds and words can do their duty and provide a more complete picture.

While I am not advocating that multimedia can bring you transcendence to the spiritual as Emerson's transparent eyeball, you can move beyond the visual to the more corporal properties of multimedia.

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

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