[February
7, 2000]
Net2Phone And WebDialogs Sign Strategic E-Commerce Agreement
Net2Phone Inc. and WebDialogs announced an agreement to jointly market
voice-enabled e-commerce solutions to businesses worldwide.
The new e-commerce offering will include a unique service-based model that will allow
sales and support agents to enhance the e-commerce experience and also have the
opportunity to upsell and cross-sell products to further increase revenues as well as
capture abandoned sales. According to a survey by BizRate.com and NPD Group, 75 percent of
online consumers abandon shopping carts.
With this new combined solution, agents can use collaborative browsing to push Web
pages to e-shoppers highlighting new products or other related information, and can
converse simultaneously in real-time using Net2Phone's award-winning Voice over IP
service, thereby enhancing the online shopping experience. The e-commerce solutions will
be jointly marketed to enterprises, portals, service providers, system integrators, online
directories, and call centers worldwide.
WebDialogs will route all voice traffic over Net2Phone's network, and Net2Phone will
collocate WebDialogs' e-commerce equipment in its points of presence worldwide.
Additionally, Net2Phone has invested $10 million in WebDialogs, which represents a
significant minority investment, further demonstrating the Company's commitment to
voice-enabling the e-commerce experience. This is the first of what is expected to be a
series of investments and partnerships to further the Company's e-commerce initiatives.
This strategic investment represents a progressive move within Net2Phone to offer
robust e-commerce applications to call centers worldwide as well as leverage current
relationships to promote easier ways to complete transactions online. The combined
solution uses a unique ASP model that allows businesses of all sizes to easily offer such
enhanced solutions to their customers with lower overhead and ongoing costs.
Both Net2Phone and WebDialogs have been offering valuable e-commerce programs to
e-tailers and portals such as 800-FLOWERS, Infospace, Go2Net, Lands' End, PAC-WEST,
Interliant, and 3COM. The combined product offering presents a more powerful and
integrated approach to e-commerce.
"Net2Phone recognizes the potential of the Internet as a powerful medium for
personal communications," said Lou Guercia, CEO of WebDialogs. "Together,
WebDialogs and Net2Phone will bring to market a rich set of interaction applications that
will revolutionize the way businesses and their customers, as well as other Web-based
communities communicate and interact. Net2Phone's infrastructure, IP telephony technology
and deep relationships with some of the leading Internet sites, coupled with WebDialogs'
collaboration engine, will create the next wave in Web Interaction."
"The Net2Phone/WebDialogs combination brings the proven customer interaction of
the brick-and-mortar shopping relationship directly to the Web," said David
Greenblatt, Chief Operating Officer of Net2Phone. "Using our complementary
technologies, equipment, and services, we can help e-commerce vendors sell more products
more effectively and turn browsers into buyers."
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