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1st Choice Press |
| IN THE NEWS: Wall Street Journal |
| Thursday, June 12, 2003 |
Instant Messages Are Popping Up All Over
by Daniel Nasaw
Acknowledging that instant messaging isn't just for gossiping teenagers anymore, companies increasingly are using new IM tools to promote products, boost productivity and improve customer contacts.
Use of IM, which allows near-instant text conversations via pop-up windows on computer screens, has spread rapidly through the workplace. An estimated 84% of companies in North America used it in the office as of March, steady from a year earlier but up from 63% in July 2001, according to Osterman Research of Black Diamond, Wash. Technology firms have noticed the increased corporate interest in the tool and are bringing to market an array of products to expand its application from just person-to-person communication to a variety of other uses, including marketing, customer service and human-resources functions.
Web sites and corporate voice-mail systems have edged out live telephone operators during the past several years, but customers still want person-to-person contact. Web-site chat isn't new -- Gateway Inc., for one, has used instant messaging on its Web site for sales and customer support for about two years. But one company has just launched a product that lets companies add live chatting anyplace on the Internet that uses the HTML language used to build Web pages.
Using LiveOffice Corp.'s LiveSiteManager software, companies can create an icon that people can click to open a chat session with a representative of the company. The icon can appear on Web pages, e-mails, banner ads or online auctions.
LiveOffice (www.liveoffice.com), a Torrance, Calif., Web-services company, pitches its LiveSiteManager software to small businesses as a way to increase interaction with customers at key buying points. "It makes the client or the prospective client feel that we care and they're not going to be just a number," says a financial adviser who puts the chat button in e-mails and newsletters to clients. About 500 companies now use LiveSiteManager, according to LiveOffice.
1st Choice Vacation Rentals uses LiveSiteManager to add chatting to its online rental listings and e-mail newsletters, sent to about 40,000 customers, to cut down on the time between communications. "It really helps speed up the time between that customer's need and when we can start helping him," says 1st Choice President Tracy Lotz. He yells "fish on" every time he sees that a customer wants to chat, sending his employees scrambling for the sale. Travelers ask for vacation advice, and potential listers ask for help navigating the Web site. The Hailey, Idaho, company doesn't plan to hire more people to handle chat sessions, because multitasking employees can manage two or three at once.
But why pay a human being to answer questions on IM when a computer can do it almost as well? One company has developed a computer language to create IM "bots" (short for robots), which are like primordial versions of the malevolent Agents in the "Matrix" movies. Far more benign, bots reside on instant-message networks, corporate intranets and Web sites and are programmed to converse with Internet users, offering information on topics ranging from recipes to employee benefits and corporate contacts.
ActiveBuddy Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., released a language called BuddyScript SDK free to software developers in July 2002. Internet marketing firm E*Media Inc. used it to create RecipeBuddie, a bot for Kellogg Inc.'s Keebler brand. The bot can be used with the IM networks offered by AOL Time Warner Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., and suggests recipe ideas using Keebler-brand products.
The instant-message networks haven't yet arranged a pricing structure for the IM bots. When RecipeBuddie was launched, AOL merely required that Kellogg buy an ad promoting the bot, according to E*Media. Yahoo worked RecipeBuddie into a previous marketing deal with Kellogg.
RecipeBuddie parses incoming messages for keywords such as "dinner" and "Mexican," and connects those words with its database of recipes, returning a list of links to Web sites maintained by Keebler and several partners. About one in five suggestions contains a branded promotion for a Keebler product.
Besides promotional bots like RecipeBuddie, ActiveBuddy (www.activebuddy.com) is developing "knowledge-based" IM bots to fulfill a variety of informational functions. Its first, HRAgent, launched in January, can provide benefit and payroll information to employees. For example, a worker can send an instant message to the bot asking how many sick days he has remaining. The bot can check the worker's name against an employee database and reply.
HRAgent won't replace human personnel, says David Parker, a consultant who deals in human-resources software for Premier HR International, an Austin, Texas, human-resources consulting firm, but will augment or replace cumbersome internal Web sites to which workers now turn for employee information. Mr. Parker estimates that using HRAgent could be 25% to 35% cheaper than investing in a large human-resources Web site, and far easier. Premier HR is developing ways to resell ActiveBuddy's bot technology and expects to start installing it on clients' networks within three to six months.
The bots are best at handling broad questions on a specific topic. NewHomeBuddy, a bot that guides customers around the Web site of luxury-home builder Toll Brothers Inc., is easily spooked by specific questions about customizing a home, referring interlocutors to a live sales representative or simply saying, "Unfortunately, I don't understand." And when asked "what should I make for my kids," RecipeBuddie replied: "I'm just RecipeBuddie, not a fortune teller." |
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