New Customer Service Technology Takes Advantage of Internet "Magic."
by Peggy Nordeen

Internet Shoppers Can Now "Click" for Instant Personal Service!
Some of the millions of holiday shoppers on the Internet this season will find customer service savvy sites offering the option to talk to a live representative to answer questions. How does this happen? Simply click, "Let's Talk!", input your phone number and your telephone rings in seconds with the web site's representative on the line.

This new technological phenomenon comes on the heels of recent Internet industry studies pointing out that close to 90% of Internet shoppers would like a live representative available to answer questions while they are purchasing online. Other studies have pointed out that nearly 65% of would-be e-buyers have become frustrated and abandoned their cyber shopping carts because of unanswered questions either about the products or the purchasing process.

Have an e-conversation live!
Additionally, there is still a significant number of Internet customers who do not want their credit card numbers sailing through cyberspace on order forms. Live connectivity, the terminology for this new industry category, side steps these purchasing snafus by offering instant, personal customer service the old fashioned way, by phone, or the new high tech way by live, text chat through a window that pops up on the computer screen.

Internet customers can now have their questions answered or complete their order through a real conversation with a live person whose attention they can demand at the click of their mouse.

While some customers like to chat (fast typists and the hearing impaired are examples); others prefer a telephone call to expedite what the Internet is supposedly good for, which is fast and easy ordering. In many cases, customers have said, that without the call, the order would have been lost.

"In just seconds, I heard a friendly voice!"
"The first time I tried it, I didn't believe that the telephone would really ring. But it did...in just seconds with a friendly voice asking me what I needed," exclaimed one busy, working mother. "It felt so empowering. Instead of being frustrated by trying to search through the site to find the answer to my question, I could simply click for a live person to help."

An amazing feature of the chat service is the ability for the web site representative to "push" products and pictures to the e-buyer's screen to thoroughly answer questions.

Leader in Live Connectivity is Here!
A leader in the new live connectivity industry is a South Florida company called Click Interconnect, Miami. The company has developed their "live connectivity" services called TalkLive (for instant phone calls) and ChatLive for a live, interactive text-chat.

"Our company is an application service provider (ASP), which means the web site owner has no hardware or software to buy and install. Yet web site owners have complete remote control of their own site's services." reports Michael Wilson, Click Interconnect president. Among Click Interconnect's customers is Cybergate, a leading Internet Service Provider headquartered in Broward.

"The Click Interconnect services are free to the e-buyer and the web site owner pays as little as 6.8 cents a minute for phone time or only 25 cents per session for our text-chat service," Wilson explained. "The chat program is popular for companies who do business worldwide because there are no line charges."

Wilson points out that web site owners can subscribe to the service and be setup in as little as one hour. The services are demonstrated at the company's web site: http://www.click121.com/.

Peggy Nordeen is President of Starmark International, Inc., a marketing services company located in Ft. Lauderdale (www.StarmarkIntl.com). Starmark achieved recognition from Inc. Magazine by being named to the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held companies in the country for 5 years in a row.