Net Gains (A)
Web-Based Call Centers Are Red Hot
By Warren S. Hersch
New York
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Call it the virtual call center. As consumers and businesses turn to the Web to get information about products and make purchases, electronic-commerce technology vendors are shifting into high gear.
Their aim: to transform electronic storefronts from static collections of information into "multimedia customer interaction centers," making Web sites a place for customers and call center agents to conduct business in realtime via E-mail, voice or video.
A report by Frost & Sullivan Inc., Mountain View, Calif., forecasts growth of Web-enabled call center applications will rocket to $889.9 million in 2004 from $14.1 million in 1998. Including 1997's revenue of $4.9 million, the market's compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to total 110.4 percent.
The market is booming. Revenue is expected to jump to $65.2 million this year and $269.3 million in 2000, representing 360.7 percent and 313.4 percent growth rates, respectively.
"Driving the growth is demand for new applications that boost call center revenue and productivity," said Alpa Shah, industry manager for Frost & Sullivan. "While these applications still cater predominantly to large enterprises, they're finding a growing customer base among small and midsize businesses."
ISPs and Web-hosting companies, banks and insurance companies, online trading stores, and Web-based stores such as Cyberian Outpost Inc., CDNow Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. lead the pack in adopting the technology.
Also fueling the technology's growth is an anticipated rise in E-commerce, Shah said. Revenue from E-commerce sales is forecasted to increase to $3.93 billion in 2003, up from an estimated $240.7 million in 1997, according to Frost & Sullivan.
Joining the fray are dozens of companies aiming for a slice of the expanding pie. They include traditional interactive voice response (IVR) and automatic call distribution (ACD) vendors such as Edify Corp., Periphonics Corp. and Syntellect Inc., among others, that are extending previously voice-centric-only solutions into the computer realm. But they also encompass a host of new companies focused strictly on Web call center solutions.
CosmoCom Inc., Hauppauge, N.Y., developed CosmoCall, Windows NT-based ACD server software integrating IP-based multimedia communications capabilities with the Web and other network-based applications. The software lets online customers click on a button at the Web site to communicate directly with the call center agent.
The two parties can engage in "text-chat," or E-mail exchanges via the Web site. Or, with the addition of speakers, a microphone and an IP-based telephony application, such as Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting, the customer may opt for a Web-based voice call-back from the agent.
The software also supports collaborative "whiteboarding," allowing the agent to manipulate text or images at the Web site to, say, demonstrate a product's functions or show alternative offerings.
"Just as traditional telephone ACDs organize, prioritize and route voice calls to agents, the same can be done with electronic messages," said Steve Kowarsky, executive vice president of CosmoCom. "Our solution lets call centers handle E-mail more efficiently, so customers don't have to wait hours or days for a response."
For VARs, even those with little or no telephony integration experience, the opportunities are potentially huge as a growing number of vendors are marketing Web call center technologies via indirect channels, observers said.
Still, channel marketing of Web call center and telephony-related technologies is not widespread, industry observers said.
The above is an excerpt from the article "Net Gains (A) Web-Based Call Centers Are Red Hot" which appears in the March 15, 1999 issue of Computer Reseller News.