|
|
| HotelWorld Network » Two Channels Merge | Log in |
|
|
The emergence of online business has certainly shifted the emphasis of distribution channels. Phoned-in reservations are losing ground to online booking. But that doesn’t mean the phone call is dead or can’t be used in new ways.
ATG, an e-commerce solutions provider, provides a service called Click to Call that converges online booking with an optional live call with an agent. Cid Jenkins, VP for ATG’s eStara connections service line, notes the numbers that show online buying, despite its growth, has been stagnant the last two years [as illustrated in the chart on page 54 of HOTEL & MOTEL MANAGEMENT’s Nov. 3 issue].
“Our goal is to start engaging those customers and address those obstacles,” Jenkins said.
The obstacles Jenkins is talking about stem from a lack of communication between the Web and potential customers, whether it’s impersonality, hard-to-find information or lack of details. Incorporating the phone into an online transaction may give a customer the added information or comfort that didn’t exist on the website.
The service is elective to the customer, by either clicking an icon on the page or a pop-up prompt triggered when the customer clicks to navigate away from the page. It can act as sort of a last chance, giving a potentially frustrated or indifferent customer another option—and another chance for conversion.
“If you look at the technology with Click to Call, the underlying technology is looking at what people are doing on the site and responding to them with live help,” Jenkins said. “There’s no reason it can’t engage with content. If I know you’re looking with a certain hotel and certain city [we could] offer coupons. If [the agent] knew, [he or she] could potentially offer that to them in midstream. We’ll provide that right point of contact of offering live help,”
This is how the Web, in turn, aids the agent. When a customer is on a site, his or her progress is being tracked. So, if the caller decides to click and call for help, the agent will know what the customer has looked at and what information might be needed.
“When you can pass that session data along and let that [agent] know exactly what that [customer] is doing—there’s cost savings. Being able to cut down average call handle time by even 10 seconds is saving in labor,” Jenkins said.
It may be generational, but a detriment of the Web, in terms of online transactions, can be its impersonality. Efficiently combining the ease and open information of the Web with a live person on the phone could generate a sale neither channel would have generated on its own.
“People are starting to understand the channels are not linear. They are not dedicated to one channel,” Jenkins said. This is further illustrated by Click to Chat, which brings instant messaging into the process. Calls and chats may both appeal to different customers and provide each with a more personalized channel that’s effectively infused with another.
ccrowell@questex.com
|
|
|
©2009 Questex Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved
Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited.