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The call center, used with the Internet and Web, has the potential to dramatically increase the customer service and marketing abilities of organizations. The challenges in Internet-enabling the call center are technological and organizational: determining how to leverage the more developed call center infrastructure to take advantage of the emerging Internet/intranet infrastructure at companies, and how to culturally integrate the objectives of 2 or more separate functional groups within an organization. The Web can remove the burden of routine requests to a call center, and a well-designed site can heighten customer opinion of a company and generate new selling opportunities.

The Internet and Web used together with the traditional call centre, have the potential to dramatically increase the customer service and marketing abilities of organizations.

The better Web pages are already performing a valuable self-service function as a source of basic, well-organized information; and the work of vendors to bring more multimedia functionality and real-time communications to the Web is resulting in a viable electronic channel that complements the function of the call center.

The challenges in Internet-enabling the call centre are technological and organizational: determining how to leverage the more developed call centre infrastructure to take advantage of the emerging Internet/intranet infrastructure at companies, and how to culturally integrate the objectives of two or more separate functional groups within an organization.

The Yankee Group believes that Webbased approaches to customer service will evolve to the point that a hybrid of Web communication and agent calls will become common, in the same way that hybrids of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and agent calls are common at this time.

Much has been made about the Web's potential as a new channel for customer service and electronic commerce (e-commerce), which ties in with the inbound call centre, currently the primary channel for customer service and telecommerce.

In its explosive growth of the last three years, the Web has evolved from a purveyor of simple, relatively static electronic content to a channel more capable of providing customer service and e-commerce capabilities.

Both of these uses for the Web have been limited at present by the following issues: Lack of standards; security/privacy concerns; immaturity of technology; and greater level of comfort (and inertia) with call centre agents for satisfying customer inquiries and completing transactions.

These issues hinder the development of widespread e-commerce, most notably in the short-term.

However, the use of the Web for customer service is more promising. Many companies have been using electronic forums and on-line services for technical support, and the existence of on-line communities around products provides selfservice opportunities to customers.

The Web takes this self-service component further, allowing a company to present a large amount of information on its products and services in an organized and visually attractive manner, and update it frequently.

The Web, even as a simple informational and promotional medium, can remove the burden of routine requests to a call centre, and a well-designed site can heighten customer opinion of a company and generate new selling opportunities.

In our Yankee Group Telecommunications Planning Service Report, Business Multimedia Update: User Concerns and the Impact of the Internet, we expected the efforts of multimedia vendors to be focused increasingly on the Internet as the primary platform for communications and collaboration.

We believe that the Web will evolve significantly over time to incorporate more multimedia and realtime communications capabilities, so that a Web site's ability to satisfy all of a customer's needs will grow as well.

At present, there are over half a million business Web sites but there is little or no coordination of Web site development.

In addition, the call centre infrastructure is separate from the Internet/intranet infrastructure being developed by companies.

The Yankee Group believes that the continued growth of browser functionality, in conjunction with evolving networks and standards for supporting real-time IP based interactivity, will position the Web as a desirable channel for commerce and customer service, a channel whose functionality complements that of the traditional call centre.

The challenge in Internet-enabling the call center requires determining how to leverage the more developed call centre infrastructure to take advantage of the emerging Internet/intranet infrastructure at companies, and how to culturally integrate the objectives of two or more separate functional groups within an organization.

The Internet and the Web are most important in definine the cyber call centre in the following ways:

The Internet as a network brings the user of a conventional browser in contact with the call centre and agents, either in real time or asynchronously;

Internet standards and interfaces (HTML, Java, POP3, LDAP and so forth) form the basis of applications that can enhance the productivity of call centre agents (sales automation, customer interaction and so forth) and provide information in a more standardized form (realtime status reports, inquiry databases and so forth). A large number of vendors play in the call centre space, and they are involved with Internet-based solutions in a variety of ways:

The large Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) manufacturers (Lucent Technologies, Nonel, Aspect, Siemens) are still considering how best to integrate the Internet into their portfolio of solutions most typically, their IVR offerings are where the Intent applications reside. IVR hardware and applications vendors are most aggressive with Internetbased solutions, as the self-service capabilities of the Web complement the selfservice component of IVR technology.

Long-distance carriers. The "big three" carriers are announcing Internet gateway products and services that allow phone calls made over the Internet to be handled by a traditional call centre. These offerings are still in the early stages, and technology is still evolving, but they are important, as they represent the first effort by major carriers to bridge Internet traffic with the 800 network.

Call center applications vendors. A variety of independent software vendors (ISVs), most notably developers of customer interaction software (CIS) such as Scopus and Vantive, have products that use Web interfaces and technologies to standardize the look of their clients and add some extra features.

Systems integrators. The Yankee Group expects that major consulting firms, such as Andersen Consulting or MCI Systemhouse, that can address the Internet strategy of a company as effectively as they can the call centre (and develop connections between the two) will have a significant advantage in bidding for future projects. The Yankee Group believes that the technology needed to leverage the Internet and call centres will quickly become a commodity, at which point the key differentiator will be the ability of vendors to sell solutions to the key decision-makers at end-user organizations.

As we indicated, the Web browser is evolving from a simple source of information into a more interactive medium, where customers can make purchases, get information about customer accounts, and obtain answers to commonly asked questions. The next step is contact with an agent at a call centre via the Web browser.

There are currently two primary ways to do this:

Web Callback. This involves placing a button on a Web page that sends an electronic message to the call centre when clicked, requesting a callback from an agent. Typically, some forms of information may be forwarded giving a profile of the customer so that the agent can look up the customer's history in the call centre database.

Web Callthrough. This also involves a button on a Web site, but instead of setting up communications with an agent asynchronously and speaking with an agent using the telephone, call through methods establish contact with an agent in real time using Intemet telephony technologies, either by means of a gateway that converts IP calls into circuit-switched calls, or through a straight Internet telephony call from user PC to agent PC.

Callback approaches to linking a Web customer with a call centre are the most common at present, as the technology required is simple. It is a modest step forward from the listing of an 800 number on Web sites for customers to call on their own, but the Yankee Group feels it is nonetheless a limited option.

Many of the technologies needed to Web-enable the call centre are already in place, however, and call centre users are seeing tangible results from opening up to users of the new electronic channel. That said, there are some things to keep in mind as one moves forward.

The immediate attraction of any new technology is its ability to reduce costs through reduction of agent time on calls.

Though routine inquiries are already being handled by information provided on the Web, call volume to the call centre will not decrease, but increase, if the history of IVR is any indication.

Furthermore, though a greater percentage of calls may be handled by the self-service channels, the calls that do go through to agents will become increasingly complex, as the information they have obtained breeds more questions.

This is ultimately positive, as the call going through represents a more involved customer, but it places more pressure on the agent to be a strong representative of the company, rather than just a conduit for routine requests.

Also, the use of the Web will require agents to be more knowledgeable about communications via PC and the Web again, the Yankee Group expects that better qualified agents, not less -will be part of the future cyber call centre.

The trend in decision-making for the call center has shifted increasingly toward the business level end-user and the IT manager, a trend accelerated by the integration of Internet technology into call centres.

But the investment in telecommunications infrastructure at call centres is significant, and an understanding of how best to use the existing infrastructure with new channels should clearly involve telecommunications pmfessionals. Telecom professionals also have the best understanding of the requirements of realtime communications. A look at the development of desktop- and server-based computer-telephony integration (CTI) over the last 10 years shows the folly of relying solely on the promises of computing vendors and professionals.

Only recently has substantial progress been made, largely because of the increased involvement and influence of telecommunications companies and professionals.

It makes sense to explore how Internet/intranet technologies can benefit your call centre operations, but it also is imperative to determine how further investments in existing systems can boost call centre productivity -- advanced use of IVR or skills-based routing may be a better short-term decision. The Internet and the Web, employed in conjunction with the traditional call centre, have the potential to increase the customer service and marketing abilities of organizations.

The better Web pages are already performing a valuable self-service function as a source of basic, well-organized information; and the work of vendors to bring more multimedia functionality and real-time communications to the Web is resulting in a viable electronic channel that complements the functions of the call centre.

The Yankee Group believes that Webbased approaches to customer service will evolve to the point that hybrids of Web and agent calls will become commonplace in two to three years, in the same way the hybrids of IVR and agent calls are at the present time. As the activity around Internet telephony and the call center grows, many valid questions will arise regarding Internet security and the ability of the Internet to support real-time communications.

Major computing and telecommunications vendors and users are working together to address these issues, given the rise of the Internet as an accessible electronic channel and the growth of Internet devices (beyond PCs), such as handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs), wireless phones, set-top boxes, and screen phones (both home units and pay phones).

The technology is only the beginning - retraining of agents and a reformulation of strategy that aligns the Internet/intranet goals of the company with the call centre mission are probably the more formidable challenges to progress.

The Yankee Group has always emphasized that no one vendor can provide the total solution in the growing convergent call centre -- substantive partnerships and alliances are critical.