Callbutton links consumers with customer service

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Online consumers are a fickle group. They're impatient and demanding. They often abandon their cyber-shopping-carts because they don't have access to decent customer service.

The hotline to help is now a mere mouse click away for needy shoppers, thanks to a Dallas-based company's latest technology offering. Callbutton L.L.C. is a privately held application service provider, or ASP, that was spun off of Intelemedia Communications Inc. on Jan. 24. It offers technology and routing capabilities to Web sites that want to create a direct link to customer service via phone.

"On the Web surfer/caller side, the experience is always the same regardless of what's going on behind the scenes," said Eric Lenington, chief executive of Intelemedia and founder and managing director of Callbutton. "They'll click the Callbutton icon, they'll be asked their name and phone number and be given a choice of when to be called back. Their phone will ring shortly thereafter, but not until a significant amount of routing and information exchange is quickly completed within the system."

The request is submitted to Callbutton and routed according to the Web-site owner's criteria. For a real estate agent, the calls might be sent to her cell phone from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then reverted to a message machine after hours. For a larger, international operation, the call might be routed to an operator depending on the origin of the request, time zone and language.

"The consumer doesn't know any different, they click a button and a few seconds later, (his or her) phone rings," Lenington said.

Callbutton's infrastructure and routing is outsourced to Intelemedia, a "giant telephone switch that has tight integration between data communications and telecommunications," Lenington said.

Callbutton will be seeking its first round of venture financing soon, having survived thus far on seed funding from Intelemedia.

Lenington has spoken to a variety of institutional investors and has charmed them with the latest magic phrases: proof of concept and existing customers.

A year ago, the idea wouldn't have made sense — e-tailers thought that they were free and clear of having to provide customer contact.

"Today, that mindset has changed 180 degrees, people want customer service, they want to talk to people, and we see Callbutton fitting in the best of both (worlds)," he said.

"The biggest impact on the retail culture is that today's consumers are more informed, more empowered and more cross-channeled shoppers than ever before ... retailers have to be available to speak to the customer or they'll lose their business," said Brad Boa, editor of Where-it's-@, a multi-channel retailing newsletter published in Dallas, and a consultant for technology companies that provide solutions for the retail industry.

"I think there will be a huge market for Callbutton," said Boa. "This does seem like a nice tool that's fairly easy to adopt... and is relatively inexpensive."

Callbutton's beta customer is IMSure Network Inc., a Phoenix-based Internet company that helps old-line retailers get online by providing Web site-development and complementary search-engine listings with more than 8,000 registrants.

"The Callbutton can be used in a myriad of different ways," said Nick Marquette, chief executive and president of IMSure Network, Inc.

In addition to offering it as a feature for his clients' Web sites, Marquette plans to embed the Callbutton icon in IMSure's informational e-mails about new products and services.

"We have huge expectations (for Callbutton), and we're going to market full speed with it," said Marquette.

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Closser, Stacey - (2001, February 5 - 11) Callbutton links consumers with customer service - TechBiz