Web retailer and catalog merchant Lands' End this week is expanding its online customer service by giving Web shoppers a way to instantly contact a call-center representative to ask questions via online chat or phone.
Several hundred Lands' End telephone call-center representatives are now equipped with Internet-connected PCs that will not only let them chat with Web shoppers that need their help, but guide the perplexed buyer through the Lands' End site, if needed, by taking control of the shopper's browser.
It's all being done using Web-collaboration software from WebLine Communications. In addition to Web chat, the software's personal-shopper capabilities let the call-center representative make a phone call to speak to the shopper if he or she clicks on a call-me button and enters an available phone number.
"We're leveraging the great customer service we already have in our call centers," says Jeremy Hauser, the research and development analyst at Lands' End responsible for getting the new Web project up and running. "If someone doesn't like the nylon luggage they see, the representative can move the shopper's browser over to a different section of the site to look at an alternative."
In addition to this kind of shopper assistance, Lands' End is also providing a way for one shopper to go on Web shopping expeditions with other shoppers. The Shop with a Friend service lets you can click on a Web button and instantly get a password. Then you and your friend can enter travel together across the Web site looking at things.
Lands' End believes this Web service will be in big demand through the holiday shopping season. Families and friends may want to take each other along to check out items and get that oh so needed second opinion.
According to Hauser, the individual with the last click keeps the control over the Web journey. "But only the person who initiated the session is allowed to check out with a purchase," Houser adds.
The Shop with a Friend function of the WebLine software was developed at the bequest of Lands' End. Through the upcoming Christmas shopping season, WebLine is granting Lands' End exclusive use of the technology.
RELATED LINKS
