Sites Give Virtual Reps A Try

Personalized beauty-care site Reflect.com is making a big bet on an innovative new form of customer interaction that replaces service reps with software.

The e-commerce site, a Procter & Gamble Co. spin-off, is in the process of deploying Neuromedia Inc.'s Virtual Representatives (vReps) technology. VReps present site visitors with a live, natural-language, question-and-answer interface that is backed not by a live person, but a knowledge base that "learns" as it interacts with customers.

"What vReps allow us to do is have a real-time, immediate and personal response to basic questions," said Andrew Swinand, director of marketing for Reflect.com. He added that studies have found 80 percent of all customer service inquiries are basic questions that can be easily handled by a knowledge base.

"The advantage of this is there's no dead-end alley. If you have a problem a vRep cannot answer, you roll over to a live customer service rep who can answer the question," he said.

Currently, the vReps technology is accessible only when a customer requires some assistance. The long-term plan is for the vReps to know each customer's profile and buying habits, and act as personal shopping assistants accessible at each stage of the buying and customer support process, said Swinand. "At this point, [Reflect.com's] vReps are rather immature," said Walter Tackett, co-founder and CEO of Neuromedia. "You have to treat these things like employees--they grow in their knowledge base over time."

Tackett calls vReps the "last line of defense" before a customer reaches more costly forms of customer service, such as e-mail inquiries or telephone call centers.

Neuromedia customer One-to-One Wireless estimated its vReps were handling 50,000 conversations per month, saving 11,000 phone calls and $50,000 per month, according to Tackett. The typical One-to-One customer spoke with the vReps for an astonishing 15 minutes, he said.

An entry-level deployment of vReps starts at about $100,000, including software and services.