Hope For The Muddled Masses

One way to get around the labor shortage is to offer automated chats. Retailers have had some success with software that answers questions based on keywords. Artificial Solutions, a Barcelona designer and operator of automated chats, is developing a system that will start out by assuming that visitors who stumble in to a site from a search-engine results page are more likely to be disoriented than someone who has typed in the Internet address, who is likely to be familiar with the site. The automated dialogue that follows will take such factors into account. The biggest virtue of an automated chat, of course, is that it is inexpensive—each one costs about $1. Artificial Solutions may be on to something: this year the firm expects to double its $9.84 million 2007 revenues.

Many online merchants are reluctant to trust automated chats with the formidable task of reducing shopping-cart abandonment—the bane of the industry. As the checkout process moves forward, confusion often morphs into nervousness, especially when goods are expensive. Here the ability to match skilled and psychology-savvy chat agents with the most confused shoppers is especially profitable. "Only a human can sense your nervousness," says Peter Samuelsen, CEO of Novomind, a Hamburg, Germany, developer of both automated and nonautomated chat software. Humans can provide the "reassurance needed so that your nervous finger will still press 'submit'." Adept Web surfers may dislike the idea of being monitored for confusion; for the muddle-minded, being belittled with a high confusion score may be a godsend.

© 2008