Highlights from the Press Release.
As mentioned in my last post, I have moved each of the statements into five different headings so that I can better appreciate how they impact their business model - as I know it. The headings may not be appropriate, however they are the best I could come up with at this time.
Crazy Canuk
____________________________________________________________________
Product / Service
Have just launched a new product that provides companies with a more efficient way to give answers via their own Web sites to their visitors' questions.
Low-Cost, efficient Customer Service Tool for Companies Doing Business On the Web.
Leverages the patent-pending technology of its new parent company, Net Shepherd, Inc. (NSI)
NSI provides the tools to manage a community of experts throughout the Web. These experts will be used to answer questions to the Answers.com consumer site as well as generic questions that are sent to a corporate client's Web site.
Answers.com will pre-populate the AnswerBase(TM) with answers that are specific to the corporate client and its business.
Answers.com acts as the first line of customer service by filtering through the frequently asked questions consumers have and giving them an answer through the AnswerBase.
The AnswerBase is capable of responding to questions almost immediately. This AnswerBase will build and 'learn' over time as additional questions are asked and answered.
The technology differs from a search engine in that users can type in a specific question and Answers.com will reply with a specific answer. In addition, it will also provide answers to related questions.
Answers.com works directly with a company's existing customer service providers, including 800 numbers and live chat.
If a visitor asks a question and does not get a specific answer to their question, the visitor can choose to send the question to the company's experts for them to answer personally.
The Web site interface and functionality are designed to be consumer friendly and more importantly, fast!
Competitive Advantage it provides
Customer service is one of the major factors differentiating companies in today's economy.
Businesses are turning to online solutions for every aspect of operations.
Answers.com distinguishes itself from other question and answer sites because it is one of the only sites that will give a direct response rather than a link to another site.
This new technology allows them to use the Internet to improve customer service and save the company money.
Will enable them to offer these business-to-business services at significantly lower cost than the competition
This service will not only cut down on the number of expensive calls clients receive to their 800 number, it will also cut down on the number of emails that are sent to the site.
Answers.com's customer service tools help companies create a dialogue with their customers. The net effect is to reduce customer service operating costs, and obtain real-time market research.
Helps companies sell and up-sell customers, save overhead expenses, and obtain real-time market research.
Positioning
Answers.com expanded its service to the business-to-business market due to the growing demand by consumers for enhanced customer service in the e-commerce environment.
Their primary business objective will be helping businesses provide excellent customer service while saving them money
This is an important step in our go-to-market strategy.
Competition / Possible Alliances
The Web site is one of the original question and answer sites on the Internet, established by idealab in 1996.
When Ask Jeeves announced their acquisition of Net Effect to enable them to launch a human interactive product similar to Answers.com the market reacted very favourably.
Although Ask Jeeves' is similar to Answers', it is not in direct competition.
Ask Jeeves' pricing and scalability restricts their offer to companies at the high end of the market.
Answers, however, has lower costs and a higher degree of scalability, which enables it to sell to a broader market.
Answers' costs are lower because they will be responding to questions using a combination of different technology and the Net Shepherd virtual community of Distributed Task Forces.
Rather than competition, there may be an opportunity for partnership with Ask Jeeves.
Answers.com's lower cost base may enable it to become a supplier of answers to Ask Jeeves and we will continue talking to them about this.
Market Size
It is a rapidly growing market.
There is a growing importance of companies' Customer Relations across the Internet.
There are currently about one million companies on-line and this is expected to increase ten-fold during the next five years.
US companies alone are already spending over $23 billion a year on traditional, telephone-based customer relations activities.
This expenditure is expected to double in the next four years and a significant part of this will transition to the Web as e-commerce becomes increasingly important. |
