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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2244)	12/26/1998 9:06:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Respond to of 3178

Net Merchants Tune In To IP Telephony Pitch December 24, 1998 Inter@ctive Week: Wired & Wireless Services As consumer-oriented e-commerce moves into the mainstream, sellers on the Web are facing many of the same basic business issues that affect all retailers. Chief among those is keeping customers happy. For now, that means giving customers the option of dealing with a live customer service rep. Toward that end, a growing number of Web-based retailers are offering Internet Protocol (IP) telephony connections that allow customers to browse a Web site and complete a transaction via a simultaneous voice call to a customer service rep. More than 100 Web retailers, including 1-800-Flowers Inc. (www.1800flowers.com) and Internet Fashion Mall LLC (www.fashionmall.com), now use Click2Talk, a PC-to-phone, voice-over-IP technology distributed by IDT Corp. The technology gives customers the option of calling a service rep directly from their Web sites. The strategy offers two big advantages to retailers, says Jordan Katz, Click2Talk director. It lets customers concerned about data security complete transactions by voice, and it extends toll-free calling to international customers. "Companies are aware of the statistics that show 89 percent of customers are cautious about giving their credit-card information over the Internet, so they're looking for a way to give people another way to do business with them, " Katz explains. "Companies that are using our system look at it as a way to enable overseas customers to call for free, while enabling domestic customers to place toll-free calls without having to get offline." Web sites that offer Click2Talk allow customers to download the software that's needed to place an IP telephony call. Once the call reaches an IDT switch, the toll-free number is identified and switched to a U.S. gateway that completes the call. The customer then talks through the PC to the customer service rep. Katz dismisses the suggestion that voice-over-IP transmissions can be intercepted by hackers. "If someone did intercept a conversation, they would have to know how to decompress voice packets," he says. "This is infinitely more difficult than intercepting a written message with the same information." Nevertheless, the system isn't without its drawbacks, the biggest of which is the fact that many companies don't want the expense or headache of staffing a call center to answer customer service calls, says Sarah Hofstetter, vice president of corporate communications at IDT (www.idt.net). But Hofstetter points to a recent report by Jupiter Communications LLC (www.jup.com), in which it cites customer service problems with Web-based businesses as evidence that businesses won't be able to give short shrift to customer service. "Many companies believe that if you give customers a way to call you, they're only going to call to complain," she says. "What our customers are finding is that people want to call for technical support, because they don't understand how to use the Web site or they're uncomfortable providing financial information on the Web."