WEB-BASED SUPPORT: THE NEW "VIRTUAL DIALOG".

Just a year ago, the rationale behind moving tech support to the Web was largelya matter of money: By delivering "self-service" on the Web, software companies could save buckets of the cash they had been spending on phone support. Today, the return on investment from Web support is still compelling (a good online knowledgebase typically resolves half or more of all support queries). But lately a new value equation has emerged. More than ever, support sites have become a way to sustain deeper interactive relationships with customers.

And it's easy to see why. Support sites are inherently "sticky": They attract hard-core information-seekers, usually from a company's own customer base, who come for solutions, free software downloads, tips and tricks. Unlike e-commerce sites, which flash relentless Buy Now buttons and banner ads in the customer's face, support sites are helpful and non-commercial. In a world where customer service seems more grudging than ever, good online support can inspire remarkably intense feelings of loyalty.

Of course, inspiring loyalty is brand-new goal for most support site designers. The first generation of Web support sites were little more than repositories for huge collections of documents and files, and the primary design challenge was simply to keep users from getting lost. Now it turns out that the navigation challenge was only a starting point. Already dozens of major companies have begun building second-generation support sites with a focus on customer interaction--everything from advanced personalization technologies, virtual communities, and better e-mail management to subtle usability enhancements and more customer-centric language.

Typically, rebuilding a support site in this way is a painfully expensive undertaking. But the payoff (in the words of Mike Nikzad, Iomega's director of Web support) is something few companies ever really had: "a loyal, profitable relationship with our customers--an ongoing virtual dialogue in which customers speak to us in the language of audit trails, clickstream data, server logs, and e-mail."

To be sure, some developers see little value in deeper customer relationships, and others see interactivity largely as a marketing or technology problem. But there are a growing number of companies that are thinking creatively about interactive support relationships on the Web. Ten of these companies were recently honored by the Association of Support Professionals and Soft-letter as part of our annual Year's Best Web Support Sites awards competition (above). These ten sites were picked for their overall excellence, but they are especially interesting for their approaches to personalization and customer interaction:

HOW TO LISTEN TO CUSTOMERS

Not surprisingly, many companies (like people) are poor listeners, and their notion of Web interaction is a one-way monolog. But there are others who take listening seriously and use customer feedback--from e-mail, virtual meetings, surveys, statistical tracking, and other sources--to fine-tune online products and services:

* Iomega: Surveys and Click-Stream Analysis: When Iomega moved into mass market channels with its Zip drive, says Mike Nikzad, the company quickly realized that it didn't really understand its consumer and SoHo customers. Worse, a survey of 7,000 visitors to the Iomega support site showed that customers were equally in the dark. Users thought Iomega's support documents were too technical and poorly organized, "nav-bar labels and links that meant something to us only baffled customers," and a new state-of-the-art search engine on the site was being ignored because it didn't deliver appropriate answers.

* As a result of this feedback, the Iomega site designers knew they had to pay special attention to usability issues and the "language customers use" in their site makeover, says Nikzad. Iomega also added traffic monitoring software that "gave us in-depth statistics on customer navigation paths, most popular documents, and solution-delivery rates." In addition, Iomega began watching search engine server logs closely to see what words and phrases customers used to find information--and how often searches were successful. "In our case, close attention paid huge dividends. By continuously seeding the search engine with words and phrases most commonly used by customers, 'no solution found' results plummeted by 55%."

* Cisco Systems: Community Building: Cisco Systems already resolves 80% of its technical support issues online, but Cisco Web project manager Shelley Goodwin says the company is still working on ways to help users and customers "take a more active role in the design, customization, and development of integrated support tools." A key part of that strategy, she adds, is a variety of community building efforts. Cisco has set up advisory boards to "establish personal working relationships with customers," conducts regular online usability tests, and demonstrates new site features at major Cisco events to get customer feedback.

* In addition, she says, the company has begun publishing an Internet Technical Support Newsletter that "serves as a powerful and focused communication channel from Cisco back to the user community." The newsletter reports on new online tools and upcoming usability research, along with "comments and concerns" from users.

* The community approach is especially valuable, Goodwin notes, because Cisco's community members tend to offer "holistic" views of how the site performs, rather than piecemeal evaluations of individual tools. "Merely dropping applications one-by-one on a support site doesn't utilize the power of the Internet," she says.

HOW TO CREATE "MY" SUPPORT SITE

The Web usually gives customers access to the same knowledgebase documents that technicians read over the phone, but Web knowledgebases also contain a vast amount of irrelevant material that a live technician would otherwise filter out. The challenge of "mass customization" is to carve out just the information that the customer wants to see:

* Sybase: Personalized Pages: "We had massive amounts of information at our support site--technical documents, FAQs, white papers, software downloads, solved cases, case management tools--you name it, we had it," says Sybase services marketing manager Beth Swilling. "And we had it for hundreds of software products and versions on multiple platforms and operating systems."

* The solution: Let users create personalized profiles that reflect product ownership, areas of interest (such as Y2K issues or database administration), operating systems, and other items. Whenever users log in, a database engine uses this profile information dynamically to assemble a personalized Sybase support site for each user. The profile is also used to send out customized e- mail alerts about new tech notes and other user-specific information. (Collecting information for e-mail alerts is a delicate issue because of privacy concerns, Swilling notes. "It's important that your customers trust you and are encouraged to enhance their profile without the threat of being spammed or phoned by telemarketers.") So far, she says, 38% of Sybase users have provided profile information, and the number is growing.

* Microsoft: Customer Segmentation: As part of a new company-wide segmentation strategy, Microsoft's Product Support Services (PSS) division recently dropped what Steve Blair calls "a one-size-fits-all site" model. Instead, Microsoft now offers 16 different support URLs for such groups as resellers and consultants, home and small business users, OEMs, technical professionals, and developers.

* This new segmentation approach, says Blair, lets PSS Web site developers "give specific customer segments the information they need, in a format and a language they can understand." For example, Microsoft's site for third-party developers emphasizes early access to new technologies, live chats, and "Critical Problem Alerts," while a separate site for resellers and consultants provides a richer selection of diagnostic tools and is optimized for fast (two hour) turnaround on escalated problems.

* Intuit: Extending the Desktop: How does a company create online interactivity for customers who are reluctant to visit the Web in the first place? This was one of the challenges Intuit faced with tax professionals, one of its most valuable customer segments. "Since we know people don't always have time to use the Web," says senior project manager Donna Harring, "we added features to the software that automatically bring important information from the Web to their desktop."

* For example, says Harring, Intuit's professional products have been redesigned to automatically check the Web and download updates and patches, along with technical documents that become part of the user's own desktop Help files. In addition, the ProSeries Web site "provides users with links to State and Federal tax resources, recent tax news, and accounting associations." The goal, Harring adds, is to gradually expose users to a rich world of Web resources and "fulfill a need that can't be satisfied through traditional support outlets."

HOW TO START A CONVERSATION

Usually, first-generation Web sites were heavily document-centric, but many site managers are now looking for ways to encourage more personal conversations, especially through online forums and bulletin boards: