Rosenzweig: that 'wow' experience

July 17, 2000

BY MICHAEL KRAUSS

This is one of an ongoing series of articles on interactive marketing leaders who are doing things other marketers can learn from. They're not yet household names, but will be in the headlines tomorrow. They're the emerging leaders of an emerging marketing discipline

Name, rank and serial number: Lance Rosenzweig, 37, chairman and CEO, PeopleSupport, an online customer support provider. B.S., Industrial Engineering, Northwestern University, 1984; MBA, NU’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Business, 1985. Prior to founding PeopleSupport in 1998, Rosenzweig was cofounder, chairman and president of Los Angeles-based Newcastle Group Inc., a maker of packaging products for retailers and food companies. He previously served as a vice president at GE Capital Co.

Mantra: “Create happy, loyal customers.”

What it takes to do that: “We want the customers of all our clients to have a great experience online and to say ‘Wow’ and tell their friends about it, and to build loyalty to those sites.”

On the client list: B-to-c: Reel.com, Tovolo—which sells high-end cookware—and CarParts.com. Large bricks-and-mortar companies building e-tailing businesses: Nokia, Epson, Armani and Saks Fifth Avenue. B-to-b Web sites: Grainger, Produce Online and the new Hewlett Packard exchange. Non-e-commerce companies: Toyota, which is using PeopleSupport’s e-reps to build a following of customers who then go to a dealer and buy a Toyota.

What it takes to provide quality customer service online: “Three things: technology, people and information.” The technology must enable customers to interact with Web sites any way they want. The people must be knowledgeable, trained, college educated and Internet-savvy. As for information, “We learn from customers ... explore why do they do what they do on the site. We build a feedback loop to our clients so that they can modify their sites based on their customer’s objectives.”

A bit more about the technology: The chat technology has two components: The ability for a customer to immediately tie into an e-rep and have a dialogue back and forth (with) both people typing, (and) the (ability for an) e-rep to push content to the customer. So if your question is, ‘How do I program my VCR?’ the e-rep can push a page of VCR programming instructions.”

A few weeks ago, PeopleSupport launched voiceover IP services in conjunction with text chat so that customers can talk to an e-rep over the computer, and the e-rep also can push content or type answers. For visual, PeopleSupport will have a static picture of the e-rep. “People want to have a quick connection, to get their questions answered as opposed to having cute stuff (like streaming video) that takes a lot of time. (Static pictures) take up less bandwidth.”

On reports of the b-to-c Internet’s demise: “B-to-c is going to be huge, and it’s here to stay. Who’s going to be doing it is changing,” from Internet pure-plays to large companies that have the Net as an additional channel. “It’s easier for a company with a great brand to builda great Web site than it is for a company with a great Web site to build a great brand.”

On joining a start-up right now: “There’s a ton of venture-backed, pre-IPO companies, (so) be diligent. Ask who has a business model that can really turn into a long-term, sustainable business, as opposed to something that’s a flash-in-the-pan.”

Michael Krauss is a partner with Diamond Technology Partners in Chicago.
He can be reached at news@ama.org.