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The Net Results
By Peter DeHaan,
Ph.D.
Apr/May 2006
I
first heard about the Net over 25 years ago from one of my college buddies.
He landed a job with a computer mainframe manufacturer and was assigned
to work at a university. He regaled
me with tales of instantaneously sending text messages across the country and
doing so at no cost. "That is
fantastic," I enthused. "How can
I get in on this?"
"You
can't," he replied matter-of-factly, "not unless you're at a major
university or work for a defense contractor."
I was disappointed. My
visions of fast and free communications faded as quickly as they had formed.
With little more thought or contemplation, I quickly dismissed the
Internet as a non-issue, one with limited utility and no future.
That
was in 1981. Fast-forward 15 years.
Suddenly, it seemed, everyone was talking about the Internet.
I was perplexed. How could
something so limited be treated like the next big thing?
Had something changed to make the Internet a practical reality for the
masses? Indeed, things had changed.
I
soon obtained a dial-up Internet account. Back
then, using the Internet seemed to me to be a waste of time.
It took eons to be connected, a bit of luck to stay connected, and
patience to accomplish anything useful - not that there was much to do from a
business standpoint. When a
colleague would get email I would excitedly make note of the address, but would
invariably pick up the phone for any communications.
As more people became connected, I tried to check email once a day, while
checking voicemail multiple times daily. However,
it wasn't long before I was checking email several times a day and voice mail
only once or twice. Now I have
dedicated Internet access and spend all day connected, receiving and sending
hundreds of messages. All too often,
I forget to check voicemail!
I
recently gave some thought to what my day would be like without email.
Indeed, over 95 percent of my work on this magazine is accomplished via
email. Articles are submitted
electronically, then routed to our proofreaders, passed back to me, and
forwarded to production. Design
proofs are sent as PDF attachments and most progress reports and requests from
our printer are sent via email. Without
email, we would be forced to rely on snail mail and overnight delivery services,
adding to our costs and lengthening our production cycle.
In fact, if I only had the phone and delivery services for
communications, I would likely need to hire an assistant just to accomplish the
same amount of work. Plus, I would
not be nearly as effective or efficient. In
short, the Net results are great!
Email
is just one aspect of the Internet; the World Wide Web is another part.
Once the realm of large companies with big budgets, websites are now
common for organizations of all sizes. In many cases, divisions, departments,
and even projects within organizations boast their own website.
Nowadays, an organization without a website is perceived as second rate
or as a non-player. Websites are
also a great equalizer, leveling the playing field between major corporations,
smaller competitors, and start-ups.
The
AnswerStat website (www.AnswerStat.com)
is one of our company's larger websites, www.ConnectionsMagazine.com
is the biggest and www.ArticleWeekly.com
is third. AnswerStat.com currently
boasts 362 pages and grows larger as each issue is posted online.
It contains every article ever published in AnswerStat magazine,
currently standing at over 300. Usage
of the website has steadily increased, with new records being set just about
every month. Last month we hit
another high, with over 22,000 requests - a tenfold increase from a year
prior. Most of these visitors come
to read our articles, others for our whitepapers, and some for industry news.
The site contains 150 Megabytes of data and over 900 links.
Here
are some interesting, albeit trivial, statistics: The site has the highest usage
between 11 am to noon, with the most visitors on Mondays; Saturday is
the slowest day. Most people who
find us via a search engine use Google, followed at a distance second by MSN, with Yahoo coming in at number three.
Frequently
accessed articles include "Telephone
Answering Service Systems," "What
is Telephone Nurse Triage?" the "Dr.
Barton Schmitt Interview," and "Voice Logging: A Call Center Necessity."
Several whitepapers are also frequently requested, including "Web-based
Patient Scheduling Software" and "Call Center Certification."
The
most frequently accessed pages are:
While
the purpose of the AnswerStat magazine website is to provide useful industry
information, other organizations may have different goals.
Some merely want to drive as much traffic as they can.
These sites are commercial, for-profit creations, which generate revenue
from ads. Our banner ads help to
cover our costs to run and maintain the site.
Other sites are fee-based, intended to be revenue-generating vehicles,
while password protected sites are used as a member benefit or to serve
customers. Another common goal of
websites is promotion and marketing.
One
seemingly obvious feature of websites is to provide a means for further
communication. Therefore, a
"contact us" page is a common element. As
such, it is surprising when contact information cannot be found; this is
confounding. These organizations
should want to interact with customers and prospects, but visitor to these sites
can't call, can't write, and in some cases can't even find an email link.
Of
course sending a message to an email address found on a website isn't any
guarantee of dialogue. In
researching a recent article, I used a search engine and contacted the first 10
companies listed via email. The
results were appalling. One site
responded within five minutes with a personal response.
Two more followed later that day, and a fourth, three days later.
But six never responded or even acknowledged receipt of my message.
Now it could be that a message or two got lost in cyberspace.
That does happen, but certainly not 60% of the time.
In
another instance, I sent out a targeted email to over 100 addresses gleaned from
printed directories and listings. Again,
the results were disconcerting. Six
percent were returned because the mailbox was full, eight percent were rejected
because the domain name was "unknown," 14% were refused because the user
name "could not be found" and 61% did not respond; only 11% replied.
This
all suggests some valuable services that a call center can provide, first to its
own organization and then to help others. The
first service is to verify that a website is up and running.
True, there are software programs that can do this, but who is checking
to make sure the programs are actually running?
Plus, who is watching for error messages?
A second call center service is to periodically send out test email
messages to important email addresses. If
it bounces back or there is an error, the recipient or technical staff can be
contacted to correct the problem. This
is especially needed for generic email addresses, such as info@..., sales@...,
customerservice@..., and so forth. An
even better idea, and the third service opportunity, is to actually access the
email sent to these common addresses, responding to it as appropriate or
forwarding it to the proper individual.
By
expanding your view of a call center to include these and other Internet
services, will enhance the standing of your operation and thereby increase
"the Net results."
To read other articles written by Peter DeHaan,
go to Vital Signs or check
out his blog at
blog.peterdehaan.com. In addition to publishing AnswerStat and Connections
Magazine, Peter offers
custom
publishing and Internet publishing (Article
Weekly). He may
be reached at dehaan@answerstat.com
or www.PeterDeHaan.com.
Read
more articles
relevant to hospital and medical related call centers.
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