I don't mean the clanking metal kind, with x-ray eyes and death rays and so on, but their software equivalent, little snippets of computer code that function like robots online. These bots, we were told, would soon be cruising the Net for us while we slept, armed with lists of our preferences and our credit card numbers, seeking out bargains and perhaps even, if they were feeling inspired, buying us a thing or two. It's fair to say that the bot revolution has not quite worked out as planned. A few sites, like MySimon and Bidder's Edge , offer up rudimentary comparison shopping bots that help customers find the best price online. Talking to these personal shoppers is about as useful and entertaining as holding a conversation with a talking Barney doll.
Every customer is an individual and every question is individual.
Within moments they are in fact connected to someone, live, and they can fire away with whatever questions they have. If they simply want to know where something is on the site, the Land's End Live rep can send a script that points the user's browser directly to that page. Coming up with questions to ask. I'm the kind of shopper who buys his clothes at a trot, zipping in and out of stores before the salespeople have time to pounce. And the fact is that I just don't want to know all that much about Land's End clothes.