But Bill Bass, the company's vice president of electronic commerce, admits he doesn't know whether the service will be overrun with shoppers seeking interactivity or completely ignored. Right Start Inc., a Westlake Village, Calif., catalog and mall retailer of baby products, hired Net Effect Systems Inc., North Hollywood, Calif., which supplies real-time chat features to Web sites. With the chat service, says Right Start Chief Executive Jerry Welch, customers can ask that last nagging question that decides whether or not they buy. The Los Angeles company wanted to make online shopping seem more like traditional shopping, says Linda Freedman, StyleClick's vice president of marketing. The site already used high-tech rendering software, allowing users to zoom in on pictures in its online catalog or change colors.
Human interaction is the key.
E-mail works best when the request isn't urgent, says Dan Burke, an analyst at Lincoln, Mass., research firm Gomez Advisors. If they're missing money, it's going to be tough getting satisfaction through an e-mail. That said, financial firms are following retailers' lead in looking for ways to use the Web to improve service. And it's in talks with WebLine to set up a real-time help feature. Analysts say the customer-service options offered will continue to differ greatly depending on the business.