E-mail as costly as telephone support, say customer support experts at seminar in San Jose today
Avoid Deploying E-mail as a Self-Service Substitute —
Tim Hickernell, META Group Analyst

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 8, 2002 — E-mail is inherently no less expensive than live telephone customer support, according to customer relationship management (CRM) experts at a seminar in San Jose, Calif., today. The only way to significantly reduce the cost of support, according to the experts, is through effective Web self-service support.

More than 50 Silicon Valley executives attended today's seminar, entitled, "Web Self-service: Get the R.O.I. without the R.I.S.K.," featuring keynote speakers Tim Hickernell, senior program director at META Group; Maria Kernen, former vice president, customer operations, of NTT/Verio; and Bo Wandell, president of SafeHarbor Technology Corp, which sponsored the seminar.

The experts were quick to point out that e-mail is not the same as Web self-service. E-mail and Web chat are good channels to use for reducing online transaction abandonment rates, when customers quit an online support session, but not to reduce costs of support, according to the speakers.

"Companies in their customer support efforts should use e-mail as an optional bridge between Web self-service and live assistance," said Hickernell, "and avoid deploying e-mail as a self-service substitute."

Web self-service is an online customer support environment accessible on a company's Web site and designed to help customers immediately and easily find answers to commonly asked questions about that company's products or services.

A strong Web self-service environment should be able to solve the majority of a customer's basic questions or problems, with assisted support used as an escalation tool for high-value customers or for users that can not find answers through self-service, Hickernell advised.

"Blending Web self-service with assisted service (i.e. e-mail or telephone) creates a coherent customer service capability that increases customer satisfaction," he said.

"Doing Web self-service right is not easy," said Kernen, who led efforts to outsource Web self-service support at NTT/Verio, a global IP services provider and part of the NTT Communications family of companies.

NTT/Verio recently launched a new Web self-service environment with the goal of lowering operating costs and improving customer satisfaction. The company hired SafeHarbor Technology, a business process outsourcer, to create and manage the self-service environment and optimize it on an ongoing basis.

"The savings with Web self-service are dramatic," said SafeHarbor's Wandell. "The average cost of telephone support or even e-mail can be as high as $10 to $33 per session, and costs scale up with volume, but Web self-service can be around $1 per session and costs continue to fall as usage rises."

About SafeHarbor Technology Corp.
SafeHarbor is the leading Web self-service provider, empowering people on the Web to help themselves. A business process outsourcer, it is the only company that provides support as a service, with an integrated support solution combining Web self-service and assisted support with data warehousing and analytics. SafeHarbor's support services are proven to reduce cost, risk and time to market, while improving customer satisfaction. SafeHarbor drives self-service success by leveraging cutting-edge technology with proprietary techniques and human intelligence. SafeHarbor currently provides Web support for some 6,500 end-users every day for such clients as American Airlines, NTT/Verio, Washington Mutual Bank, and the State of Washington.

SafeHarbor's corporate headquarters are in Satsop, Wash.- 90 miles southwest of Seattle. The company also has offices in Seattle and New York. To learn more, please visit www.safeharbor.com.

Press Contacts:
Margaret Dawson
The Silver Company
(206) 624-0388
margaret@thesilvercompany.com

Susan Cummings
SafeHarbor Technology Corporation
(206) 922-5000
sue@safeharbor.com

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