Mobile operator Three partnered with design studio B-Reel to bring the high-touch experience of in-store selling to the efficiency of centralized service. Three Sweden calls the service 3LiveShop, a blend of call center software, CRM, video calling, multitouch user interfaces, heads-up display, and in-store retail culture. It looks gorgeous.
Conversion rates in retail stores are very high, and are painfully lower in online stores. The Fireclick Index reports 74% of online shoppers abandon carts with products before checkout; only 2.3% of shoppers buy. This adds up when the lifetime value of a customer is high and switching costs are low.
Three things inspire me.
That a large phone company executive gave real budget to such a crazy idea and let it come to market. Was this a corporate culture hack or the product of a vibrant innovation system?
That the design process focused on both users: the sales rep and the customer. Too often design favors one or ignores the other.
That the results found human eye contact and rapport were as crucial to success as navigating all the information overload. Video is the real value add, building trust and keeping attention. Touch means operators can respond quickly, within the timeframe of a live conversation.
Here’s hoping a future phase gives some of the touch-screen magic to the customer, for some deep co-creation and collaboration. And that the Swedes get the go ahead to roll this out to the rest Three.
P.S. They built the user experiences in Adobe Flash. Why not Skype? Skype is already a partner with Three.
First, Skype requires each party to a call to use Skype-provided identities. That just doesn’t work for walk-in-off-the-street relationships. Selling starts off anonymous (or at least pseudonymous) for both the customer and sales assistant until you are ready to pay.
Second, today’s Skype doesn’t offer a way to build a video call into a browser-centered retail experience. Even if the developers chose to build the CRM station with SkypeKit, the customer would still have to download a full Skype client or a customized SkypeKit app. That’s serious friction, an unwanted step.
Third, early versions of SkypeKit’s private beta license requires you to share business secrets with Skype about your use of SkypeKit, and give Skype veto power over release of your “Plugged-into-Skype” product or service. That’s a lot of outside control to cede when you can easily, cheaply choose other tools.
“We will make an announcement on VoIP and hopefully this service will be available in the second half of this year,” Farid Faraidooni, chief commercial officer of du, told Khaleej Times. …
“The VoIP service will be a part of du broadband service and it will have its own features and qualities,” Faraidooni said.
Asked about the proposed price structure for the VoIP service, he said: “I don’t want to speculate on pricing even before we launch the service. I don’t think VoIP service on Skype, Yahoo and other networks come free of charge as the users first have to get the broadband connection to log in.”
Verizon‘s Skype mobile apps for Android and Blackberry, tied to Verizon’s Wi-Fi, won’t roam internationally. The new Navoto GSM Gateway for Skype offers a way around this. The gateway connects your hometown wireless carrier to your on-the-road mobile phone.
Getting set up takes about ten minutes. Plug in the cables and install the software. Before your trip, take the SIM card from your mobile and put it into the gateway. When you arrive at your destination, get a local prepaid SIM and put it in your mobile phone. Then "pair" your new SIM by texting the gateway.
Once Navoto knows your new SIM, it starts to work. Calls to your mobile number at home are forwarded to you through a SkypeOut call.
You can make calls through Navoto’s ringback feature. Ping the gateway, it calls you using SkypeOut, you hear dialtone and make your call. You can also setup speed dial contacts to make it easy to reach phone numbers or a few of your Skype contacts.
Let’s look at the gear, in this case a prototype from a few months’ ago.
The front of the box has a slot for your local SIM card. By putting your mobile phone’s SIM card in the box, Navoto looks like your mobile phone to your wireless carrier.
You eject your SIM card poking a paper clip into a small hole.
The back of the box has (from left to right) a power jack, two RJ11 phone line jacks so you can keep your home phone connected, a USB port to connect to your home-town PC, and a connector for the GSM antenna.
The GSM antenna lets the box talk with your home-town wireless carrier.
The software running on your PC is a Skype plug-in, talking to your Skype desktop client. None of this works unless Skype for Windows is running.
The Navoto desktop software has many features.
Voice mail, call recording, voice messages, simple configurable IVR (phone menus), voicemails sent to your email account, SMS texting, and scheduled mode changes (home, work, offline, etc.).
Navoto Gateways are entering the distribution channel this week.
In my experience, the prototype gateway works as advertised.
However it is still very early for this product and I haven’t worked with final production versions of the software or the gear. Both the hardware and software are improving quickly in response to known bugs and feature requests. I experienced installation bugs with the email feature, for example. My version of the box, one of a handful of production tests, didn’t have final CE FCC certification, packaging, finish, labels, or documentation. I look forward to giving the finished product another look.
International calling is the largest (only?) growing telecom sector. Skypers called for more than twelve percent of all international minutes in 2009. Demand for cross-border calling is proven. How much is due to travel? How many billions of dollars does the international roaming market collect? Omri Navot aims to find out.
In transit, make Skype ineffective by detecting Skype traffic on a network and slowing or stopping that traffic. You can buy software like NarusInsight to throttle or block Skype traffic.
Block the mothership, cut off Skype clients from Skype.com so they no longer download software updates, get help, manage accounts, or buy Skype credits. Etisalat, the UAE’s national ISP, blocks access to Skype.com. Many of the same tools used for censorship and for network operations and administration can also be used to block access to Skype.com or to block Skype traffic.
Last, governments can use market forces to restrict Internet access in general through pricing and taxes. When communicating over the Internet becomes a "sin", you apply a "sin tax" to reduce "bad" behavior. This is unconfirmed.
Many of these stores aren’t localized beyond currency and payment, operating in English instead of Eesti, Chinese, and the other languages people use. For now, UK and US customers are shopping in Euros instead of Pounds or dollars. US customers also pay UK value added taxes.
This is a bare bones start, but an important one. Skype is preparing to build a platform for programmers. An "app store" helps partners make money from their investment in your platform.
The "extras" department isn’t seeing much traffic yet according to publishers. When it does, this distribution channel could encourage hundreds of existing developers to invest in Skype certification.
The first products in the store:
Company
Product
Description
Price
Cucku
Cucku Backup
Free remote backup to friends, family or a second PC.
Freeware
Scendix Software
Pamela Call Recorder
Pamela Call Recorder, play cool sounds and auto Chat Reply.
€17.79 incl. VAT
Scendix Software
Pamela for Skype – Business Edition
Includes easy integration with MS Outlook as well as call recording and other great features.
€29.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software
Pamela for Skype – Professional Edition
Pamela Professional allows you to record Skype calls of any duration as well other great features.
€19.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software
Pamela for Skype – Standard Edition
Pamela allows you to record Skype calls.
€12.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software
Pamela mcePhone for Skype
mcePhone for Skype allows you to seamlessly integrate Skype and Pamela in Windows Media Center 2005 and Vista.
€17.79 incl. VAT
Scendix Software
Pamela Rich Mood Editor
Create cool HTML formatted Skype Mood Messages
Freeware
Scendix Software
PamFax for Skype (Mac)
Send faxes to any fax number in the world.
FREE (pay per page)
PrettyMay Team
PrettyMay Call Center for Skype – Standard version
Skype PBX Phone System for Small Business.
$200 incl. VAT
PrettyMay Team
PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype – Basic version
Record Skype calls FREE within 15 minutes.
Freeware
PrettyMay Team
PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype – Business version
Record Skype Calls, Store voicemails, auto answering.
$29.95 incl. VAT
PrettyMay Team
PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype – Pro version
Record Skype Calls, Store voicemails, auto answering.
$24.95 incl. VAT
Netralia Pty Ltd
Skylook – make more of MS Outlook with Skype
Recording contacts office outlook calling.
€99.95 incl. VAT
CORRECTION: The Pamela and PamFax software products are from Scendix Software, not PamConsult, their professional service firm.
"Simply put, technology may bring us closer, but, as this study shows, its constant use also means that we may be sacrificing other activities in order to fit it into our schedule. It really is both a blessing and a curse in many ways." – Sarah Perez
Fareed Zakaria’s Question of the Week: "How long do you think this economic downturn will last? Some economists predict 1 yr; others say 4. And you? Email us at FareedZakariaGPS@cnn.com".
This is the second of four posts resulting from an interview with Nart Villeneuve, principle investigator of the Citizen Lab report “Breaching Trust”. After discussing the report itself and some of the follow up activity, we went on to talk about The Citizen Lab, its mission and its activities. From their own website they are “focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics”. Nart described their activity as research on the politics of technology. Under the leadership of Professor Ronald Diebert, their activities are carried out by graduate students with an undergraduate degree in either computer science or political science who join the lab to build up expertise in the other discipline while carrying out their research. They explore issues using their strong understanding of technology to “lift the hood” behind various politically and/or economically motivated intervention of web-based information exchange by governments and other agencies. Assisted by a worldwide network of volunteers and a check list of relevant websites, they can develop a sense of the content that governments are censoring. According to Nart, all governments do some form of surveillance but definitely not to equal levels of resulting actions. At one extreme one finds outright blocking of content but the UAE has economic motivation to block Skype to protect a local communications monopoly. Apparently the Saudis are most interested in blocking porn. China obviously allows “uncensored” content to pass through but we are aware that Skype Journal is often blocked. They will look at filtering techniques used by various countries, the type of content being blocked and try to determine the “local” government’s policy environment in which filtering is taking place. At this point in time most filtering addresses websites but gradually some countries are moving into screening applications (as we have seen with TOM-Skype). There is also “social filtering” censorship activity that involves blocking of porn, drugs and gambling. At this point companies, such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, are modifying their products to address various “local” issues. For instance, Google has modified their process for enquiries from designated countries to “pre-filter” results delivered from their own servers in the U.S.. But then they put out a notification for “filtered” results with the wording for some search results: “to comply with local law, some results are not displayed”. On the other hand Google will not offer GMail accounts with a “.cn” domain name and does not make Blogger available in China. The Citizen Lab also participates in a broader effort to develop guidelines for Internet companies operating in China. But, given that has much broader implications, it will be the subject of another post. Next post: Answers to Phil’s Questions
LinkedIn‘s company directory is up and running. White and yellow pages meet social proximity. Now add talk.
Jaxtr is promoting their low international rates. Using public data, Jaxtr says they are cheaper than Jajah, EQO, Mig33, SkypeOut, Truphone, and Rebtel in calls to the UK, Indonesia, Germany, Canada, Mexico, China, France and Pakistan. Often 10% to 50% less. Not sure how this compares to Skype’s global or regional flat rates.
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