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Working Without a Net
By Peter DeHaan
October, 2003
I first heard about the ‘Net
over 20 years ago from one of my electronic school 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 very
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.
That was in 1981.
Fast-forward 15 years. Suddenly,
it seemed, everyone is 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 it had.
I soon obtained a dial-up account
from a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) that used our call center for
overflow and after-hours calls. (I
was amazed at the ease and adeptness with which our college-aged agents took to
this account, proficiently using terms and easily bandying about acronyms which
were foreign to me. Yet for them it
was commonplace and familiar.)
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 - not that there was much to do from a business standpoint.
When a colleague would get email I would excitedly make note, but would
invariably resort to the phone for any communications.
As more people became connected, I tried to check email once a day, while
checking voice mail multiple times daily. (I
had turned off pager notification after receiving 57 pages in one day, mostly
from voice mail.)
However, it wasn’t long before
I was checking email several times a day and voice mail only once or twice.
Now I spend most of my day connected to the Internet and receive and send
hundreds of messages. All too often,
I forget to check voicemail. Altogether,
I have 14 specific email addresses, from different Websites and for different
purposes. Of the hundreds of email
messages I get each day, the majority are from list serves.
These messages are automatically routed to specific folders, which I view
once a day. Fortunately, I am able
to filter out most of the spam. Therefore,
it is not much work to delete the few that slip through.
However, this still leaves 50 or more that need my direct attention.
During the summer months, email traffic slows considerably.
Conversely, as the publication date for an issue draws near, email
communication peaks sharply.
I recently gave some thought to
what my day would be like without email. Indeed,
about half of my consulting work is done via email, as is over 90 percent of my
publishing work. In producing this
magazine, articles are submitted electronically, then routed to our
proofreaders, passed back to me, and forwarded to production.
Pre-production proofs are sent as PDF attachments.
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 need to hire a full-time assistant just to accomplish
the same amount of work. Plus, I
would not be nearly as effective or efficient.
In short, I can’t imagine working without the ‘Net.
Email, of course, 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 businesses of all sizes. In
fact, an organization without a Website is often viewed as second rate or a
non-player. Websites can be a great
equalizer, leveling the playing field between major corporations, smaller
competitors, and start-ups.
All told, I have eight Websites and a half dozen domain names waiting to be developed.
The Connections Magazine Website, www.ConnectionsMagazine.com
is the largest and most visited. It
is currently at 639 pages and grows larger each month.
Usage of the site has steadily increased.
Last month we hit new records with over 60,000 hits from 5,500 different
users who downloaded 1.5 Gigabytes of information and files.
Depending on which of these stats are considered, the site’s annual
growth rate is between 334 and 751 percent!
Another interesting tidbit is
that the site contains 7,357 links (6,741 are internal, while 497 point to other
sites). I make all of the updates
and changes to the site, but use a service that tests the links for me each
week. They email me a report of any
errors, along with information about the sites that link to me that have made
changes. Most of the updates are
made after each issue is mailed; it takes about a day and half.
But minor changes and tweaking occur throughout the month.
Last month, the most frequently
accessed pages were:
Frequently accessed articles
include “Language Interpretation,” “Channel Banks – A Technical
Overview,” and “Scripting for Outbound Telemarketing.”
Several whitepapers are also frequently requested, including “Asian
Call Centres: Continent Review 2002” and “Overcoming the Challenges of
Managing a Small Call Center.” We
see the most traffic midweek, while Saturday is our slow day.
Interestingly, traffic is often up on holidays.
While the purpose of the
Connections Magazine Website is to provide useful industry tools and
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 banner ads, pop-up advertising, and link fees.
(Connections Website’s banner ads about 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; think of
these as on-line brochures.
One seemingly obvious feature of Websites
is to provide a means for further communication.
Therefore, a “contact us” page is a common element. It
is surprising when contact information cannot be found.
Sometimes this may be explicable, as the organization’s business plan
does not allow direct support. Their
attitude is for self-service; take it or leave it.
For other sites, the lack of contact information is confounding.
These presumably major companies should have a real interest in
interacting with customers and prospects. But
you can’t call, can’t write, and in some cases can’t even send an email
message.
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. Only one
site responded within five minutes and 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 the message or reply got lost in cyberspace.
That does happen, but certainly not 60 percent of the time.
In another instance, I sent out a
targeted solicitation (offering a listing in our Buyer’s Guide) to over 100
addresses gleaned from published directories and listings (not Websites).
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 percent were refused
because the user name “could not be found” and 61 percent did not respond;
only 11 percent replied.
The solution is simple.
Periodically test all your email addresses to insure they are working.
Then confirm that the person assigned to check corporate email addresses
knows how and does so frequently. Failure
to verify that your published email addresses are working and being properly
handled is wasting your Internet investment and alienating customers and
prospects; it is little better than working without a ‘Net.
Summary: Working with the
‘Net
·
Test your company email and published addresses frequently
·
Assign and hold accountable someone to check and process email
·
Make it a policy to respond to all email messages
·
Include complete contact information on your Website:
Mailing
address, street address, toll-free, toll, and fax number, email address
·
Include key contact information on every page:
Phone
number and email address
To read other articles written by Peter DeHaan,
go to From
The Publisher or check out his blog at
http://blog.peterdehaan.com. In addition to publishing Connections Magazine
and AnswerStat magazine (for hospital and medical related call centers), Peter
also publishes several related websites, including
MyArticleArchive.com.
He may
be reached at 866-668-6695, dehaan@connectionsmagazine.com
or www.PeterDeHaan.com.
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