FRAMINGHAM (01/24/2000) - Four things to consider when you want to integrate your e-commerce operations into your call center:
1. Decide how you want to summarize information for the customer. What do you want them to see on their customized Web site? How will you customize third-party packaged applications to present data to the customer?
2. Prepare to summarize customer data across multiple applications. Build reference files to identify the customer as an individual across all systems involved. When a customer calls in, the system files should access the customer history database and the customer's current online activities.
3. As you get into application integration, make sure the organization has a strong underlying database to store customer history.
4. Link this automated technology to people who depend on that call center, such as your sales and marketing people. Plan on making that data available over the Internet to support different sales channels. For example, you could build a number of opportunity management systems used for leads and so on.