TriNet Services announced it updated its
Internet Voice Button Service, which initiates a voice connection over
standard phone lines to a business with the click of a button on a Web site.
The service enables customer service representatives to push Web pages
directly to the screens of online users.
The Internet Voice Button, developed by Nortel (Northern Telecom), allows a Web user
to notify a company’s customer representative that a call has come in.
The service then asks if he or she would like to accept the call. When the
representative clicks “yes,” the service puts the call through and
indicates where
the caller is on the Web site.
During the call the representative can push URLs directly to the screen of
the caller and at the same time allow the caller to push URLs back.
“This service opens a voice dialogue in conjunction with an online dialogue to
help a user quickly and effectively, without losing the context and
richness of
the Web environment,” says Frank Taylor, CEO of TriNet Services. “The
integration of normal telephony with the Web will have far-reaching results
for e-commerce.”
In essence, the service gives online users a “help me, I’m stuck” button, the
company said. Users can click on the button and talk to a customer
representative over a second phone line or a commonly available
“Voice-over-IP application” that carries phone calls over the Internet.
For businesses, the Internet Voice Button features the ability to add
announcements that are played to customers when calls are received, and ring
multiple numbers simultaneously so that anyone in a business group can answer.
It informs the business of who is calling and from which Web page. Pricing was
not disclosed.
To use Internet Voice Button, consumers need Internet access, a Web browser
(Netscape 3.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, or later editions), a
second phone line, or a multimedia personal computer with Voice-over-IP
software such as
Microsoft NetMeeting.
