WEB
CENTRAL:
meeting new business needs
You may think that a Web page’s most important purpose is to provide surfers with
compelling content and product information. That it’s a place to conduct commerce not
administrative functions.
Actually the Web is a powerful universal point of entry that companies can use, for
instance, to have agents worldwide enter new customer information as the long distance
company Telegroup does (see MWT 7/96). Now two other enterprises have designed Web sites
that provide innovative services which may ultimately be models for widespread business
practices in the future.
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MCI customers who are a part of the integrated MCI One plan use the World Wide Web to
change their One Number routing, view and update current services, and obtain online
information and technical support via e-mail.
MCI One’s Web site serves as a kind of "virtual" customer service
center, officials said. Changes made at the site are secure, are programmed immediately,
and can be changed in real-time.
The MCI One service in general lets customers integrate their long distance, cellular,
paging, Internet, voice-mail, and fax communications into one phone number.
MCI still offers One plan changes via direct touch-tone telephone entry or a call to
customer service. MCI One’s Web page is at http://www.mcione.com.
A free World Wide Web-based e-mail service has surpassed the one million member mark,
and its ranks are swelling by more than 12,000 each day, officials at the six-month old
Hotmail service said.
Stephen Douty, Hotmail vice president of sales and marketing, believes the service is
so successful because the "key is that its easy" to use.
One of the reasons why Hotmail is exploding in usage is that the service is based on
the Web. Users with Web access and an e-mail account can send and receive e-mail, whether
or not they’re at their own computer. "Everywhere people go, they can get to
Hotmail to get their e-mail," Douty said. "There are no configurations to carry
around, and no particular computer that needs to be used. You can get e-mail from a cyber
cafe, the library, someone’s office, your home, or your office," he added.
Besides easy access, Douty also said the site’s ease of use is also helping
Hotmail in the popularity department. Once a username and a password is entered, the Web
user is taken directly to the "mail box," where messages can be saved,
forwarded, sent, and deleted.
Advanced capabilities like MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) file
attachments, personal address books, folders, and embedded hypertext links are supported
by Hotmail, officials added.
Users who have Hotmail e-mail accounts don’t pay for the service, because it is
advertiser-supported, officials said. Banners appear at the top of e-mail directories in
much the same way as they do in other advertiser-supported sites.
Hotmail also guarantees it will never send unsolicited junk e-mail, or "spam"
as it is commonly called, to its subscribers. Hotmail’s Web site is at http://hotmail.com.
(Contacts:Kelly Seacrist, MCI, 703-415-6124; Kelly Herman or Montrese Etienne,
415-513-8800, both of McLean Public Relations for Hotmail Corp)
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