Customer Bondage

British Airways, despite massive investments in a Website that receives 30 million hits a month, wouldn't consider it. And even Amazon.com, the young turk of the online world and renowned for its technological advancement, is only making tentative and exploratory approaches. But just what is holding back the Internet pioneers from sending out marketing messages to customers in real-time? Despite using analytics software from White Cross Systems in a wide ranging project to better understand its on-line customers, British Airways.com is wary of fully embracing real-time customer interaction. John Momement, BA's head of e-commerce operations, says the sheer amount of integration needed between different information systems made real time to all intents and purposes impossible. Echoing these sentiments is John McKean, independent management consultant and sometime IT advisor to the US government. While acknowledging Amazon.com's ability to use previous click history to make purchase suggestions to customers as the closest anyone has got to real-time interaction, he adds that it still faced a huge technical challenge. And Amazon has no legacy systems at all. Real-time marketing requires an almost instantaneous response to a customer interaction. For this to work some level of integration between off-line data, held in a data warehouse, and incoming online data about customer interactions from front-office systems is required. A return link is also needed from front-office information to ongoing marketing campaigns. Many are worried of the effect on their well trusted existing systems and this can inhibit the degree of experimentation. In addition, companies are worried about pestering and deterring customers by making real-time offers.