Today I assisted at the IBM Virtual Summit and I was quiet impressed by the Virtual Booths. In addition to the normal product presentations, a part of the site proposes you to hang around a product booth, read product information and see demos. On top of this, a booth guest invites you for a chat and you can start to talk to this person and ask the question that you have !!

This experience made me think for more than 10 minutes :

• Did I like it ? yes
• Do I want more ? yes
• Which are the companies that allow you to chat with them for finding a solution to your problem, when you have the time and in a non-intrusive manner (If you think the phone is intrusive...) I than see that HP has such a service, you can chat with all kind of sales. See http://www.hp.com/sbso/assist/chat.html.

Some companies seem to be specialized in that kind of business, see for instance http://www.eliveservice.com/

My conclusions so far are :

• There is a real business to develop here around chatting with clients over the Internet and drive sales by being present. How often do you need a small informationd and you need to wait a long time to get the answer ?
• If I have a business one day I will allow potential customers to chat with my sales force

Work MBA