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October 18, 2000
Speaking in Verses
by Patricia Kutza, Upside Today
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When it comes to talking about computers, New York City-based Soliloquy's software natural-language experts are designed to handle just about every twist and turn that human-to-human conversations take. Their notebook expert, working around the clock on ShopAcer.com, fields questions regarding usage recommendations, configuration details and product constraints from laptop-computer shoppers.
Whether it can predict Soliloquy's success in this competitive area is a question still pending. It shares this space with at least nine vendors contending for a slice of the $3.5 billion to be made in a market with a scope now also covering financial services and real estate. There are names like Big Science/EGain and Artificial Life to watch, not to mention a brand with more longevity, Ask Jeeves (ASKJ). Soliloquy CEO Catherine Winchester is confident that its product line is deep enough to rise above the rest, supporting its revenue stream of platform and product licensing and report generation.
Soliloquy's language-based Dialogue Mining tools are geared for helping e-commerce sites lower the extremely high shopping cart-abandonment rate, averaging from 66 percent to 98 percent. Dialogue Mining zeros in on stalls in interactive dialogues because its detailed statistics are based on the topics and events discussed during the human-to-expert conversation, crucial data missing from conventional techniques of click-stream analysis.
Shoppers can be qualified by analyzing the type of questions they ask. "If a shopper asks about price early on in the dialogue," Winchester adds, "they are probably serious about buying."
All well and good, says Larry Hawes, Delphi Group senior analyst. But why not take these smart tools and apply them to b-to-b, where there is a great need for process automation? "This would be a way to differentiate the company from its b-to-c competitors," Hawes says. "Not that Soliloquy should ignore b-to-c plays. They can't afford to do that. But the company should develop its technology so that it can be used for communication between two virtual experts negotiating a sale/trade in an online exchange."
It's a great opportunity, says Hawes, to be first mover by supplying experts sensitive to complex trade parameters in that sector.
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