AllThingsD » call centers

Ctrip Sees Challenge in Online Bookings

Loretta Chao — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:00:02 +0000

One of the biggest challenges for China’s largest online travel booking company, Ctrip, is getting existing customers to go online.

Though having users book flights and hotels through a website rather than a call center is more profitable, two-thirds of Ctrip’s bookings are done through its call centers, according to CEO Fan Min. That means only a slightly higher percentage of users today are going through Ctrip.com than five years ago, and Fan believes it will take another few years for the percentage to increase to 35 percent.

“Each percentage point is hard-earned,” Fan says. “It’s a matter of consumer behavior” even among Ctrip’s wealthier users, he says. Compared to U.S. travelers, people in China tend to book their travel at the last minute and “find it’s more convenient to do it by just picking up the phone.”

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Salesforce Pays $31.5 Million for Product Support Company

Tiernan Ray — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:25:55 +0000

Salesforce.com (CRM), which is mainly known for software that helps sales executives track and manage customer prospects, today said it paid $31.5 million in cash for Instranet, a 10-year-old company based in Chicago that makes software to improve product support. Salesforce plans to move Instranet’s software, which is usually installed on customers’ computers, onto its hosted computer facilities. Instranet already has some impressive customers using its software, a lot of it in call center operations, including Comcast (CMCSA). The company’s software is used by 350,000 call center agents around the world. When I asked the company if they will be able to sell product support software as distinct from customer relationship management tools, they noted that Salesforce has already been selling form of support software for four years.

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