How Second Life Changes Customer Service

The virtual world could become the first point of contact between companies and customers and could transform the whole experience

by Jo Best

Web 2.0 is still the hottest buzzword in tech circles, with every big brand worth its salt rushing to open a headquarters in Second Life or build its own MySpace page. But beyond showing off some fancy programming, a handful of companies are already looking at the latest wave of technologies to explore whether user-generated content could be the next frontier in customer service.

Since it began hosting the likes of Adidas, Dell, Reuters and Toyota, Second Life has become technology's equivalent of India or China - everyone needs an office and a strategy involving it to keep their shareholders happy. But beyond opening a shiny new building in the virtual world, what can such companies do with their remote real estate?

Rather than a simple showcase, some believe Second Life could one day become a first point of contact for customers.

Like many other big brands, PA Consulting has its own offices in Second Life and has learnt that simply having an office to answer customer queries is not enough. Real people, albeit behind avatars, must be staffing the offices - in the same way having a website is not enough if there isn't a call centre to back it up when a would-be customer wants to speak to a human being. In future, the consultants believe call centres could one day ask customers to follow up a phone call with them by moving the query into a virtual world.

And hanging around in Second Life is more fun than being stuck on hold. As Claus Nehmzow, member of PA Consulting's management team points out: "The waiting period can be so much more entertaining than with an IVR system".

Instead of being placed in a queue to enjoy hold 'muzak' when contacting a call centre, virtual world visitors could make more profitable use of their time - talking to other inhabitants, viewing videos, reading information in the environment for example.

As well as keeping visitors entertained, exploring virtual world customer service can have advantages for the company themselves.

By using avatars, for example, a whole new customer services workforce can be opened up - those who need to work from home or mothers with young children for example, can be brought back into the virtual workforce. It can also remove some of the issues with customers being prejudiced against call centre workers who have certain accents.

However, currently Second Life and its imitators remain relatively niche in usage terms and have their own technology boundaries - not all consumers, particularly the older community, have the tech savvy or indeed the hardware necessary to make use of virtual worlds.

It may yet be some time before these cyber worlds come into their own - yet other web 2.0 technologies may offer another route for companies to make conversations with their customers easier.

Clive Longbottom, of analyst house Quocirca, believes the relatively low penetration rates and end user technical constraints will keep virtual worlds as a relatively niche customer service tool: "It's a new environment, there's a lot of interest... but it's not growing rapidly, it's not a major area."

He added that more established web 2.0 favourites such as YouTube might be able to play a better part in resolving customer queries. Examples might be electronics vendors posting a software demo or a video of how to set up a tricky audio system.

Some companies have already cottoned on to the potential of user-generated content and have begun milking users for their expertise in problem solving - Sony is one, having recently got users to help solve glitches after the recent launch of the PS3. Sony has built customer self-service forums using Transversal software to allow the PS3-puzzled to query each other.

Andy Barker, director of customer cervices for Sony UK, told silicon.com the hardware maker will be relying on PS3 fans to help each other out, although the forums will have some Sony brains on hand too.

Barker told silicon.com: "