Automated fax emerges as an innovative communications tool

The next time you're taking in a morning latte at your local coffee bar, try a little experiment. Approach a few strangers with a casual "insider's" knowing look and ask, "Heard the latest about fax?" You will likely be met with a yawn or a deep and troubled stare. The same people who take pride in knowing the latest about all conceivable forms of technology and gizmos, from virtual reality toys to every quirky World Wide Web site, would probably be surprised to learn that a quiet evolution is occurring beneath their unsuspecting noses. A basic office appliance, so long lumped with the copier and printer as necessary but unadventurous hardware, is emerging as an innovative communications tool. For a growing number of marketing and customer support managers, automated fax has become a new weapon in the battle for customer mindshare.

Why are companies giving fax a second look? The overriding reason for integrating fax into corporate communications systems is that fax is everywhere, in our offices, homes, schools, hotels, shops, airplanes and automobiles. Experts on the subject tell us there are more than 90 million fax devices in use worldwide (The Kauffman Group, Cherry Hill, New Jersey). Like telephones, they are the perfect entry point for communications, outbound or inbound. Like the telephone, fax (with the exception of some arcane fax modem software) is trouble-free and easy to use.

Unlike the telephone, which requires the live human voice for true interaction, fax is a print communications medium that can be successfully automated. With the right combination of software and programming, fax can be designed to work with almost any other existing communications device or system, including a corporate call center or Web site.

If your market encompasses the technology-literate (like your new Javadrinking friends), the not-so-technologyliterate, and the technology-indifferent (which may include some older citizens with little exposure to the Internet and PC technology), fax offers a familiar and easily understood medium for exchange.

What Is Automated Fax, Anyway?

Most of us have likely caught our first glimpse of automated fax in the form of fax broadcast. Fax broadcast is the nearly simultaneous transmission of a single document to many locations. Fax broadcast may be used for initial sales inquiries, press releases, event invitations - essentially in place of any direct mail campaign.

Fax forms, another type of automated fax, are rapidly growing in popularity. Frequently linked to direct mail or print advertising campaigns, fax forms generally ask that the recipient fill out his or her name and address; answer a few qualifying questions or select specific information from a liter ature checklist; and fax the form bacl to a toll-free number. The form may be a single interaction like an event registration or membership application or it may be an interactive "smart form" with bar-coded recipient information and scannable data points that are programmed to fulfill the request without human intervention. An example of a smart form might be a conference registration form that automatically sends a map, hotel and sightseeing information tailored to the individual's responses.

Fax-on-demand is perhaps the most elegant form of fax automation. By linking directly to an existing call center or help desk, or even the company Web page, fax-ondemand provides the added benefit of expanding the utility of existing communications systems with minimal incremental costs. Customers can use a touch-tone phone to dial up the corporation's document library and request literature to be sent to their fax, or they may access the library via the company's Web site from their office or home PC.

A new twist on fax-ondemand, recently coined "faxon-command," allows telemarketers and other call center personnel to select and send documents directly to customers from the company Web page while the customer is still on the phone, thus putting control over what is sent and when it is sent into the hands of the company representatives. This may be especially useful for a rep trying to qualify prospective customers who may be unclear about what they need. Through a quick conversation, the astute rep can determine what literature is most appropriate to a particular caller and include marketing literature on related products and services which the caller may not have thought to request. Since Web browsers are platform independent, virtually any workstation -- whether PC-, Mac- or UNIX-based - can tap into this rich library of documents.

Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Oct 1996
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved