National Information Directory Organization

This Norwegian company has used virtual chat to successfully counter Google's attack on its market share. There was a 500% increase in traffic on Sara (Opplysningen 1881's VIRTUAL ASSISTANT) when she was launched as an MSN buddy. Overall website traffic increased and the company's website went on to win a major European Award for Business to Consumer Marketing.

Opplysningen 1881 is the largest national supplier of personal and business information across every information channel in Norway. Its database contains more than eight million telephone number entries for companies, public offices and consumers and it is continuously updated, averaging 35,000 changes a day. The organization employs more than 600 experienced and professional customer advisors.

Search engines, and in particular, Google was encroaching on the company's territory, especially at the younger end of the market. Opplysningen 1881 needed to make its information more accessible and offer a wider range of services to its customers.

The primary focus was to drive more traffic to Opplysningen 1881's website and engage new and returning users to combat Google's encroachment. Specific objectives for the process were:

• Increase traffic to the main website
• Create stickiness - add value to searches to encourage loyal behavior
• Increase the number of searches per visit
• Attract young visitors who were using Google search.

The solution: a cool image and a softer, more personal approach!

Artificial Solutions developed a structure for an online Virtual Assistant with a friendly and engaging personality. The key functions were to provide fast accurate answers from the whole database. At the same time, the Virtual Assistant provided an interactive dialogue to help refine the search criteria and offer more specific results including clickable urls. The solution included effective and fast handover to customer service agents when required.

The Virtual Assistant service was then promoted by email and MSN to all Hotmail users in the country.

The take up of the service exceeded all expectations and the Virtual Assistant is now successfully used as a proactive soft sales tool for major business customer campaigns.