Angela Ursem

The initial minutes become half an hour, because you have to go to each site separately, load it, sign in, skip the advertorials and commercial messages and do this 4 different times, for all your favorite sites.

Wouldn’t it be great (for your boss as well), if you could have all your most relevant sites combined in one site? No surfing, browsing, URL-typing needed, just one site that brings it all?

A lot of sites do offer some kind of automated personalization, based on predefined criteria like geographical area (IP recognition), the page you came from or click behavior. But till recently, all these sites were about customization of the site by the website-owner (they predefine the criteria), but only since recently you see sites where consumers themselves are in the drivers seat to create their own personalized websites, based on their criteria. This type of rich internet applications are called ‘Rich Portals”.

This is a big mind shift for a lot of companies. This is really about what the customer wants, and not what the company is offering. This trend is also taking place on the web and in my opinion this is definitely part of the Web2.0 trend: the consumer is in charge! Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Frequent visits and brand awareness

In most cases you see personalization used at content-driven websites, like news, sports, media, entertainment. But also in Self Service applications (like a bank) you will see this kind of personalization more and more.

With this kind of personalization, the user can organize the pages themselves, adapt the content and choose their own color scheme. This is all made available by the site-owner, because the more you can personalize your page, the bigger the chance is that the visitor will like the site and the more often the visitor will return.

But in a lot of cases this is easier said then done. How can you make sure you users understand the possibilities and how can you make them start using it? What can we learn from other sites?

iGoogle, Symbaloo, Netvibes and a couple of other initiatives really understood how to make people happy: in one overview you can see news/info/entertainment/mail that you want to see, not what some kind of editorial team wants you to see. And the good news is: this will save you tons of time, so you happy, your boss happy!

Web Personalization (portal) examples:

Most of you will know Netvibes.com

This is a good example, because you can really ‘create’ your own personal page, your start page, based on your interests and needs. You can personalize:

• The lay-out (colors, fonts)
• The content (your news features, your weather page etc.)
• The way the page is organized, by dragging and dropping

Another very nice example is KPN Vandaag. KPN is the largest telecom provider in The Netherlands and they have been really listening to what their customers want. This is a perfect example of marketing 2.0: don’t try to push your message to your customer, but give your customer what they are asking for. KPN realized that they needed to replace their ‘old’ internet start page. But instead of asking an agency to design a new site, they went directly to their customers and asked what their ‘perfect start-page’ would look like.

And this is the result (in Dutch):

KPN Vandaag is the result of listening to customers, interpreting statistics and using the benefits of Rich Internet Applications. The start page can be personalized with your content, your sites and your interests and can even be adjusted to your favorite colors and lay-out. Some other start pages also offer these features and maybe even more, but KPN has been able to present all the options in a very comprehensible way, so all their customers will understand how it works, not only the web-savvy people.

Another interesting Self Service example is ABN Amro internet banking:

ABN Amro customers can adapt the start page of the internet banking section (after log-in). A lot of their customers visit this page very frequently, so it’s a nice offer to service their customers in a personalized way.

You can drag and drop the different content blocks and select the accounts and services you frequently use.

Personalization Technology

The good thing about Web 2.0 is that a lot of good technology is out there that can be used to build those type of personalized websites. There are numerous open-source software initiatives which offer all kinds of widgets and gadgets that can be easily implemented (for free). But companies who look for a stable, re-usable, reliable framework might be better of using commercial frameworks, like Adobe or Backbase. Those type of commercial frameworks offer re-usability of applications, fast development, services and support and most important: the guarantee that you are not using software that might be patented but that you don’t know of.

Conclusion

If you are creating a portal to service your customers, please take the following considerations into account:

• Personalization/use of a portal is only valuable when you have a lot of content to offer for different kind of target groups
• Think about the content up front, because this will be the success factor of your site: will you create it your self, will you buy it, what is the type of content your visitor is looking for. Ask your visitors!
• Customer sites that are visited frequently (like internet banking) have a higher succeed rate then generic news portals, because it will be difficult to differentiate from the existing portals.
• Consider both open-source (free) and commercial frameworks. They both offer distinct advantages. Make sure your choice fits your type of company (liability, security, maintainability, re-usability vs. costs)

For me personally, my mornings in the office start a lot more relaxed and way more efficient, because I will use my personal portal instead of visiting numerous sites. I even have time left for another mug of coffee! (don’t tell my boss )

This blog is all about customer engagement, so we always emphasize the importance of the engagement phase. We’ve seen many examples where engagement plays an essential role on websites. Especially for complex products (for example mortgages or cars), customers will not make a purchase decision before they feel totally comfortable with all the options.

Conversion, however, is still the ultimate goal. I fully agree with Boaz that engagement by itself is not what you want to optimize for. Engagement should prepare the visitor for a purchase decision or a registration (e.g. becoming pre-qualified for a mortgage). With standard web analytics tools you can usually measure the correlation between visitor engagement and conversion, so that’s what you optimize for.

Still, visitor engagement is a pretty broad term. We usually define it as any interactive module on a website, as opposed to static content. Interactive meaning that the user is actively interacting with the website: entering information in a calculator, using a faceted search tool, contributing content, and so on.

Many sites already use some kind of interactive modules. However, they are typically buried deep down in the website, and are often not linked to a conversion action. So they don’t get enough traffic, and they don’t funnel visitors towards the sign-up form: a missed opportunity.

A fictitious example of engagement starting on the home page: just specify the price of your dream house and playfully start the pre-qualification process.

Let’s take the example of mortgage calculators. A survey of the websites of the largest mortgage providers showed that several calculators are hard to find or not explicitly linked to a pre-qualification form. The first thing we recommend to our clients is to expose a small calculator on their home page, so visitors start playing with it right-away. This calculator will ask for some more data, and steer visitors towards a pre-qualification form, using the data they have entered into the calculator. This usually results in double-digit conversion increases.

So I’d say: “acquire, engage, convert, retain” is the new paradigm for online marketing of complex products, but please skip the engagement stage for selling simple widgets.

But then of course, the next question will be: How do we (the marketers of a brand/product/service) persuade our customers that we are worth their time, effort, money and commitment? We won’t be able to engage everyone, and we must accept that those who do engage with us will do so to different degrees and in different ways. Customer engagement isn’t a nirvana that can be reached; it is a process of developing and nurturing relationships.

In that sense I’d like to refer to the stages consumers travel through as they interact with a particular brand. This Customer Engagement Journey, consists of 5 different stages: Awareness, Consideration, Inquiry, Purchase and Retention. Marketers tend to focus on the latter two stages: purchase and retention, because this is their end-goal. But we have to keep in mind that if we really want to ‘engage’ people, not just to ‘persuade’ them to buy something, we have to include the first three stages as well.

Let me try to give you a simple example. I won’t go into the obvious e-commerce platforms, but I will focus on a site of a big well known brand: Philips.com.

When I’m interested to learn more about a Flat TV/LCD screen I would usually go to www.google.com and simply type ‘flat TV’. One of the first results that come up is the link to www.philips.com (Awareness)

At the first screen, I get an overview of all the different series that Philips is offering me (Consideration):

I can fill in my requirements by faceted search: every time I change a requirement, I directly see the result of this selection. This makes it very easy to navigate, because I don’t have to get back to the search page anytime I want to change a requirement. This is a very visual Product Finder, a rich user experience (Inquiry).

When I’ve found my perfect Flat Screen, I can press the big ‘BUY’ button and I will be referred to stores in my area that have the TV in stock (Purchase). After selection of a store, you will be directed to the website of that specific store. It would be a nice idea for Philips to keep ‘their’ customers, to create their own shop online or to collaborate with online shops in their website.

So far so good, it has been a positive experience for a consumer like me. But, I think Philips is missing a big opportunity by not asking what else they can help me with, or recommending other related products or even by asking my email address for future communication (Retention). If companies would execute this stage correctly, you could get a lot of returning customers because you’ll be able to trigger your consumer with a recommendation that they might like (based on experiences with other customers) (Awareness).

It’s easy to write it down how companies should ‘engage’ their customers, but I know that in real life it’s much harder to execute the complete 5 stages of Customer Engagement. Even the companies that started 10 years ago (like Amazon) with e-commerce, are still learning and continuously adding optimizations. But we’re definitely getting there!

Marketing wants to go live quickly, run a lot of tests and make frequent updates, all to optimize conversion or tweak the user experience. IT wants to make sure systems are running smoothly, are maintainable and cost effective.

Does it really have to be so painful? No, we don’t think so. We’ve seen with several ways to ease the tension between e-business and IT, so both can meet their goals.

Background

First a little bit of background: we’ve implemented Rich Internet Applications at dozens of Global 2000 companies, usually to optimize online conversion, increase customer retention and cross-selling, or to improve the user experience in general. We usually get the order from the e-business department and work with IT for the implementation. We use the following strategies to speed up projects:

1: Leverage the Content Management System

A lot of changes to your website can be done from the CMS, even changes to interactive items such as forms, calculators, products finders, and self-service dashboards. The great thing about Rich Internet Applications is that they essentially are made up of web pages, so there is usually no need to install anything on the web server. And publishing something via the CMS is much faster than having to go through IT. And IT is fine with this, because it follows established web publishing procedures.

2: Use Loosely Coupled Links to Back-end Applications

Often Rich Internet Applications need to interact with information on the web server or a back-end system. The IT department needs to make these connections, and that may take some time. However, if IT can expose the application as a Web Service, the RIA can be changed in any possible way while still talking to the same Web Service. There are also specialized vendors that turn existing applications into a Web Service. Once the Web Service is done, you can use strategy 1 to make changes as often as you want.

In other cases the performance of back-end systems is disappointing. This can be solved with a nightly publish from the back-end system, rather than connecting in real-time. We’ve done this for zip-code checks for both DSL lines, as well as certain financial products: that type of information does not change more often than once a day. Obviously, this is not a suitable approach for real-time information.

3: Host Externally

If option 1 and 2 don’t work, you can also host the application externally, and link to it from your website. In most cases, this is only possible if you don’t need a link to internal applications. In addition to linking to a page on an external web server, you can also embed external components within your own website, just like you can load external widgets in Facebook or iGoogle, and it will look totally integrated.

We’ve found that e-business projects tend to be faster and more successful when using the above strategies. We hope you find it useful. Please let us know if this has worked for you, and if you know other ways to facilitate the cooperation between Marketing and IT. Just leave a comment below.

Rob’s main RIA example is Home & Abroad, a personalized travel site. If you have a couple of minutes, use the ‘Quick Planner’ to see how they suggest a trip itinerary based on your preferences: pretty cool.

However, when I started editing my itinerary I wasn’t very impressed with the user experience. Until I realized why I wasn’t impressed:

► All travel planning sites need great faceted search!

And that’s what Home & Abroad is missing. I scoured the internet for some other examples. I found some good sites via the excellent Web 2.0 Travel blog and Travel+Leisure’s Top 25 Travel Sites. But let’s first define what we mean with Faceted Search.

What is Faceted Search?

Faceted search allows you to narrow down search results with multiple filters, so you quickly see which search results are most relevant to you. This is especially useful for structured search, where you know the important search criteria beforehand. For example, you may want to filter a flight on price, number of stops, and the total flight duration. Unstructured search – like Google – is not a good candidate for faceted search.

These are some good examples of faceted search for attractions, flights and hotels:

Faceted search at Home & Abroad, Farecast, InsideTrip and Kayak

Focus on Meta-Search Engines

Most usability innovations seem to take place on meta-search engines, such as Kayak, Farecast and InsideTrip. These websites search multiple sites for flights, hotels and cars and present the results in a single screen. They make money with referral fees and advertisements. They exist because of their superior user experience compared to established sites such as Expedia and Travelocity and Orbitz.

Based on the analysis of several faceted search tools, I’ve tried to distill some best practices for faceted search, and I’m proposing the following top 10 rules for faceted search. Let me know your feedback!

Faceted Search Best Practices

1. Combine Search Criteria

Faceted search got its name because you can combine various search criteria (‘facets’) to narrow down the search results. So technically Home & Beyond doesn’t have faceted search, because the search criteria cannot be combined. You can’t see ‘Buildings & Monuments’ that are cheaper than $5. You either see all buildings, or any attraction cheaper than $5. So the ability to use multiple search criteria at the same time is of key importance for faceted search applications.

2. Use Flexible Ranges

If you can specify prices or flight times, it’s great if you can set a lower and upper threshold, rather than select a pre-defined range, such as $10-$20 or ‘afternoon’. Kayak has introduced a great tool for this: the double slider (see picture), which is now also adopted by other sites. Move the sliders to narrow down your choices.

3. Use multi-select for non-numeric filters

If there are multiple categories to choose from, it’s useful if you can select more than one category. This is illustrated with the airline selection tool from Farecast (pictured below). They even add ‘clear’ and ‘show all’ shortcuts.

An elaborate example is from InsideTrip, where you can refine their trademarked TripQuality rating, based on Speed, Comfort and Ease categories, see screenshot below.

4. Use Keyword Search if there are too many possible options

In some cases you may have more than a couple of dozen options. For example, if you go to Orlando and want to stay in a Disney hotel, you can search for the keyword ‘Disney’. It’s not possible for the creator of the faceted search tool to think up all possible search terms upfront. For example, in other cities other search terms will be popular. And of course, it should be possible to combine keyword search with all other search criteria. Look at how Kayak hotel search shows hotels costing more than $130 and contain the word ‘Disney’ in their name:

5. Expand to show more details

In the listing of the search results you should include the key pieces of data, but you cannot show everything. If visitors want quick info without leaving the search screen, you can provide a ‘details’ slide-out window. I found that InsideTrip was able to squeeze the most information in such a window, without creating information overload. In the screenshot below you can see that they put a lot of flight quality information in their search results, because that’s their unique approach.

6. Sort the results by Criteria

Even when you’ve used all your facets to narrow down the search, you may still have dozens of options. Therefore, it should be possible to sort the results. Here I’ve sorted hotel results on their proximity to DisneyWorld:

7. Use different views on the data

The default way to present search results is the list grid. It shows a selection of the available information, and you can sort based on this information (see rule 6). But what if you want to see hotels on a map? Or if you prefer to see flight prices for different times of the day? Then the list view just doesn’t do it. Above you see that Kayak offers the Map and Photo view for hotels, and below you see that the Farecast time grid shows you the cheapest time of the day.

8. Show total and filtered number of results

It is easy to lose track of the total number of results of the search, and how many options remain after you’ve applied your filters. If the site prominently displays how many results are shown, the users know whether they need to apply additional filters. If there are still hundreds of options, it’s probably good to use some more filters. Kayak displays the number of results prominently above the search results:

9. Superfast update of results

It’s actually fun to play around with faceted search, but only if the filters are applied almost instantly. When you have to wait 10 or even 5 seconds for the results to appear, it is suddenly a lot less enjoyable. Most sites use a technology called ‘Ajax’, which makes it possible to update search results without refreshing the page. And usually the engineers who develop the sites are obsessed about performance: all changes to the site will first be tested on performance before they go live.

10. Save search results if you switch between tabs

Many of the meta-search travel planners can be used for flights, hotels, cars and more. If you go on a trip to a specific city, you may need all three of those. However, when you’ve just searched for flights, you switch to hotels, and then switch back to flights, all your search results are gone. It would be nice if those would be remembered!

Conclusion

As I’m writing the conclusion, I realize that some of my coworkers made a very early demonstration project for faceted search for travel planning. It doesn’t have all the cool features that are common today, but it was created five (5!) years ago. Take a look yourself: Backbase Travel Demo.

So if you’re creating a faceted search tool today, check these 10 rules to make sure you’re using all available best practices. However, depending on your application, you may not need all of them. Let me know your feedback, so I can improve these rules!

Of the sites we looked at, Kayak was one of the first to use RIA functionality in a mainstream travel booking site, and they still add a lot of new features. But others are following closely, such as Farecast and Insidetrip. Farecast has an edge with their fare prediction (see picture below), and Insidetrip with their quality rating. Home & Abroad should look closely at those sites to improve their search page.

Farecast Fare prediction

Compete: Mint vs Wesabe

On Compete it’s easy to compare the popularity of multiple websites. Compete monitors the online behavior of over 2 million Americans (with their permission), which form the basis for these statistics. From the graph it’s clear that Mint has a lot more visitors than Wesabe.

However, it’s always a little unclear how reliable these data are. Therefore I’ve done the same search with several other traffic measurement websites, using AttentionMeter. You can see the results after the break.

Quantcast: Mint versus Wesabe

First of all, Quantcast shows really cool demographic data on either site, such as other sites that are visited by Mint and Wesabe users. Both the Mint report and the Wesabe report show that these sites attract a somewhat male, more educated audience. Anyhow, Quantcast confirms that Mint.com has more traction than Wesabe with 97,000 versus 10,000 US visitors:

Google Trends: Mint compared with Wesabe

Google Trends is using search data for showing the popularity of websites, rather than a consumer panel. The Google search results confirm that Mint is an order of magnitude more popular than Wesabe.

Alexa: Wesabe more popular than Mint???

Alexa was the first website that provided traffic statistics, starting many years ago. It has been criticized for being somewhat unreliable. Alexa certainly defies the trend that we’ve seen with the other traffic measurement sites, with Wesabe overtaking Mint in the past couple of days. Probably not entirely accurate.

Technorati: Mint and Wesabi in the Blogosphere

Technorati is a search engine for weblogs, so it searches for blog posts that mention ‘mint’ and ‘wesabe’. Now, I’m fairly sure that the graph below also tracks articles about ‘mint tea’ and cars that are in ‘mint condition’. In any case, Technorati also lists the number of blog reactions that reference either Mint.com or Wesabe.com, which should more reliable:

• Mint.com: 4,085 blog reactions
• Wesabe.com: 1,507 blog reactions

And here are the graphs (first Mint, then Wesabe):

Conclusion

It is clear that Mint is more popular than Wesabe, although Wesabe has a fair amount of mentions in Blog postings, maybe because of its social nature. Personally I found it easier to import all my accounts with Mint.com, maybe because they use the Yodlee account aggregation technology rather than developing it in-house like Wesabe. I do like the social aspects of Wesabe: there are a lot of intelligent discussions going on there. We’ll keep track of both Mint and Wesabe in future posts, and if you have any feedback, please leave a comment below!

Alyson’s take is that people are desperate for financial advice and that their needs are not met today. “Firms should focus on delivering a better customer experience starting by giving clients access to financial advice”, she told me. “The need for advice is amplified by new and complex taxes, pension reforms, turbulent markets, and complicated financial products. Most people can’t afford expert advice so most of them are shifting to the Internet in search for advice.” But advice delivery has not caught up.  Sure you can view your accounts, access general information, apply for a credit card or for a mortgage, and do some transactions, but where is the advice - the personal touch that people need – the collaboration?

Where are the collaborative advice tools?

Alyson stressed that today, technology firms fail to connect advisors to their clients and that there is a huge need for collaborative advice tools.  I could not agree more.  Some companies have already noticed that such collaborative tools could give them a competitive advantage.  In our discussion, I mentioned Vanguard, for instance, who’s using Backbase co-browse to collaborate with their customers.   Co-browsing technology allows a client to share his browser with a company representative who in turn can take control of the client’s browser if requested by the client. Vanguard’s goal is to provide online customers with a personalized experience similar to what they would get in a branch. Today, Vanguard is setting up online meetings with customers, and using co-browse in the meeting to go over forms together.  The customer experience is similar to sitting next to the advisor and filling up the form together in a branch.  National City is also using very effectively another collaborative tool – Online Chat.  A survey they conducted told them that their customers expected dialog online to be as good as within a branch. National City has found that Chat was a good fit for that, as well as for building trust and relationship. Both Vanguard and National City have found that these new collaborative tools reduce the cost of advice, improve the customer experience, built trust in the advice process and financial advisors, and made advice more relevant with better client-advisor collaboration. Even tough collaborative tools for the Internet are now widely available; however, very few are in full scale development in the financial services sector.

Financial calculators are everywhere – but how effective are they?

If collaborative tools are not yet wide spread within financial services companies, simple online tools, on the other hand, are. But they are usually disconnected from the product. In addition, they deliver different customer experiences usually more poor than rich. Financial calculators, including mortgage, retirement, savings, auto, college planning, etc are widely available.  Our study of mortgage calculators from top US banks shows some drastic inequality between offerings.

Fidelity MyPlan retirement calculator is using intuitive sliders to select the retirement age, money contribution, investment, etc. and results are shown in real time.

At the meeting I showed some of the online tools our customers were able to build using Backbase technology.  ABN AMRO retirement calculator is also using sliders and real time update graphs to show results based on choices.

An other interesting concept is the inclusion of calculators as widgets within a personal dashboard. Below is an example of such dashboard and widgets designed for the European bank ABN AMRO.

This dashboard designed for ABN AMRO includes many intuitive financial widgets such as a retirement planner, budget planner, etc. The concept of dashboard allows users to select the modules or widgets of their choice and to visualize the data the way they want.

Faceted search or product selectors are fast becoming the standard in online retail applications – they are still too few in financial services. Product selectors are merely filters that narrow down choices. Bank of America, for instance, is using selectors to narrow down searches of over 400 credits cards they offer.

After selecting your choices, you get a listing of cards based on your criteria, in this case No annual fee with cash back cards.

Vanguard, however, is creatively using drag and drop as selector for its mutual funds & ETFs.

To compare funds, clients just need to drag the funds from the first line down to the second line.

What about the advice tools?

Well, as Alyson said this is what’s most needed.  If I want a new plan or a new financial service, I would like to be well informed, well advised on what I need, based on my personal situation. Too few financial institutions offer these kinds of tools especially within their online channel. We were able to find a few though.

E*trade for instance, is offering advice as you’re building your retirement plan.

You can really tailor your investments based on your needs and goals.  And it’s visually attractive and definitely very intuitive.

In a project designed for ABN AMRO (see dashboard above), a Personal Advice widget was created. Customers can get advice on the listed topics and through phone, email, Chat, text message or Skype.

Some other tools I’ve seen used for advice are interactive videos. ING and Online Insight have some good examples.  They are using videos to educate and guide users. The host then guides the user through the tool providing educational information and advice based on what the user selects or enters.

So why do financial institutions need online advice tools?

It’s first and foremost to improve the customer experience. Financial products and services are more and more complex so there is a real need for education, and online advice tools have proven to be very effective for that. Advice tools will also increase your conversion rates.

There are many benefits to advice tools but today’s implementations only include standalone elements. For a real customer experience you need to consider all the elements you need, how to integrate them with your products, how to add collaboration tools and how all of these will complement other channels.

She states that the advantages of RIAs are:

• Speed of the website
• Opening up information: simplify complex information
• Convenience (autofill)
• Multimedia perception (rich user experience)

In her article she also gives 6 important tips and tricks how to use RIAs in a valuable way, visualized by some great examples like the sliders used in the ABN AMRO applications. She concludes that RIAs do offer a lot of advantages, but that RIAs should only be used in functional applications.

I gave it some thought and I have to say that I agree with her. Think well about the usage of RIA, don’t use it because ‘you want to use the latest innovative technology’, but make sure it benefits your site, but most of all: if it benefits your target audience. Hip youngsters might like a very animated, personalized and customizable site, but older people might prefer a site that looks like the site they were used too, optimized with some nice rich internet applications which enable a friendly user interface.

Click here for the full article.

The “choose your location” page also uses faceted search, which gives visitors the option to narrow his or her search according to specific criterions. For instance, I can narrow my search for Ace stores that only sell Benjamin Moore Paint or provide key-cutting services. (In my previous post, I’ve discussed how BlueNile.com, the popular online jewelry store, also uses faceted search to increase customer engagement).

By using geo-location technology, the website is able to target the visitor’s IP address, so when the visitor returns to the home page, they are quickly greeted with the “My Local Ace” section, which displays the number of local Ace stores on the right hand side of the screen. This is a neat way to instantly add personalization to the website.

So, what do I gather from all of this? First, the lessons:

• Look far ahead. Retailers need to leverage their website to drive business to their stores and vice-versa. Old methods can only take you so far. Look forward and research emerging technologies, such as Rich Internet Applications, that can further engage customers and help you achieve your business goals.

• Personalize your stores. Not only does Ace allow you to find the nearest store, but each store has a personalized web page with their contact information, store hours and even in-store promotions! According to Kevish, the goal was to “bring the local Ace store to life online.”

• Think “user experience.” If you have numerous stores, don’t conceal your store locations or address on your website. Make it easy for visitors to quickly find the store closest to them. I’ve read many stories of horrible user experiences, and this story is no exception.

Second, the facts:

• RIAs are proven solutions that drive business. According to Kevish, “In May, 83% of the dollar volume on acehardware.com was picked up in a store, an overall increase from the previous site.”

• …and customer engagement: “By offering the ability to search by services within the store locator, we tell our customer that our stores are all about being helpful. And if the Web site assists in finding what they’re looking for, the site is a more helpful extension of our brand.”

Kudos to Ace for taking the next step in improving online customer engagement! Readers, what about you? How are you using emerging technologies, such as RIAs, to increase customer engagement? We’d like to hear from you!