Introduction
In the past few years, we have witnessed an explosion in the online world—an explosion that is also a
harbinger of how businesses will operate in the future. Supply chains are being re-thought, products and
services reconfigured, and business models revamped. Yet while e-business and the Internet are turning
everything upside down, one basic component of business remains unchanged: The relationship
between supplier and customer remains (and always will be) the basic building block for every business
transaction. In the online world, the way that relationship manifests itself may be vastly different from
the traditional relationship-building process, but the need to create a compelling customer experience
remains critical.
Consider this: For all the hoopla about e-commerce, 42 percent of customers shopping on the Internet
abandon the online experience in favor of a traditional bricks-and-mortar channel. In part, this may
be due to unfamiliarity with the new chann