One of Gonzaga University's means of communicating with its online community is a bulldog mascot named Spike. Spike can answer most questions about the school, any time day or night. He's an online avatar with an extensive knowledge base and the ability to help visitors navigate through GU's website.

Avatars have long been associated with gaming communities like Second Life. An avatar is a graphical representation of a user on a website. Their use has extended into the business world, where companies look to re-create a human interaction in a virtual way.

"As a university, we need to foster warm, life-long relations with our alumni, parents, and friends," says Joe Poss, Gonzaga's director of development for university relations. "We were looking for an effective, creative experience for the website, with an emphasis on creative, when we came across the idea for Spike."

When a visitor to the Gonzaga site asks Spike a question in his chat window, he responds with a text and voice answer, and directs their browser window to a related page. For example, if you ask Spike "Where is Gonzaga University?" he responds with text read by a voiceover of the school's mailing address, as well as the link to "Directions to Campus" page on the website. Returning users can log in and Spike will give them more personalized answers to detailed questions.

Similar avatars can also be found on the homepages of Alaska Airlines (Jenn) and the U.S. Army (Sergeant Star). The technology to power all three was originally designed for government agencies to use as human emulators to monitor chat rooms, says NextIT CEO Fred Brown, head of the company that developed the avatars.

"It's a stimulus response engine that processes information and responds accordingly, making Web surfing a two-way dialogue," he says. "Through feedback and surveys, the software can actually adapt to your needs, which we call human-assisted learning."

The biggest challenges for any company using an avatar as a customer service representative is ensuring accurate information, and having a response ready to nearly any question. Brown says his daughter highlighted the latter early on, saying he "had to come up with intelligent answers to stupid questions."

Gonzaga's Poss says that the university launched Spike in 2006 as a relationship-building tool. "We have someone who works hard all day, every day in an active, intelligent way to build relationships with our constituents," he says. "He learns through visitor interactions and evolves every week as we measure the response from people who talk to him."

Originally the avatar was designed for alumni and parent groups to use, but within six months that was expanded to include students and prospective students by adding information about admissions and athletics, expanding Spike's knowledge base. Once the avatar learns to navigate the school's databases, he could potentially wind up on kiosks, mobile devices, or any other number of places. As a website presence, Spike averages anywhere from 200 to 500 chats per week and provides Poss with the information he needs to tweak the system.

"We get reports on number of chats, users, and all the survey responses people fill out," Poss says, "and then I also get a report that tells me what the 'intent' of each visitor was and whether their needs were met."

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of employing an avatar is the fact that there's always an ambassador for Gonzaga available for anyone with a question. "I can always tell people that no matter where they are on the site, just look for Spike's paw in the upper right hand corner," Poss says. "After two years he's become a customer service norm."