This page provides overall guidelines and protocols for Intota experts.  If you have any questions, please call us at 1-800-833-8055 between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time (USA).  You can also e-mail us at experts@guideline.com.

Table of Contents:

General Information
Service Expectations
How to Respond to Client Calls
Event Definition and Protocol
Additional Consulting Activity
Proprietary Considerations

Intota's policy is to minimize rules and complex procedures in the operation of its network of experts. We rely on the dedication, integrity and professionalism of experts to ensure that the service they provide is of maximum benefit to our clients.

Intota is an Internet service that provides answers to questions through confidential telephone or e-mail consulting and extended project consulting from a certified network of experts. Intota is a trademark of Guideline Inc. (formerly Teltech)

The typical expert in the Intota network has an advanced degree (approximately half of Intota's experts have earned PhDs) and more than 20 years of technical research, applications and management experience.

Intota is designed for Internet users.  If you do not have Internet access or e-mail address at your place of work you will find it difficult to participate as an expert since you need to monitor your consulting activities via the expert web site at http://experts.intota.com.  We encourage you to bookmark this site in your web browser.

Experts are expected to provide enthusiastic service in a timely manner.  They should show earnest concern for even the most trivial questions.  If you believe a client is abusing the spirit or intent of an event, please call Intota and inform us of the situation.  If you are unable to help a client for any reason, please refer them immediately to Intota at 1-800-833-8055 for additional assistance. If you know of someone who may be able to assist the client, please contact us at 1-800-833-8055 so that we can recruit him or her if qualified. Please do not refer the client to an expert who is not associated with Intota.

You should generally be available to take phone calls during normal working hours (8:00 - 5:00 in your time zone).  You should make every effort to return calls the same day and e-mails within 24 hours. If you will be unavailable for a period of 24 hours or more, please contact us at experts@guideline.com or 800-833-8055 so that we can take your biography offline during that time.

Expert/user interactions can occur via telephone, our web-based message board, or e-mail.

Telephone Calls
You may receive phone calls directly from Guideline subscription clients.  We do not display your phone number to clients coming from the Intota site.  When an Intota client wishes to reach you by phone we will either call you and give you their number, or we will initiate a conference call between yourself and the client.  To receive payment for a billable phone "event", please click on "voucher form".

NOTE: Within a phone consultation, clients are allowed to screen an expert at no charge for up to 10 minutes or so to see if the expert is a match for their request.  As long as the client is not asking for advice and the expert is not providing assistance, the conversation is considered not billable.  If the client should request advice during a screening call, tell the client that the conversation would then be billable.

Intota's service centers on your provision of knowledge or assistance to our clients via the telephone or e-mail.

An event is defined a discussion on a single subject lasting approximately one hour in length.  An event may include multiple telephone discussions or emails you may conduct with a user over a period of five or fewer business days and also includes any “offline” time you may require for research to effectively answer the user’s specific question.  At times, a consultation may require more than a single event charge.  You are expected to assess this at the beginning of the event and to communicate the need for additional event charges up front with the user.

Certain events may require more or less time depending on the complexity of the user inquiry.  Should a discussion exceed a total of one hour by a reasonable number of minutes, you are urged to complete the event without any additional event charge.  You alone determine the “cost-value” perception that each user always evaluates following an event with an Intota expert.

The following policy guidelines will assist you in determining the need for additional event charges:

1. Always “scope” the nature of the user’s question at the beginning of each event.  It will usually be readily apparent early in your event if additional event charges are necessary.  You charge for additional events when you close out the event on the Intota expert website at http://experts.intota.com.
2. Always ensure the telephone conversation or e-mail exchanges throughout the event with the client remain focused on the single question or subject area that the user first engaged you.
3. Intota’s event charge to clients has been pre-established, and you will receive $120 per event.  Experts are not authorized to modify the client event fee structure.

Intota is committed to providing value and overall satisfaction to customers.  You, the expert, will be the determining factor in ensuring clients always find value in Intota expert knowledge services!

We encourage clients to use the Intota expert network to locate and engage experts for extended consulting projects.  This may lead to involvement in such activities as on-site consultation, design reviews, laboratory testing, expert witnessing, and in-depth research.  It is critical, however, that the client, not the expert, initiates the discussion of such consulting arrangements.  This guards against a perception that experts participate in the network simply to pursue clients for business.  The expert and Guideline will work together to scope and propose work for Guideline clients.  Many projects will require the expert and Guideline staff to work together as a team to deliver the most valuable service as possible to the client.  Guideline is a full service research firm providing everything from quick-turnaround answers to in-depth studies with our own staff as well as expert services via our Intota network.  The expert and the Guideline representative will have a conference call with the client to determine the scope of work, schedule and fees/investment for the proposed project.  The expert’s rates for each individual project will be discussed and built into the proposal that is created by the Guideline representative.  Expert compensation for project-based research is negotiated on a project-by-project basis.  The expert will be set up as an independent contractor of Guideline and the expert will invoice and bill Guideline, not Guideline’s client, since the expert will be working as an independent contractor of Guideline.

Even though most inquiries and interactions will not involve proprietary knowledge, both you and the client are ultimately responsible for protecting knowledge that would be considered proprietary.  As an expert, you agree to hold in confidence any knowledge that is identified by the client as confidential. A client may ask you to sign a non-disclosure agreement identifying the proprietary knowledge and the length of time it must be held in confidence.

Experts are not required to disclose information that is confidential or proprietary to the expert.  An expert may advise the client on how to make arrangements for disclosure, or refer the client back to Intota.

As a general policy, you should not discuss with anyone the identity or concerns of any Intota client, even if the information has not been identified as confidential.  However, you should feel free to discuss non-confidential inquiries with colleagues if doing so will help in the provision of service.