Plugging into the Information Age. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.3 - 2

Plugging into the Information

Age

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 3 - 2


Services Productivity:Lags, Lulls, and Leaps

• Lags• Many services are very people-intensive.

• Many services are hard to standardize.

• Many services are difficult to technologize.

• Lulls• Digesting new technology takes time.

• Many changes are more qualitative than quantitative.

• Leaps• Organizational transformations are possible.

• Nurturing of intellectual resources.


Role of Technology

• Technology in the Core Service

• Technology as a Supplementary Service Support Tool


Empowering Employees Through Technology

•Technology Devices

•Networking


Empowering the Customer

• Self-service machines (such as vending machines, automated teller machines)

• Computerized service delivery systems

• Intelligent agents

• Service robots




Capturing Customer Information

• Advances in information technology have allowed organizations to• collect large quantities of information about

customers and

• to create and deliver customer services hitherto unimaginable.

• It has also become possible to move from mass marketing to targeting individuals (Peppers and Rogers 1996).


Customer Databases

• Databases require several steps:• Group customers into categories: current

customers, prospective customers, and lapsed customers.

• Data on the recency and frequency of each customer's purchases.

• Data on each customer's purchases over a period of about 12 months.

• Data on relevant customer information that will improve the company's ability to serve customer needs (preferred sizes, birthdays, credit card numbers, etc.).


Customer Databases:Uses and Cautions

• Uses• Tracking customers' purchase patterns.

• Make purchase patterns easily accessible to the frontline service provider.

• Cautions• Services marketers need to be very

cautious about privacy issues as they create and use customer databases.


Coping with Negative Impacts of Services Technology

• Technology will continue to play a critical role in service organizations.

• Service organizations often find that they have implemented new technology systems only to discover they have made no provisions for the absence of the technology during a power failure.

• Services employment levels may fall in absolute numbers in many industries because of technology replacing workers or reducing the need for workers.


Challenges of Using Technology to Manage Customer Interfaces

• Weak links in customer interfaces

• Steps for improving the technology of customer interfaces


Weak Links in Customer Interfaces

• Automated idiocy• Rush to automate service functions often

leads to systems that automatically do stupid things.

• Time sink• New services technology can be a time sink

that steals time from the technology user.

• Law of the hammer• Small child with a hammer sees everything as

a nail. Technology can be used too much!


Weak Links in Customer Interfaces (cont’d)

• Technology lock• Technological designs persist long after their

functional value is gone.

• Last inch• Many customer interface problems occur at the point

of contact between the customer and the technology.

• Hi-tech vs. hi-touch• Too often customers face a confusing set of

automated instructions when they really need to speak to a human being and not to a machine.

• Phone mail can become “phone jail.”


Four Steps for Improving the Technology of Customer Interfaces

• Provide marketer input into the technology of customer interface design• The marketer can help prevent design problems.

• Stay customer-focused not machine-focused• Essential to successful customer interface design.

• Make services technology invisible to customer• Place technology in the background.

• Insist on design for flexibility• Designs that offer employees and customers

maximum flexibility.


Making Technology People- Friendly

• Use technology to adapt to customer needs.

• Don't replace flexible employees with inflexible technology.

• Give employees flexible technological tools and train them thoroughly.

• Make the technology fun to use.

Documents

Plugging into the Information Age. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.3 - 2