THE CHANGING ROLE OF MULTI-CHANNEL SERVICE · PDF filea mechanism by which suppliers of goods or services ... business process design) and customer service perceptions and experience

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Synopsis

The history of Customer Service Centres and Call Centres in Centrelink for the last 10 years demonstrates

that channel management is a challenging task. Each channel (the phone, the office, the Internet, and

paper mail) must be planned for and managed at the same time as considering the impact on other

channels. In the early days, cross-channel impact was something organisations were learning about: there

was little or no established practice, and taking into account the needs of both the customer and the

organisation was confronting without supportive organisational systems and coherent decision making.

The evolution of technology and the blending of channels now makes multi-channel service delivery even

more complex. We are now grappling with the idea that a customer can blend traditional channels (for

example, the phone and the Internet) on the one device and that service delivery organisations are

expected to support the choice they wish to make. This begs the question of what is multi-channel

service delivery and where is it headed as we move into the first decade of the 21st century. Our

contention is multi-channel service delivery is becoming embedded in the fabric of the organisation

which is, in turn, creating what we call the ‘interaction experience’ where the customer is central to the

design of service delivery across channels.

THE CHANGING ROLE OF MULTI-CHANNELSERVICE DELIVERY

Trevor Moore* and Paula Flynn#

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* Partner, AP Solutions Deployment; Partner, IBM Business Consulting Services.

# Organisational Change, Business Transformation Team, Centrelink. Author of Centrelink’s eBusiness Strategy and theCentrelink Case Study for the Computerworld Honours Program 2004. Graduate Certificate of Management, DeakinUniversity; Bachelor Arts (Journalism & Literature), Deakin University.

65F u t u r e C h a l l e n g e s f o r E - g o v e r n m e n t — M u l t i - C h a n n e l D e l i v e r y

Background

The term ‘channel’ is relatively new and increasingly commonly used, particularly in the context of

multiple channel (‘multi-channel’) service delivery. The concept, however, is not new — a channel is

a mechanism by which suppliers of goods or services deliver those goods or services to those people

who will use them. The term channel has frequently been used to refer to a particular type of

technology, for example telephone, personal computer, paper mail, or a physical location.

In the 1990s computing and telecommunications technologies merged and it became fashionable to

refer to information and communications technology rather than information technology. The new

technology capabilities enabled a degree of customer self-service not seen before. In turn, the term

‘multi-channel service delivery’ came into vogue as customers began to either self-serve, or be

serviced, through more than one channel.

THE MULTI-CHANNEL SERVICE DELIVERY FACTORS

Any organisation serious about multi-channel service delivery must consider a number of factors

when looking to connect people to services (or products). These factors include, but should not

be limited to:

• what multi-channel delivery is

• what channels will and won’t be used

• what services are suitable for which channel

• the cost associated with the primary and secondary preferred channels from the organisation

and the customer’s perspective (at a minimum, but ideally including also the cost to

organisation within a value network context)

• the possibility and impact of latent demand when a product or service is made available

through a new channel and what impact this has on capability

• customer choice (or preference) in service delivery

• what impact movement of a customer from one channel to another channel during a

transaction or interaction has oncost (channel economics), organisational capability

(technology, information, people, business process design) and customer service perceptions

and experience (customer experience management, customer relationship management).

Customer movement across channels is recognised as one of the hardest factors to articulate

in multi-channel service delivery

• whether organisational skills for the new channel exist, are grown internally, purchased, or a

combination over time.

These seemingly small changes in technology capability had major ramifications for all industries as

organisations seriously embraced business process re-engineering and customer experience

management techniques as they realised that electronic service delivery fundamentally changed the

way they designed and did business.

As more sophisticated tools are introduced into the ‘channel’ the term becomes increasingly blurred

when applied to, for example, the ‘online’ channel. New mobile telephone products have Internet

capability, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) capability, personal computing capability as well as telephony

capability, so we need to ask whether the mobile phone is now part of the online channel or the phone

channel or a bit of both, or something new. Further, self-service requires a much deeper understanding

of channel economics with a consequent focus on customer wants and needs. It also requires a greater

understanding of the balance between service and self-service, which leads to a need to manage service

delivery channels.

We are outgrowing the use of the term ‘channel’, in its current meaning, at a rate equivalent to the

introduction of new technology-based tools. The term ‘channel’ has often been thought of as synonymous

with terms such as ‘online’. But this usage does not accurately reflect changes in the way people interact

and expect to interact with government and private industry. This is especially so given the increasing use

of telephone self-service, SMS and other data transfer methods that are not based upon the personal

computer as the method of interacting. These new data transfer methods lead to new complexities of

multi-channel service delivery. We might also ask whether the current meaning of the term ‘multi-channel’

continues to be useful as business and government move further into the electronic world and the

electronic world moves away from defined tools to blended tools or whether the definition is evolving and

changing as our experience with electronic service delivery matures. The impact of technology on

information usage and knowledge-based operations may even now not be fully understood.

CUSTOMER

There are some semantic issues over the term ‘customer’ — and these semantic issues affect both

private and public sectors in different ways. These are outside the scope of this paper.

The key point about customers is that there is a ‘business relationship’ between a person (or group)

and an organisation (see www.gao.gov/special.pubs/bprag/bprgloss.htm). Certain levels of service

apply to the conduct of that relationship and, while these may vary (rightly or wrongly) according to

the competitive landscape, those levels of service are independent of whether we call the person (or

group) concerned a ‘customer’ or something else.

Understanding who your customers are, what they want — and why and how they want it — is an

essential component of multi-channel service delivery. Customers’ needs change continually: if we

take a look at the automotive industry, the baby boomers were once content with safety, quality,

reliability and affordability. The interactive generation demands products that are valuable to them

and that enhance and enable their lifestyle. Segmentation of customers is important and needs to be

done not by guesswork but by market analysis. It is important to recognise that customers make

decisions on a combination of rational thinking, emotion and impulse (Zaltman 2003).

These factors point to the value of personalisation and customisation. These are essentially new areas

for government and for the private sector. They contribute to the customer experience that the

customer has — it is no longer the case, as most industries recognise, that ‘if we build it, they will come

to us’. Experience is the growing factor that influences retail buying decisions (Chu & Pike 2003).

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Emergence of the ‘interaction experience’

In this paper we argue that meaning of the term ‘channel’ is changing and is now taking on a new

meaning: what we should be considering is the interaction experience and not the technology which

is the medium for communication. The channel is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We argue

this because, like all new implementations, there comes a point at which the new becomes the norm

and the norm adjusts for the next innovation. In the case of online service delivery, channels have

become the norm and now need to adjust to the integration of technology tools with one another.

We argue that channels are becoming part of a more comprehensive concept, which we have called

the ‘interaction experience’. This implies that the interaction experience is made up of a complex

blend of technology tools and practices, such as multi-channel service delivery and management,

customer experience management/customer relationship management (depending on the

organisation’s approach) and channel economics together with the capabilities of the organisation

and the user. The interaction experience, and indeed multi-channel service delivery and management,

is complicated by the emergence of value networks as the emerging structural paradigm for all

industries. We are seeing enterprises configure themselves to mediate interactions and exchanges

across a network of their customers and suppliers.

The customers are an integral part of the network — not simply peripheral to it — and the value

network organisation provides the networking service through a consistent and coherent

infrastructure. Value networks must excel at matching customers and multiplying connections

between them (Computer Sciences Corporation 1998) as well as enabling greater flexibility and

reliability in meeting fluctuating and changing demands. The value network is the next level of

maturity in service delivery advanced by electronic or digital communication. The concept and

operation of value networks are outside the scope of this paper but need to be kept in mind when

considering multi-channel service delivery.

We must now consider the relationship between the citizen, business or other entity as a customer

of government in terms partly of the products and services they consume but more particularly in

terms of the experience they want to have while interacting with government (whether this be one

government agency or many). As organisations choose to be part of value networks, designing

service delivery from the customer’s perspective, we are inadvertently moving multi-channel service

delivery to a new place in the e-government/e-commerce equation — and this place is as a

component of the ‘interaction experience’. This move means there is a greater need for government

organisations to focus away from looking at channel management as an inside-looking-out activity

and towards analysing the interaction experience as an outside-looking-in activity and to broaden

that focus to include others in their value network.

This is a challenging and complex notion given organisations are still coming to terms with the

realities of multi-channel service delivery.


Basic constructs in multi-channel service delivery

There are three basic constructs in multi-channel service delivery:

• a customer

• a channel

• a product or service (for this paper we focus on service).

Figure 1 shows that a channel connects a customer with a service. It is important to understand that a

customer and an organisation’s view of a channel may be different and that this should be factored into

channel management. For example, a customer may view email as online but from the organisation’s

perspective it may be considered as paper (and thus arguably attract the costs of written

communication).

Figure 1: ‘Channels’ connect customers with a product or service

One of the integrating factors of the linkage between channel and service is the cost of service delivery

not only on any particular channel but also as a mix of delivery over several channels. A detailed

assessment of this topic is outside the scope of this paper but, nevertheless, the issue of cost impacts on

the notion of choice within the interaction experience. Cost is a major factor in making decisions about

which channels should deliver which services or, to put it from the customer point of view, about which

services might be accessed through which channels. We make some observations about the impact of

cost in the discussion below of the interaction experience factors.

Each of these basic constructs needs to be managed — and they each need to be managed consistently

in relation to the other two.

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SERVICE

We use the terms ‘product’ and ‘service’ interchangeably focusing on service in the context of this

paper. We have restricted the definition of service to external or intermediate services — we say

that a service must meet an expressed need. This enables us to separate outputs, such as final

demands for payments, from outputs such as a doctor’s consultation or a television. Some services

cross the boundary between the organisation and the outside world. These are of two kinds:

• external services are those designed to meet the needs of an external customer: external

products meet some expressed need of a person or a group

• intermediate services which are used by another organisation to generate products of its

own; the implication is that the intermediate product meets an expressed need; value

networks expand this kind of product.

Other services are internal — they exist to feed other activities within the organisation — called

‘by-products’. A by-product may not necessarily meet an expressed need within the organisation.

The process by which an organisation decides what does and what does not constitute a service

is service management (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A product model

The changing nature of the customer experience

It is not enough simply to segment customers. You also have to know what products they might

take, over what channels they might take them, at what points they are most likely to cross over to

another channel and what that means to business operations. It is not enough to focus on channels

alone — you also need to know which products are suitable for which channels and how customers

view particular channels (for example, trust and privacy) and whether their views can be changed. A

focus on the service, at the expense of the customer, is a return to a we-know-what’s-best-for-you

approach to service (or product) delivery.


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CHANNELS

A greater range of channels presents two major opportunities:

• A choice of channels means that, in principle, it easier to approach your existing customers and it

is easier to reach new customers (because a new channel may be easier for them).

• Encouraging particular groups of customers to use particular channels can increase the

effectiveness of the product or service (because it can be better targeted) and can reduce cost (by

moving particular groups of customers to lower cost channels — provided they stay ‘in channel’).

Thus, multi-channel delivery is a discipline — or functional area — in its own right. It is less about

managing channels than it is about:

• understanding customers and their behaviour

• working out how to move people from one channel to another

• understanding the possibility of increased flexibility in the use of organisational resources in delivering

services

• clarifying how customers move themselves through those channels and what support they might

need to complete their business.

This means putting yourself in your customer’s shoes as part of the decision-making process around

service delivery options. One of Centrelink’s most significant experiences has been the involvement of

customers in the initial design phase of services, recognising that the customer is becoming a part of the

organisation through self-service and multi-channel service delivery.

There is no fundamental difference between government and other industries — the challenges are the

same. The last couple of years have seen a global economic slowdown — although Australia has been

reasonably well-insulated from the worst effects of this — and this, together with increasing globalisation

and more demanding customers, has affected government and the commercial world. If we look at the

retail and banking industries, we find that they share at least three basic business objectives with

government (IBM 2003). These are:

• To enable employees to focus on value-added activities. This starts with creating a single view of

the customer across channels (and your value network) to improve customer insight and help change

the way professionals do their jobs.

• To transform the customer experience. The focus is on enabling customers to move seamlessly

from channel to channel while receiving an unprecedented level of consistent, highly personalised

service.

• To take costs out of operations. The goal is to optimise business processes and computing

resources quickly to deliver the best customer experience at the lowest cost.

Technology has changed and continues to increase the degree of connectedness between formerly discrete

components of the world (see for example, Mulgan 1997; and Cilliers 2000 for an exposition of

connectedness in complex systems. The former deals extensively with government.) One of the corollaries of

this change has been development and description of value networks where value is created around adding

value to sets of customers and their life events. This means value networks include any organisation that

adds value to those customers. In achieving the three objectives above we now need to recognise that

customers themselves are part of value network. The option no longer exists of excluding them from

the design of products or services and from consideration of delivery methods. The interaction

experience becomes another component of the complex system that is the value network. The concept

of the value network carries with it the notion of boundarylessness — that is, there is no edge. The

value network embraces — and ultimately will integrate — all levels of government and all other

agencies (public and private) that have to do with the conduct of the business of government. This

means that the interaction experience is not on the periphery as there is no periphery — it (the

experience and not the delivery technology) is a central component of the business of government.

THE ‘DIGITAL DIVIDE’

The digital divide is outside the scope of this paper but it is important to briefly touch on it as it

impacts multi-channel decisions — particularly for government. The banking and retail industries

can choose their customers — or at least they can decide on whom they wish to focus their

investments. Governments do not have this flexibility — or at least not in the same way. The

customers that government needs to target to implement a social welfare policy may be the very

people who are on the other side of the digital divide. There are four issues for government in

relation to the digital divide:

• How to work with people who cannot afford new technologies.

• How to work with people who refuse/have a preference not to use new technologies.

• Accessibility to new technologies.

• How to give people the experience, confidence and trust needed for them to be able or

willing to migrate to new service offerings.

Outside looking in

For the customer, the internal structure of the supplying organisation are not usually important in

terms of a desire to acquire a particular product or service. This is a challenge for government that is

generally organised for many administrative and political reasons but is not often organised for

service delivery reasons. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘silo effect’. The silo effect becomes

more pronounced as more services are available for customer use and as customers become more a

part of the organisation through self-service. Customer tolerance (or intolerance) of silos will be the

driver of change for the next ‘thing’ of self service — the value network.

The quality of the interaction experience depends upon two broad concepts:

• Value to the customer: includes those functional characteristics of the experience, and for

government in terms of service some consideration of the social policy outcomes. These are the

activities or transactions that achieve a measurable output, for example, that a particular application

is lodged, an address is changed in all appropriate places in one go or a parking fine is paid.

• Convenience for the customer: includes characteristics related to ease of use. These may be

referred to as non-functional — they may affect the way something is done but not the act itself.

These can be those things that relate to the feelings of the person during the experience or their

relationship with the organisation during the experience. For example, if I can fill in a form via the

Internet I can do it from a place of convenience to me where I feel comfortable, not rushed and

able to seek further assistance from the organisation if I need it in a manner that suits me (that is,

cross channel impact potential).


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There are, of course, other important considerations for the interaction experience, for example privacy,

which we have excluded from the scope of this paper.

The interaction experience factors

The interaction experience is about looking at matters from the customer’s point of view. There are at

least six factors in the interaction experience that any strategy for multi-channel service delivery should

address explicitly to connect effectively — and efficiently — with the customer in the interaction

experience (see Figure 3). It is equally important that the multi-channel service delivery strategy consider

these inputs in the context of any other organisations they connect with to create a value network. That

is, understanding each other as well as the mutual customer in the interaction as the mutual customer

may seek different answers to each question, as may the organisation to that of your own organisation

— and as stated earlier, the customer generally isn’t concerned with how many organisations they are

dealing with to achieve their business outcome; but the organisation should be.

Figure 3: The interaction experience

While we may derive these factors from the customer’s point of view, each factor has a dual expression

from the supplier’s point of view. A multi-channel service delivery strategy should be explicit about these

factors. It is important to note that accessibility permeates through each of

these items and should be considered in the context of each.

THE CHANGING ROLE OF LEGACY SYSTEMS IN CREATING THE SINGLE CUSTOMER VIEW

Experience has now taught us that in creating the single customer view, generally through using the

Internet as the interface, we inadvertently change the role of legacy structures and systems from that

of interface to data holdings. This does not decrease the importance of that legacy system, but in

fact increases it. In turn, this can affect customer behaviour as customer service staff adjust their

behaviours (and business processes) accordingly, which in turn ripples to directions and advice

provided to the customer and how the customer interfaces with the organisation. As customers

generally buy several products from the same company understanding any underlying behaviour

throughout the entire process depends upon integrating possibly incompatible systems and

processes. This is huge cultural, business engineering and technical challenge.

Choice

From the customer’s viewpoint From the supplier’s viewpoint

Can I choose what service I take over what channel? Can I choose my customers?

Can I choose whom to deal with for this product? Do I have a choice of service delivery channel?

Can I choose how I access these products/services? Can I influence the delivery channel?

What additional costs would I incur between one Can I target products to particular customer groupschannel and another through particular channels?

To what degree will cost savings through channelmanagement impede successful product take-up?

Choice is often supposed to rest with the customer and, indeed, one aspect of multi-service delivery is aboutchoice — enabling the customer to choose the delivery mechanism that is most convenient to him or her andprovides them with the best value and experience. Yet the supplier has a choice as well; for governmentagencies, this can be more limited than that of private industry where it is preferable that unprofitable customersegments are shifted to a competitor. Government does not have this choice. Government has customer setsthat are more difficult to service for a variety of reasons and this must be factored into the choice answer onboth sides of the relationship. Further, government may choose to have a service delivered via a particularchannel.

It is important to recall that, while I may not have a choice about to whom I pay my taxes, I may have a choiceabout how I pay my taxes.

Choice in the banking industry is interesting: it is difficult (though not impossible) to survive today without abank account. The choice is less about ‘whether’ than about ‘which one’.

Commitment


Am I prepared to make a commitment (usually in time For a given product will the customer use thischanneland/or loyalty to the channel) to this product over to conduct their business or simply use the channeltothis channel? collect information or both?

Will my commitment be stronger here than on Are we able to commit to the upfront and ongoinganother channel? costs of this channel and service?

Do I trust this organisation? How do we wish to capture data from the browsingactivity?

What level of commitment do we want/expect fromthe customer in this channel?

Will the chosen channel/s help deliver social policyoutcomes (for government)?

Does the cost of doing business over a particularchannel impede the commitment of the customer tothe product?

Can I offer security over any channel?

In the automotive retail industry much thought is given to whether a customer will buy a car over the Internet.This leads to the concept of ‘high commitment’ products. A car is frequently the second largest purchase aperson makes so represents a considerable emotional as well as financial investment.

An analogy for government may be around services relating to legal or regulatory need — tax, businessregistration, welfare benefits. These are ‘high commitment’ products in the context of the intangible experienceelements a person must commit — time, energy and effort to seeking out the right solution for their needs at


that time/event in their life. For example, anecdotal feedback from customers using Centrelink’s online self-serviceindicates that time commitments play a key role in their choosing to use the online channel to conduct their businesswith Centrelink. It is important to note that the event may drive the channel choice of the customer and this shouldbe factored into decision making by the organisation. The degree to which a customer will make a commitment to aparticular product over a given channel depends also on any cost impacts. It is generally more expensive to usesurface mail to effect a transaction than it is to effect the same transaction online. But there may be other factors inplay, such as security, privacy and identification, that mean some physical documentation is necessary.

Need


Do I need what is being offered — does it enhance What is it that that will be needed by our my sense of wellbeing, security, etc and will it satisfy customers?my needs? What do we need them to do/take/buy?

Does it make my life easier? How will this value be created and felt on atechnological, as opposed to personal, channel?

How much variation is there between the needs ofdifferent customers?

To what extent can I afford to respond to that need?

In a government context need may be a difficult concept. We need to pay our taxes, we need to register businesses,we need to license our cars, we might need welfare assistance. On the other hand we may not want to do thesethings for a variety of reasons.

Compliance is a need just as much as the voluntary desire for something. Need is a tricky area of the interactionexperience and should be carefully thought through and is very different from want. Need could be considered anegative driver to seek out services particularly if it is not coupled with a want. This, in turn, means organisationaldecision making about service delivery channels have to consider the convenience and useability in the context of thenegative driver.

Need, in the private sector context is a positive driver to seek out services as the customer is willing to participate inthe interaction because what is sought will add value to their life and/or make their life easier.

Integration


Integration of channels is about consistency in look and feel and ultimately in experience which drives integration ofservices from the customer’s perspective. It is also about integration within and between organisations. It is confusingto a customer to find an online experience is so markedly different to traditional channels that you cannot work out ifyou have achieved your needs. Let us consider business registration. A customer may begin to use the Internet toregister a new business but then find that she needs additional advice. If she uses the phone she needs to be sure shedoes not have to repeat all the information she has already entered on the Internet. That is, that this information wascaptured and made available to the other channel. Achieving this is only partly a technical issue — much dependsupon being clear about the business processes used within each channel, across channels and end-to-end in the

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Do I always have to do this the same way?

Can I mix and match services and channels to meet my needs? Will this work against what I need to achieve for me?

Do I have to tell someone all this information all over again if I can’t finish it on the same channel?

Can I do everything I want to do in the one go (that is,from end-to-end)?

How can I ensure that what I deliver over theInternet/telephone is the same as what I deliverthrough a store or shopfront?

How can I ensure that the things delivered within thechannel are consistent with each other and add value tothe customer through integration of services?

How do I address any inconsistencies that might causethe customer to seek alternate methods of interaction?

transaction itself — that is intra and inter organisational integration. This point becomes even more important inthe context of a value network where the information may be changing organisational boundaries as well aschannels. That is, the choices made about integration impact on the ramifications for the customer and theirentire experience — not just that of your organisation.

Useability


Is it easy to use? Are we approachable?

Does it make sense? How are we designing our services and products?

What are the things that make our customers wantto come to us?

Useability is about ensuring the experience is user friendly. This is about not only the technology but about theprocesses, information, and communication methods used. Examples include language level, clear and easy-to-follow steps and so on. Useability is tightly coupled to integration and loyalty. If it is unusable how can it beintegrated and how can it create customer loyalty. Useability success is derived when services are designedbased on the user as the primary element of suability and the organisation as the secondary element.

One of the greatest experiences for Centrelink has been the involvement of real customers in the initial designphase of services, recognising that the customer is becoming a part of the organisation through self-service andmulti-channel service delivery.

Loyalty


What’s in it for me if I use this channel? How can we help customers achieve their needs

How good is this organisation at helping me to painlessly and in a timely manner so that if theyneed to

achieve my needs through the channel? come back they choose to come back this way?

How can I create an experience that has mycustomer’s saying good things about theorganisation more often than bad things?

Loyalty relates to the degree to which a customer is prepared or, better, enthusiastic about returning to asupplier for a particular product or service. Loyalty is established by a complex interaction of the precedingfactors, the nature of the product/service itself, the reputation of the supplier and a number of other factors.Suppliers need to determine where they wish to generate loyalty.

For government, loyalty is generally equated to trust, service offer and experience in one channel which spills overinto expectations of the other channels. That is, a customer trusts a government agency to ensure accuracy in theinformation or assessment provided to that customer and therefore the customer is loyal to the governmentagency in the context of speaking well of that organisation. This is compounded by their expectations andprevious experience of other service delivery channels. This is commonly called the word-of-mouth impact. Word-of-mouth can make or break a service — especially in a multi-channel service delivery environment.

Conclusion

Multi-channel service delivery is a reality today. There is broad acceptance that governments service

customers and that they deliver services. There is also a broad understanding that service delivery in

the context of government is about creating value for the customer through participation in value

networks that make it easier for the customer to achieve their sought outcome in their interaction

with government. This means organisations have to understand their value proposition in the


context of the customer as well as the value network/s in which they participate, recognising that the

value proposition may vary for different value networks.

We have made some comparisons with the banking and retail industries. Research associated with the

automotive retail industry also suggests that customer experience is an important attribute of the

relationship with the supplier. We extend this into what we have termed the ‘interaction experience’

where we recognise the customer as continuing to be central to the process but highlight that it is a

two-way (or in a value network — multi-way) experience driven by at least six factors each of which

must equally be addressed as part of a multi-channel service delivery management strategy and its

supporting decision-making processes and practices.

We recognise that the interaction experience is a key component in both attracting customers to do business

in a particular way and in encouraging compliance in the broadest sense with government regulation.

Government and private sector have similarities and differences. Both can learn from each other, but

both must understand their point of differentiation. For government, the differentiation point is

predominately that of choice. Choice in how a citizen or customer deals with government (that is,

channel choice) rather than choice of provider. Choice is reliant on several factors including exposure to

new technology, such as the Internet. For private industry the differentiation point is integration. Because

private industry can opt to deliver services through only certain channels decisions can be taken to not

integrate the channels but only offer services via certain channels. In very limited cases, government can

make this choice also but the choice is predominantly around staying on traditional channels rather than

newer technologies and channels.

The term ‘multi-channel’ is changing in meaning and position in the service delivery equation as we

naturally progress to the next level of meaning in e-government and away from technology as the ‘e’.

The value of the term ‘multi-channel’ lies in thinking about the channel as a technology or physical asset

rather than a method of interacting. What is becoming really important in service delivery is the

‘interaction experience’ — the sense of satisfaction and value that the customer obtains through their

specific relationship with government through the service delivery channel(s).

References

Chu, J & Pike, T 2003, What top-performing retailers know about satisfying customers: Experience is the

key, IBM Institute for Business Value, <http://www-5.ibm.com/services/uk/pdf/ibv_retailcrm_1.pdf>.

Cilliers, P 2000, Complexity and Post-Modernism, Routledge,

<http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/2/2/review1.html>.

Computer Sciences Corporation 1998, Foundation Strategic Innovation Report, Computer Sciences

Corporation, <http://www.cscresearchservices.com/foundation/library/si00.asp>.

IBM 2003, Building an Edge in Multi-Channel Banking, IBM, Australia.

Mulgan, G 1997, Connexity, Chatto and Windus, London,

<http://www.innovationwatch.com/books/bks_0701163968.htm>.

Zaltman, G 2003, How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, Harvard Business

School Press, Harvard.

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THE CHANGING ROLE OF MULTI-CHANNEL SERVICE · PDF filea mechanism by which suppliers of goods or services ... business process design) and customer service perceptions and experience