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Service Operations Management:
The total experience
Chapter Twelve
Electronic-Service Operations
Management
The e-World
Customers now demand empowerment.
In today’s market there are very few passive customers.
Future success of all e-service organizations in attracting
and retaining new business will depend on their ability to
offer a wide range of value-adding options that put the
customer, and their customer, in control.
E-service companies seeking to stake their claim to
electronic commerce must offer the tools for buyer and
seller to communicate and transact business
unencumbered by intermediaries.
E-Service integration
There are significant differences between face-to-face
service operations with a customer (high contact intensity either internal or external to the organization) and
electronic media, whether it is fax, voice over internet
protocol (VOIP), telephone or the internet.
Computer-telephone integration (CTI) links together
existing computer and telephone resources for faster,
easier call processing and the intelligent routing of calls
based upon customer-specific criteria such as service
priority or individual need or preference.
Computer-telephone integration
Computer-telephone integration (CTI) is a common-sense
merger of existing technologies linking a company's voice
processing and data processing resources.
A CTI system allows information to be exchanged between
the voice and data environments so a call and the caller's
associated data are automatically and simultaneously
delivered to the proper customer service advisor.
CTI is a tool that helps companies do what they already do
- service customers - only better, cheaper and faster.
Fig 12.1 Computer-telephone integrated system
E-Service challenges
Engaging with a customer ‘live’ in real-time holds challenges
of supplying accurate and timely information in a manner
applicable to the needs of the customer.
When a customer interacts with an organization’s web
page, with no opportunity for no real-time interaction,
new challenges become apparent.
The relationship between the customer base and the
organization is now a subliminal relationship based on
tangible and intangible expectations.
Customers’ Perception of e-Service Operations
When the customer relationship is via an e-service
operation, it might be stated that:
• The customer’s expectation of the e-service is derived
from prior experience (not necessarily with ours,
possibly with our competitor), from gleaned
perceptions and with positive anticipation.
This means that it can be just as important to manage
customers' perceptions about the service as it is to manage
the reality of the actual service.
Fig. 12.2. Customers perception of e-service operations
Reliability (Trust) and Responsiveness (Support)
Reliability is the organization’s ability to perform the
promised service dependably and accurately. Customers
interpret this as trust; in other words, customers invest
their confidence in the ability of the organization to do
what they say.
Responsiveness is willingness to help customers and
provide prompt service; and is able to respond when the
customer needs help. One of the ways competitors are
able to create an opportunity to develop business with a
new customer is to do for them the things that their
existing suppliers will not.
Assurance, Empathy and Tangibles
Assurance is conveyed to customers in the knowledge and
courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and
confidence. Some businesses have recognized the
importance of customer assurance and give guarantees that
prove to customers they mean what they say.
Empathy is the caring and individualized attention that the
organization provides. It involves seeing things from the
customer's perspective rather than customers seeing things
from the organization’s perspective.
Tangibles represent the physical appearance of the web
site and its operational simplicity.
The e-service environment: operation
management and customers
Born-global organizations, that from their very inception
trade globally, and with new capabilities, deconstruct
conventional trading channels. Whole layers are
removed by superior e-services and disintermediation.
The qualities of good leadership are enormously
important for creating the culture needed to exploit the
new capabilities and to absorb present and future
volatility.
Social Network/Email
Fig. 12.3 What people are currently doing on the internet
Fig. 12.4 What people would like to do on the internet
Fig. 12.5 What businesses do on the internet
Fig. 12.6 What businesses would like to do on the internet
Skills of e-service operations managers
The unprecedented changes in technology we have seen in
the last thirty years have led to new patterns of thinking,
especially in early-career managers.
• changes in behavior of the younger managers, many of
which have been noticed individually, but which have
been rarely, if ever, grasped in their totality;
• these changes are creating, and will continue to create,
important paradigm shifts in service operation models.
The new e-service operations management will be much
more directly influenced by those whom they lead, in a
true form of democratization.
e-Relationship Management
e-Relationship building (between the customer and the
online service provider), needs to determine:
• How the service provider will find the customer
online – ‘who’
• How a relationship can be developed over time –
‘how’
• How the connectivity will be maintained – ‘why’
• How the e-service meets the customer’s perception
and expectation
• How feedback will be established to ensure the eservice can be improved
Reach, Richness and Affiliation
The reach aspect of e-service relationship management is
concerned with the organization’s access and connectivity
with customers using their web-based interface.
Richness, describes the depth and detail of the two-way
flow of information between the online service provider
and the customer.
Affiliation is concerned with enabling better connectivity
between the service provider and the customer.
Customer orientation
Customer orientation is not just rhetoric or an attitude of mind
– it is a philosophy; it is a complete way of working; and
encompasses the following principles:
• Your customers are the greatest asset and developing and
conserving this asset is the central task of e-relationship
management
• This is achieved by understanding customers' needs better
than competitors - understanding these needs better than
the competition is the key competitive advantage
• Understanding customers’ needs will only be possible if
customers come first.
Customer interaction with e-services
The amount of time people will tolerate searching for
information on a web site before frustration overtakes
them, or time people are prepared to wait for their
telephone call to be answered, are examples of e-service
quality measures that organizations need to understand.
The answer to the basic question of how long people are
prepared to wait and search will always depend on the
factors affecting customer tolerance; with more important
factors being motivation and availability of substitutes
Fig. 12.7 E-relationship development
Fig. 12.8 Internet users by age 2008-09
Source: ABS 2009
Fig. 12.9 Internet users by income 2008-09
Source: ABS 2009
Table. 12.1. Internet sales Australia, UK and USA
Source: PayPal (2010), Frost and Sullivan (2010), IBIS world (2010), Access
Economics estimates
International dimensions of services
The phrases think globally but act nationally and local in
focus but global in context are used frequently these days
and give emphasis to the need to ensure that the local
market and customer is central to the operations.
From an e-service perspective, especially when associated
with the internet and call centre international perspective,
customer service can be divided into two main broad
categories:
• Systems-driven e-service operations
• Relationships-driven service