IT has had its greatest impact on the processes of the firm, allowing new levels of service to be achieved consistently or cost-effectively. It is frequently used to replace humans to ensure consistency of service. In this situation the fewer contacts a firm has with its customers the more important will be the quality of the relationship in each transaction. That is why in the more successful service industries a balance is found between ‘high tech’ and ‘high touch’ in strategic priorities, and room is left for a personal element in their system and methods (Fletcher, K., 1995, pp55). Table 1 show the different technologies involved in the customer service, such as the telephone, internet.
Table 1 Different technologies using in Customer Service
Source: Jagannathan, S. (2001)
Furthermore, information technology changes the customer service by providing new channels to the company for communication with its customers. Digital channels, particularly the telephone, have increasingly augmented the familiar physical channels to the customer. The internet now provides a further channel. Interactive digital television and other access technologies will increase the channels available to serve customers (Wind, J. & Mahajan, V. 2001).
Rochester (1990) indicated that: ‘organisations are using information technology to improve their customer service strategies in three ways: personalising service, augmenting service, transformation products’. After the companies using those services, the customers find they can gain more flexible and deep service.
The Implication of service change for customers.
In the industry age, company initiated and controlled the exchange process, whereas Internet age customers increasing initiate and control the exchange—‘ customers define what information they need, what offering they are interested in, and what price they are willing to pay’ (Sheth, J. & Eshghi, A. & Krishnan, B. 2001). As the power and pervasiveness of the technologies at their command grow, consumers will be in the hitherto unique position of controlling a far greater share of the information and communication flow between the buyer and seller then ever before. In other words, consumer can and will have more information about product providers in most cases than providers will have about consumers, far from being passive ‘targets’ of marketing activity, consumers will dictate the timing and modality of communications, and they will determine the time and place of any resulting transaction (Sheth, J. & Sisodia, R. 1997).
In detail, the traditional services were limited by the technology level. The customer only gained limited service, such as the telephone call centre. Normally, you only can phone to the customer service center at daytime. If the customer needs service at night or weekend, there is only voice record. Today, Information technology is a powerful tool which enlarges the area of customer service. Companies can provide very flexible customer service using the new IT such as internet. Integrating self-service on the internet is advantageous because it empowers the customer. Under this new change, the customers can enjoy the service at anytime anywhere. Customers can send messages at their convenience, unburdened by business hours and time zones. After sending a message, customers can do their business when waiting for a response, instead of spending an unpredictable amount of time navigating a telephone system or idly waiting while on hold. Finally, customers can store e-mail for easy reference; they don't have to rely on memory or hastily written notes of what a telephone agent said (Rosenthal, M. 2002).
The new IT also enables customers to receive personalised services, be better informed, and obtain more timely information. The Internet allows customers to personalise the flow of information, based on their own priorities (Rosenthal, M. 2002). It will be easy to understand by using the example of communication between the company and customers.
Traditional push communications are one-to-many which means from one company to many customers. The company provides the same service to different customer groups. New media of Internet, which potentially is a one-to-one communication rather than the one-to-many communication, establish dialogues with individual customers. Using this new media, companies can afford to tailor and target their service to different customers through providing different site content or e-mail for different audiences through mass customisation which means the personalised service can be delivered according to customer preferences (Chaffey, D. & Mayer, R. 2003). Figure 1 illustrates the changing from the one-to-many to the one-to-one model.
Many of companies turn to information technology because they think it can help to achieve good service in a cost-effective (Freedman, J. & Sudoyo, R. 1999). However, technology is only a tool to provide possibility to achieve the customer satisfaction and loyalty. The real key to good service is quality of service. Technology may make communicating with customer more efficient, such as the e-mail or telephone. But if the quality of the service is poor such as a long hold time for a customer or no reply compliant email, the company still can not achieve the good service. Therefore, the supplier should consider many factors other than technologies when they develop the service strategy.
The Factors influence the Service strategy
Based on the theory of Seybold (1998), there are many points to bear when the company is ready to embark on offering high-tech/high-touch personalised service to customers:
- Develop a warm, personal relationship with each customer.
- Let customers specify and modify their profiles.
- Custom-tailor information presentation and offers based on customers’ profiles.
- Provide appropriate service and information based on customers’ needs.
- Give customers access to their transaction histories.
- Encourage customers to ‘leave something of themselves behind’
Those are very detailed about how to provide high quality service to customers. In the following sections, the author will give some key factors which the suppliers should consider if they want to achieve their good service.
Supplier rightly spends a great deal of energy in market research, customer tracking, and service. In order to provide the good customer service, the suppliers must understand the requirements of the customers for the service. To the extent that suppliers have to establish the customer database using the new information technology to fully analyse customers’ need, and to evaluate their service based on the customer needs. After the fully analysis and evaluation, the supplier can easily know the gap between their existing service and the customer expectancy. Furthermore, they can make appropriate service plan to satisfy customer needs.
- Balance the high tech and high touch in customer service
According to Schoeck (2003), the president and CEO of Modern Woodmen of America, the effective customer service must deals with combining the benefits of high-tech with the personal care of high-touch service.
High technology
The author has discussed the importance and benefit of the information technology for the customer service. Simply, customer service is being influenced and transferred by information technology. Regardless of how one visualizes customer service, either from a logistics or marketing perspective, information technology now assumes an important role in customer service. Information technology is essentially in the process of migration, from the support function to the front-line functions where the customer is served, as indeed is customer service itself (Domegan, C. T. (1996). When suppliers design their service, they need to research and implement new technology to support the service objectives.
Many of companies rely on IT to provide the solution to the customer-service problems, but they do not realize that the technology is only part of that solution, and no more vital than one-on-one interaction with customers. Thus, high-touch is still very important in service.
High-touch
The power of the Internet technology in customer service could not be considered as a replacement for phone-based customer service centers, because people still want the option of dealing with a real person (Freedman, J. & Sudoyo, R. 1999). There is a higher level of satisfaction when customers are treated as individuals with individual needs and problems (Sheth, J. & Eshghi, A. & Krishnan, B. 2001). Companies who have the best customer service have real staffs to deal the telephones to support the good internet service (Rosenthal, M. 2002). It is very clear that the quality of the human interaction determined overall customers’ satisfaction. Thus when the suppliers develop their service strategy, they need to consider the human element which means the services must have real people available, with the right answer and the right attitude, even if technology initiates the first contact, such as the email (Freedman, J. & Sudoyo, R. 1999).
In order to achieve the high-touch service with customer, the supplier must plan the training for their staffs to help them understand their important role in providing high quality service. Companies should to train their employees to be accessible and flexible to service requests. At the same time, the suppliers have to make sure that their staffs understand their responsibility for taking care of customer requests.
Conclusion
Companies must recognize the need to build long-term relationships with their customers if they are to survive. In fact, all companies understand that providing quality customer service is a key strategic component in firm profitability. The importance of customer service and its impact on improving satisfaction and retention of customers, improving sales and market share, and improving corporate image cannot be ignored (Lewis et al., 1994).
Managing the technologies in customer service is necessary and crucial to companies (Reichheld, F. & Sasser, W. 1990). Currently, dramatic worldwide developments have been occurring in the field of information technology. The strategic use of information technology, as part of a firm's corporate strategy, can result in significant competitive advantages, e.g. added valued customer service (Wierenga et al, 1991).
However, the Internet will never totally replace human interactions in customer service area. Balancing the high-tech and the high-touch is the key issue for companies to further consider.
Reference
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Website
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