Describe three ways e-commerce can provide services for its customers. For each service method identified, please provide two examples
When providing service, the seller and the buyer have to be present simultaneously for it to render, real-time service and support should be available for customer’s convenience. Automation of service bypasses most limitation and challenges that traditional service marketers stumble upon. The e-commerce can provide services for its customers considering three unique characteristics: intangibility, simultaneity, and heterogeneity.
Managing intangibility
Services are something that marketers cannot show to a customer. Services are intangible; unlike products they cannot be seen or touched. Even though service …show more content…
The customization of service increases quality, customer satisfaction and also increases customer loyalty towards the service provider. The second aspect of e-commerce in managing simultaneity is making customers as part-time employees. For example, Fedex allows its customers to track their packages through their website. When the customers interact through the Fedex website tracking its package, the customer is considered as a part-time employee. Before the internet, the customer had to call or go in person to the post office in order to check their packages. The third aspect of simultaneity is Innovation as part of customer participation; which means that the customer is co-producer and participant in the service creation process. The customers can provide a lot of information about their likes or not to the service provider. With the customers’ information businesses can innovate many of its products. The fourth aspect of simultaneity is Service industrialization; this means to give less service to the customer or eliminate the service in order to give the customer exactly what they want. The fifth and last aspect of simultaneity are Reducing customer errors; in the production of service, there are errors caused by the customer.
As an example of service industrialization, we can compare how before the internet you acquired a telephone number of your relatives or friends that you haven’t seen for a long time. You normally would have called the central directory inquiries. With the service industrialization, you can type in the name and the zip code of the person in a website called Switchboard.com, they will provide all the detailed information for free and for a fee they provide a driving record, court records,
When providing service, the seller and the buyer have to be present simultaneously for it to render, real-time service and support should be available for customer’s convenience. Automation of service bypasses most limitation and challenges that traditional service marketers stumble upon. The e-commerce can provide services for its customers considering three unique characteristics: intangibility, simultaneity, and heterogeneity.
Managing intangibility
Services are something that marketers cannot show to a customer. Services are intangible; unlike products they cannot be seen or touched. Even though service …show more content…
The customization of service increases quality, customer satisfaction and also increases customer loyalty towards the service provider. The second aspect of e-commerce in managing simultaneity is making customers as part-time employees. For example, Fedex allows its customers to track their packages through their website. When the customers interact through the Fedex website tracking its package, the customer is considered as a part-time employee. Before the internet, the customer had to call or go in person to the post office in order to check their packages. The third aspect of simultaneity is Innovation as part of customer participation; which means that the customer is co-producer and participant in the service creation process. The customers can provide a lot of information about their likes or not to the service provider. With the customers’ information businesses can innovate many of its products. The fourth aspect of simultaneity is Service industrialization; this means to give less service to the customer or eliminate the service in order to give the customer exactly what they want. The fifth and last aspect of simultaneity are Reducing customer errors; in the production of service, there are errors caused by the customer.
As an example of service industrialization, we can compare how before the internet you acquired a telephone number of your relatives or friends that you haven’t seen for a long time. You normally would have called the central directory inquiries. With the service industrialization, you can type in the name and the zip code of the person in a website called Switchboard.com, they will provide all the detailed information for free and for a fee they provide a driving record, court records,