Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
instant access to this action. If I consider a restaurant worth its money, Yelp can
help me broadcast that fact worldwide. If I hate the new cell phone service from
a CSP, I can blog to complain about it to everyone.
2.2 Automation
Interactive Voice Response (IVR), kiosks, mobile devices, email, chat, corpor-
ate Websites, third-party applications, and social networks have generated a
fair amount of event information about the customers. In addition, customer
interactions via traditional media such as call centers can now be analyzed and
organized. The biggest change is in our ability to modify the customer experience
using software policies, procedures, and personalization, making self-service
increasingly customer friendly.
Sales and marketing have received their biggest boost in instrumentation
from Internet-driven automation over the past 10 years. Browsing, shopping,
ordering, and customer service on the Web not only has provided tremendous
control to users but also has created an enormous lood of information to the
marketing, product, and sales organization in understanding buyer behavior.
Each sequence of Web clicks can be collected, collated, and analyzed for
customer delight, puzzlement, dysphoria, or outright defection. More informa-
tion can also be obtained about sequence leading up to a decision.
Self-service has crept in through a variety of means: IVRs, kiosks, handheld
devices, and many others. Each of these electronic means of communication
acts like a gigantic pool of time-and-motion studies. We have data available on
how many steps customers took, how many products they compared, and what
attributes they focused on, such as price, features, brand comparisons, recom-
mendations, defects, and so on. Suppliers have gained enormous amounts of data
from self-service and electronic sensors connected to products. If I use a two-way
set-top box to watch television, the supplier has instant access to my channel-
suring behavior. Did I change the channel when an advertisement started? Did
I turn the volume up or down when the jingle started to play? If I use the Inter-
net to shop for a product, my click stream can be analyzed and used to study
shopping behavior. How many products did I look at? Did I view the product
description or the price when looking at the product? This enriched set of data
allows us to analyze customer experience in the minutest detail.
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