The Change in Customer Behavior Associated with the Clients Fulfilling Labor Functions - Term Paper Example

The business world has changed a lot during the last part of the 20th century into the new millennium. Developed nations such as the United s and the United Kingdom evolved and switch from the manufacturing model of emerging economies such as China into a knowledge economy based on the offering of a variety of services. The service industry that rule the knowledge economies in a short time has also changed lot due to the intense competition and firms are looking for effective ways to lower cost in order to increase profits. The solution that surge in the industry was creating value where it did not exist by making the customer a valuable source of free labor. The new workforce that appeared out of nowhere without them even realizing are referred to as partial employees (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2003). This essay discusses the change in customer behavior associate with the clients fulfilling labor functions and the marketing implications of this new tendency. A business that receives an economic benefit that does not really cost them anything has a managerial staff that is optimizing efficiency since creating such a situation is win-win situation because the benefit is not being offset by another factor. For example a cost cutting initiative such as lowering cost by purchasing cheaper materials most likely has the detrimental effect of lowering the quality of the product. A very that was very influential in the business changes of the 21st century is technology. This variable allowed companies worldwide to streamline their operations in order to utilize their human resources to perform tasks that add value to the business entity (Kotler, 2003). Imagine a clothing store spending money on a security guard at the door to prevent and detect theft. This employee can be replaced by a camera and a scanning device that alerts management of an incidence if merchandise is stolen. This automation example shows conceptually the way automation works and can reduce costs. The actual practice of transforming customers into partial employees does at times use technology to facilitate the process, but it has more to do with changing customer behavior by instilling new social patterns and providing training & guidelines that customers must follow in order to complete the business service transaction in an optimal manner. The customers are living in a society in which time is of the essence and the minimum delay is an inconvience that people detest and do not which to encounter. Due to this life pattern tendency businesses have implemented solutions that minimize company efforts making customers perform duties the employees use to realize. The customer accepted the change because they notice the advantages associated with doing it yourself. A person does not need somebody treating a one like a baby that can not make purchasing decisions. People prefer to get involved in the process of receiving a service since they can provide better instruction of what they exactly want, thus the final quality of the service output is improved. The factor that provides the greatest benefit for firms of turning customers into partial employees is the transfer of information. From a human resource perspective the partial employee are a stakeholder that has certain needs they are responsible of attending in order to comply with serving their special needs. One of the best way these professional can help partial employees is by utiling job design concepts to streamline and facilitate the job function they perform and end up with task that are easier to complete. Motivation plays an important role in the willingness of the partial employee to perform certain job duties. According to hierarchy of needs theory motivation is realized by complying with factors such as self, actualization, esteem, social, safety, pshychology (Sharma, 1995). An example of a partial employee that is achieving a social need by performing their job function is a person in a fast food restaurant who takes their trash and places it in the designated areas due to the social norm and expectation that this must be done by the person. Clear and well designed spatial layouts can help firm direct the customer towards the area they need in order to perform their job tasks. The benefits in creating an improved setting for customer labor contributions to take place include greater flexibility, rock bottom prices, and an improved satisfaction out of the ordeal for both the businesspeople and the partial employee. The role ambiguity in partial employee setups is reduced as people get more accostomed to performing certain activities. It is important for firms to match the customers skills and abilities to implement the partial employee function. If there is no alignment between customer capabilities and the job function they are suppose to perform it is possible that a company might lose money out of the implementation of partial employees instead of increasing costs. A way to use marketing to the firm’s advantate is by directing the market research towards findign the customer segment that fits the desired profile to ensure the client is a capable person that can perform partial employee duties. The marketing practice of corporation that implement customer labor contribution must identify and implement market segmentation to recruit a specific clientele that wants and prefers to utilize their time to improve the transaction. Market research is a tool marketing people use to determine the key customer behavioral variables that create the profile that aludes the desired criteria. A Swot analysis can help a company analyze its internal and external environment to make the changes need to implement systems with user-friendly interfaces that allow a smooth internaction between the customers and the desired labor function the human resource department has delegated to this fantom worker. A marketing plan that highlights the benefits of entering into service arrangements in which the customer is an integral part of the product can positively impact the incremental value of implenting customer labor contributions. It is essential for companies to optimize its customer human resources. Information is an element that is a part of any marketing campaign since a specific desired message is transmitted to the audience (Schermerhorn & Hunt & Osborn, 2003). An example of a marketing task that the partial employees can perform to advertize the services or product of a firm is word of mouth advertising. Instead of paying thousands or even million of dollars for a particular marketing application a firm that treats its customer well and promotes customer to bring referrals to the business fosters the utilization of word of mouth advertising among the partial employees. The benefits and advantages of this sublime work arrangement include time savings, cost reductions and the ability to customize a product or service to meet the specification a customer desires. Companies can implement one of two application of this new phenomena. To illustrate the types of of applications of the trend we are going to differentiate two types of application by reffering to them as either phase I or phase II application. Phase I is a situation in which the company’s strategy ends up implementing a technology which completely eliminates the need for external labor since the customer completely replaces the tradional employee. The phase I scenario occurs with the full support of the customer which prefers this type of arrangement. The retail giant Tesco is a firm that implement a phase I application. Their online stores is a perfect example of phase I since the customer who entered this online spot enters the store in a virtual environment in which they are in full control of the window shopping the store, the selection process of items to purchase and the self-check out to purchase and pay for the merchendise. Overhead costs associated with ecommerce stores are a fraction of a tradional stores since the customers become the partial employees that replace the need for labor. In 2006 e-commerce in the United States marketplace generated $100 billion dollars in retail sales (Plunkett Research, 2008). A phase II appplication is a situation in which the system in the store demands the customer to perform certain labor function typically with the assistance of technology, but there is an actual employee around to facilitate the process. Think of the self-checkout tills many retail stores such as Home Depot are utilizing. The customer goes to a special cash register in which they themselves scan the items, place them in the bag and insert the money into a machine that gives them back their change and receipt. While all this is occuring about 25 feet away there is an employee available on call who is responsible of providing assistance in case a customer has any problems with the system, a scenario which does occur from time to time. The employee is serving the role of the trainer of the partial of employees who explain to them how to perform their job correctly. As buyers become more involved in performing the role of partial employees companies should continue to foster and promote this type of activity while at the same time finding new ways of proving better feedback and ways of training their customer on how to become more efficient in their shopping work duties they willingly accepted. A way to do this is by developing better written instruction the customer can follow to complete a particular task. As simple as scanning an item is, certain clientele such as the elderly may need special diagrams beside a scanning machine which indicate to them that they have to look for the code bar and scan this bar which is located somewhere in the packaging of the item. In the service industry companies can improve the work of partial employees by educating them and showing them the benefits they reap by getting more involved in the process to create the service output. A service situation in which more detailed involvement from the customer leads to a better and more detailed service offering is a consultancy meeting. The consultant needs to gather certain information from the customer in order to be able to perform their job correctly. If the information is inaccurate, insufficient or ambigouis the consultant will not be able to perform their job correctly and the most likely scenario is that time loses will occur as a result of improper tranfer of information between the service provider and the partial employee. The 21st century is an acean of opportunity for humanity in which the errors of the past are being replaced with new adventures and possibilities. People want to get involved in new things and participation in the supply chain of a business is something that is raising interest among consumers. The participation and interest of turning a tradional customer into a dual stakeholder which serves both the role of being the buyer that brings income into the company as well as becoming a partial employees that generates a work output for a firm free of charge. The free of charge implication is why more and more human resource managers and other executives are emphasizing their efforts into finding applications to convert certain prodedures into work schedules that may be performed by partial employees. There is no way of determining what the future holds, but in business a tendency or trend is something that may be predicted which allows managers to predict and forecast future corporate events. The new age of customer further integrating themselves with the firms they supports has begun and greater customer labor participation is pattern that will increase as time moves forward. The changes that are upon us willl contribute to the evolution of humanity and is tranforming the perception of consumerism from an evil that depleted funds to a human interactive activity with the ability to unity people in productive activities that both educate and fullfill the human need of improving one’s self-esteem. References Halbesleben, J., Buckley, R. (2004). Managing Customers as employees of the firm: New Challenges for Human Resources Management. Personal Review, 33(3). Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management (11th ed.). New Yersey: Upper Saddle River. Plunkett Research (2008). Internet & Ecommerce Industry Trends. Retrieved March 26, 2008 from Plunkett Research database. Scharma, S. (1995). Motivation. Retrieved March 27, 2008 from http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/FIS/Courses/LIS1230/LIS1230sharma/motive1.htm Schermerhorn, J., Hunt, J., Osborn, R. (2003). Organizational Behavior (8th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More