Evaluation of Web-Based Services - Essay Example

TABLE OF CONTENTS 0Introduction 1 Public Services 2 Distintive Nature of Services and Web-based services 2.0Public sector services compared to Private Sector services 2.1 Evaluation of Web-based services 3.0 Conclusion and Recommendation 1.0Introduction The marketing mix has its origin in the marketing of goods for consumer markets and consists of the well known 4P's: Price, Promotion, Place, and Product. The marketing mix approach has been criticized for being incomplete, because it does not bear in mind customer-needs and it industrial marketing (Bitner, 1995, Gronroos, 1990a; Gummesson, 1997). Information technology has changed the world to the extent that it has become infused with life and work. Advanced technology has enabled businesses to come closer to their customers and anticipate their needs. Internet is aggressively used as a platform to enhance business and serve the customers. It has definite advantages over the traditional way of transacting business (Amit & Zott, 2000). It eliminates paper and paper work through market automation, online transactions and payments. The governments too use the e-platform to offers service to the public There exists a large amount of different definitions regarding the concepts of service. Gronroos (1983) defines service as: "An activity or series of activities of more or less intangibles nature that normally, but not necessarily, takes place in interactions between the customer and service employees and/or physical resources or goods and / or systems of service provider, which are provided as solutions to customer problems". Another commonly used definition of service is proposed by Kotler (1991). "Any act or performance that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. 1.1Public Services Provision of services and information through the internet is the primary objective of the government in most developed countries (Buckley, 2003). The private sector is much ahead in offering web based services and the motivation and outcome in web based public and private sectors provision of services differ. In the public sector the motivation and the objectives in offering e-services are numerous which makes it difficult to measure the service quality. The motivation and objectives in the private sector centre on profits and hence easily measurable. Two web based service offerings - one each from the public and private sector would be assessed in line with current service marketing models. The report first of all examines the public and private services characteristics inline with service characteristics model. The government and the public sector have committed themselves to service quality and customer orientation (Buckley, 2003). The service quality in the health care sector too has received importance. In public health services the tension between orientations towards care provision and customer satisfaction is believed to be insurmountable. The internet has provided the opportunity to overcome the difficulties in service delivery. In order to augment its service, the UK National Health Service (NHS) started offering 24-hour help and advice service conducted by nurses. This was initially offered over the telephone through NHS Direct. With the advent of technology they soon introduced NHS Direct Online in 1999 Although service industries are themselves quite heterogeneous, there are some service characteristics upon which it is useful to generalize. The characteristics discussed in this right up are: Intangibility Inseparability Heterogeneity Perishability 1.1Intangibility Service are not tangible, as stated by Berry: " A good is an object, a device, a thing; a service is a deed, a performance, an effort" (Berry, 1984). When a service is purchased, there is generally nothing tangible to show for it. This is evidence in both private and public services hooked over the web. As argued by Berry, "Services are consumed but not possessed" (berry, 1984). Although the performance of most services is supported by tangibles, the essence of what is being bought is a performance rendered by one party, for another. Most market offerings are a combination of tangible and intangible elements. It is whether the essence of what is being bought is tangible, or intangible, that determines its classification as a physical good or a service. This primary characteristics of services is common to both private and public services. 1.2Inseparability: Another characteristic of private and public services can be seen from the level of production. Production takes place simultaneously with consumption. Generally, goods are first produced, sold, then consumed. Services on the other hand are usually sold first, and then produced and consumed simultaneously. This raises a number of problems which marketers of goods do not face: Participation of customers in the production process, or delivery process, the interaction between the service provider, the service environment and the customer, and the merging of operations, human resource and marketing responsibilities in one individual. Additionally, some service organizations such as passenger transport companies and restaurants produce and deliver their service for many customers simultaneously. In these cases, customers interact not only with the service organization; but also with each other. As a result, other customers are a part of the service consumption experience. This characteristic holds true for most private services, but for some public services like street lighting they are produced before sales takes place. For example, the NHS Direct Online is an interactive website offering numerous services. It offers free medical advice based on common ailments, which was previously handled through the telephone. The self-help guide offers very basic help and does not go into details. They also have a blog where patients exchange views and experiences of diseases as well as hospital experience. Blogs however need to be monitored as blogging provides many viewpoints on shared experiences and also serves as a data bank (Gill, 2004). Blogspheres have great influence and could be misleading since anyone is free to post their experience. 1.3Heterogeneity Compared to goods service are normally less standardized and uniform. Services are not homogeneous. Service industries tend to differ regarding the extent to which they are "people based" or "equipment-based" (Thomas, 1978). That is to say, there is a larger human component involved in performing some services than others. In private sector services, the services are more of people based. Public services are mostly equipment based. Equipment-based services vary depending on whether they are automated or monitored by skilled or unskilled operators. People-based services also vary depending no whether they are provided by unskilled or professional workers. For example, the UK NHS website provides useful links to various other connected sites which could be useful to the patients or their families. In addition, they also invite suggestions if any other useful site could be linked to theirs. The patients have a right to choose the physician and the hospital they want and this service is offered through the website. The site map is very clear and guides a new user efficiently. In other words, the site is easily navigable. To further ease accessibility they have provided guidelines on the use of the keyboard with specific instructions for Windows and Macintosh users. For those having difficulty in reading they offer a link to a downloadable software that would read the text aloud when the mouse scrolls over the text. Even the menus and the hyperlinks would be announced aloud for the benefit of the visitor. How, ever in a private service web service, the sites are more customer oriented, having in most cases and situation a direct customer interaction with an employees through telephone, with a 24hours support services. 1.4 Perishability Services cannot be stored, hence services are highly perishable, e.g. empty tables in a restaurant can seen as a revenue opportunity lost for ever. Time cannot be held over for future sale, thus, services cannot be inventoried. The Perishability of services is not a problem when demand is steady, because it is easy to staff the services in advance, when demand fluctuates, service companies have difficult problems. Service marketers need therefore to manage not only the demand, but also the supply so that a profitable equilibrium is consistently obtained. All of these mentioned service characteristics are associated with several marketing problems. These problems are faced in the context of both private and public services in a web service. These are summarized below. Service Marketing Problems Characteristics Intangibility - Services cannot be stored - Services cannot readily be displayed, demonstrated or communicated - Process are difficult to set and keep adjusted - No patent protection is protection is possible for services Perishability - Services cannot be inventoried Heterogeneity - Services cannot be standardized - Quality control is difficult Inseparability - Customer interacts with service production and delivery Systems and the service environment Customer may be part of the product, production, and the delivery system. - No clear distinction between marketing, human resource Management and operations management can be made. Source: Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry, 1985. Today's business environment is increasingly becoming more turbulent, chaotic and challenging than ever before and to survive, it is vital that a firm can do something better than its competitors ( Wonglimpiyarat 2004:1). Globalisation has not only altered the nature and the intensity of competition but has had to dictate and shape organisations in terms of what consumers wants, how and when they want it and what they are prepared to pay for it (Hagan 1996:1). Kanter (1995:71) on his work of "Mastering Change" argues that success in the present day business is not for those companies that re-engineer the way they do things, or for those fixing the past. According to Kanter (1995) such an action will not constitute an adequate response. This is so because success is based on an organisation's ability to create, rather than predict the future by developing those products that will literally transform the way the world thinks and view it self and the needs (Kanter 1995:71). 2.0Public Sector Services compared to Private Sector Services 1. Pure Tangible Goods. Here the offer consists primarily of a tangible good, no services accompany the product (e.g. soap). 2. Tangible Good with Accompanying Services. Here the offer consists of a tangible good accompanied by one or more services to enhance its customer appeal. Levitt (1976) observes that "the more technologically sophisticated the generic product the more dependent are its sales on the quality and availability of its accompanying customer services (e.g. automobile). 3. Major Service with Accompanying Minor Goods and Services. Here the offer consists of a major service along with some additional services and/or supporting goods (e.g. airline transportation). 4. Pure Intangible Service. Here the offer consists primarily of a service (e. g. psychotherapy) The concepts of "pure goods" and " pure services" are not ideal concepts. They cannot be found in the real world of business. Rather, most company' offers lie along a continuum which combines varying degrees of goods and services. Examples of business goods and services are illustrated in the service-good continuum. For example, As an added customer service, Bupa has ensured protection of data and security of customer information. This is because they collect online payments where NHS need not provide this security as they do not have any monetary transactions online. Bupa collects customer information as it helps them to analyze the data and augment their service offerings. NHS does not collect any customer data or analyze the data. Both however comply with the codes and regulations required to maintain the standards in the health care industry. It can thus be seen that in the web based services the primary motive is to remain customer oriented but in the private sector there is an added incentive. Generating profits and maintaining loyal customers is a challenge for the private web based companies. The public companies only focus on services offered and they strive to reach as many customers as possible. Both try to generate a good will although NHS has no competition to be scared of. Bupa has too many competitors and always has to be alert. They take advantage of the information technology and try to identify and anticipate the needs of the customers. Even though NHS has no monetary incentives, they do offer excellent information although their services are not personalized. Bupa's services are customized as they are able to extract the exact requirements through exhaustive questionnaires. Both the websites are however informative, allow a comparative study, have hundreds of pages that are regularly updated. The sites are well maintained and are easily navigable, accessible even by a new visitor. Both allow for signing up to receive the latest news and updates in the health care. Bupa has evolved from primarily being an insurance service provider to general and specialized health care service - nationally as well as internationally while NHS too caters to customers from different nationalities. Both are in their own ways, depending upon the product/services offered, well maintained and in line with the services industry. In addition, the service quality from the manager's perspective, most private web based services have a complaint management department to handle customer's dissatisfaction of the delivered service quality. How service companies handle the complaints from dissatisfied customers. Secondly, in cases where the customer does not complain, the objective will be to find out whether the service companies have procedures for registering customer defections. Most public services do not have loyal customers. Loyal customers are profit generators for service companies, these customers and would be customers are treated with care in a private service as opposed to a public service where things do happen their own ways. Private service marketers used their awareness concerning the importance of having loyal customer for a long-term profitability is in focus, which will provide the opportunity to identify the preferred marketing strategy of a particular service branch. Thus, while web based public services have no service recovery pattern, private web based services have proceedings in handling complaints which provide them with valuable insight in the effectiveness of service recovery among the services offered companies of our research sample. Reliability refers to the ability of a service company to performance the desired service dependably, accurately, and consistently. This is in accordance with the call for "Doing things right the first time." In the evaluation of their reliability most private web based services are reliable, since they know their business is dependable on this factor. Public services are non reliable. The service quality of private based web services is higher than those of a public based web services. It has been outlined that determining the overall level of customer satisfaction is a difficult discipline. In order to satisfy customers it has been argued that web based private service spend strong efforts to determine customer's needs and expectations. One prerequisite is seen in having the "right" attitude towards customers. This implies that service companies have to put their customer in focus of their service operations, both with respect to service development and service delivery. This is true for private services and not public services. 3.0 Conclusion and Recommendation Internal marketing in most cases is absent in public service web-based services. applied in the selected service companies. Internal marketing is concerned with regarding employees as internal customers, implying that the role of employees is equally important as the role of external customers. It is therefore interpreted that one prerequisite for internal marketing is a strong interest in the employees showed by the service mangers. Keeping in mind that customer satisfaction is one of the central goals of any service company, It appears necessary to satisfy the employees as well. However, in public services this is not the case. Typically service companies strive for "zero defection" in their service delivery, i.e. 100 per cent customer satisfaction, however, on matter what companies do to prevent these defections, problems and mistakes occur. Despite the TOM's call for "zero defects" and "Doing it right the first time" service providers typically cannot meet these high expectations. Makes are a critical part of every service. hard as they try, even the best service companies cannot prevent e.g. the occasional late busses, burned steak or missed delivery. The fact is, in services which are often performed in the customer's presence, errors are inevitable. While companies may not be able to prevent all problems they can learn to recover successfully from them. A good recovery can turn angry, frustrated customers even into loyal ones. It can in fact, create more goodwill than if things had gone smoothly in the first place (Hart, Heskett and Sasser, 1990). References Amit, R & Zott, C 2000, 'Value Drivers of E-Commerce Business Models', Strategic Management Journal, vol. 22. Buckley, J 2003, 'E-service quality and the public sector', Managing Service Quality, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 453-462 Bryant, A & College, B 2002, 'TRUST IN ELECTRONIC COMMERCE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS', Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 3, no. 2, Hagan, M. C., (1996).The core competence organization. Implication for Human Resource Practices. 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