Customer Interface - Future Competitive Advantage: Future Competitive Advantage

Author: Jeffrey F. Reppert
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: As consumer demands continue to rise, companies are gradually lacking skilled employees who can serve consumers. At the same time, the networking of "smart" technologies—from retail websites to in-store kiosks—has led managers to assign machines the role of "frontline systems." This approach reduces the cost of interaction with consumers while enhancing their satisfaction. In this book, the two authors argue that this unprecedented industrialization of frontline service, much like the revolution in agriculture and manufacturing a century ago, is igniting a fire of transformation in the service industry. Through automation, overseas expansion, and outsourcing, it has significantly improved efficiency. In many areas of customer relationship management, today's technology enables machines to serve consumers more efficiently than humans. In this world, where products and services have become commodities overnight, Reppert and Javorsky argue that the interface system that determines how customers perceive a company and its brand interactions is becoming a new battleground for competitive advantage. Based on extensive research into emerging and existing businesses across various industries, the authors recommend to companies ways to completely redesign the operation of frontline systems—specifically, deploying three types of service interfaces: human-centric, machine-centric, and hybrid human-machine interfaces. Through vivid case studies of companies exploring this new frontier, the authors explain how managers can achieve: