Customer Interface: Future Competitive Advantage

Author: (American) Ripport, Javorsky, translated by Zheng Shi
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, from online retail websites to "smart" technologies in shopping mall booths, the networking of these "front-end systems" has enabled managers to assign machines to play a "front-end system" role. This approach reduces the cost of interacting with consumers while enhancing their satisfaction. In this book, the two authors argue that this unprecedented industrialization of front-end service is igniting a revolution in the service industry, much like the revolutions in agriculture and manufacturing a century ago. Through automation, overseas expansion, and outsourcing, it has significantly improved efficiency. In many areas of customer relationship management, today's technology allows machines to serve consumers more efficiently than humans. In this world, where products and services have become commodities overnight, Ripport 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 front-end 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 industry, the authors explain how managers can achieve: