The new thinking brought about some advantages. The old thinking is like that of an authoritarian way of doing things wherein an individual (in this case the consumer) is constrained to what another individual (the producer) does because the latter imposes on the former his idea of values without the former necessarily giving consent to what the latter thinks.
The new service dominant logic not only gives more freedom to the consumer, it also saves the producer a lot of money. For example, producing things just in time when the consumer needs it saves the producer a lot of storage fees because he doesnt need to store things up, or allow for risks of spoilage or non disposal of that item because of the consumers refusal to take it.
Using the SD logic in the tourism industry presents a lot of liberating instances for both the consumer and the producer. For one, using the SD logic in this industry would allow the traveler to participate in planning for his trips, and perhaps enjoy it more or save more money. For the producer, investing on self service technologies would save him a lot of money otherwise spent for the salary of employees to facilitate the needs of the traveler.
But still, there are problems, especially in the area of customer relationship management as producers of travel services rely on the internet to accomplish travel transactions. However, there are areas that travel services can improve on and learn from, and perhaps still improve the overall experience in using SSTs in the travel industry. Online tourism is a field that holds a lot of potential for growth.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council ( HYPERLINK httpwww.wttc.org httpwww.wttc.org), the tourism industry accounts for around 9.2 of total global GDP this year, to rise to 9.6 in 2020. It also contributes 8.1 of global employment, which will rise to around 9.2 in 2020. This industry is expected to earn around US1.086 trillion this year.
Tourism industry is one of the largest and most dynamic industries in the world. With the advent of the internet and ecommerce, it has become one of the hottest online commodities.
However, tourism and other global industries are still grappling with some issues rooted in the economic thinking of the past. This paper discusses the impact of the old marketing logic on global industries and the need to reorient economic thinking towards service orientation, especially on tourism industry.
The relationship within customers, markets, and companies in the traditional market mechanism
Adam Smith asserted that value resides in the goods inherent capacity to satisfy a customers needs or wants, or its capacity to acquire other goods. He also argued that a goods value is reckoned by the cost of labor provided to produce such good, in addition to the cost of factors of production incurred in coming up with such a product. (Scarlett, Adam Smith Theory of Value).
Marx proposed that goods become valuable because of their inherent utility. Firms, therefore, existed to make and sell goods, and thus create value to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers. Most innovations were geared towards the goods oriented system, rather than towards a service oriented economy. RD and technological innovations were done mostly in manufacturing firms. Goods and tangible things were the focus, and this marketing logic is inherited from an economic system that was created more than 100 years ago. Through efficient production and distribution of products companies maximize profits.
Goods dominant logic can be labeled as the manufacturing logic. Goods refer to tangible products such as appliances, tools, food, etc, and they are pushed with little or no concern about what the customer feels or thinks about the product. This kind of marketing orientation is geared towards meeting the needs of the customer without creating long term relationship with him. This puts across the message that the company produces the product wanting to make huge sales to maximize its profits.
In goods dominant logic, people exchange for goods which are operand resources and end products. The marketers try to penetrate the customers, as the recipient of goods, for them to buy the tangible goods that the firms produce. Value is determined by the producer which is embedded in the finished product, while relation between the customer and the firm is transactional.
In traditional concept, with market as a place of exchange and customer aggregation, customers and goods suppliers play their roles as consumer and producer respectively (Kolter page number). The company-centric and product-centric market is target for the suppliers offerings and hardly can one see the value of co-production and co-creation. With the change in marketing logic dominance, the service dominant logic suggests a shift in focus to value co-creation, intangible goods, relationships and experiences (Vargo and Lush 8).
The shift from G-D logic to S-D logic of marketing
Stephen L. Vargo, in arguing for the SD Logic, said that goods or the produced tangible things per se are not the reasons why we buy them. Rather it is the service rendered to us that is really the source of value. We also buy things because of the good experiences derived in using them, as well as the intangible benefits including the brand, social connectedness, self image, and meaning. Value for produced goods, determined by the customer, is perishable, and keeping inventory of tangible things depletes resources. Vargo explained that goods are not what we fundamentally own to exchange with others, but it is our services. He also pointed out that in goods-dominant logic, customer is secondary and seen as value receiver and destroyer (Service-Dominant Logic An Introduction).
Service is the application of competencies such as knowledge and skills to create values for somebodys benefit. In traditional GD logic, it enhances value and serves as add on to produced goods. It is characterized by perishability, intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability. In GD Logic, services are adjuncts of production and distribution.
Service, in essence, involves process. According to Vargo and Lusch, Service, then, represents the general case, the common denominator, of the exchange process service is what is always exchanged. Goods, when employed, are aids to the service-provision process (The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing 26).
Advancements in information technology allow customers to vote for the car design that they like, and submit their own design as well. Customers nowadays participate in the creation of goods, and not just as end users of products.
The world is moving towards a more service oriented economy wherein customers have greater freedom to co-create goods and to interact with the firms making them. However, new business models, methods and tools are needed in a new economic order, including non-technological innovations such as new marketing or organizational concepts, or new types of delivery organizations, etc.
Co-production can be defined as an element of co-creation. According to Lusch and Vargo (7), co-production means the customer is undertaking production task(s) before usage and experience. In co-creation, Hilton and Hughes pointed out, customers receive benefits and derive value in using, consuming, and experiencing products.
In co-production perspective, customers also act as producer and are involved with firms in creating products. IKEA, for example, emphasizes the importance of self service. Customers must assemble the product themselves with the materials and services that IKEA provides in order to experience the value of co-creation.
In co-creation perspective, value creation among firms and customers is essential. If firms are keen to advance their performance in terms of value maximization, they should make a balance between customers and their own operant resources such as knowledge, skills, and expertise. For example, empowered, informed, and proactive consumers can co-create the value of products with service providers through the processes of design, implementation, evaluation, and improvement. With interactions, assuming that firms understand the processes of customer value creation, firms can have better chances of knowing how and where they should improve their tangible and intangible products in order to meet service expectations effectively. Customers, on the other hand, can derive personalized products and have good relationships with firms.
The new trend of S-D logic in the market economy
Vargo explained that the service-dominant logic is a marketing logic that views service, not goods, as the focus. A new mindset requiring a shift in economic thinking, it views service as the application of competencies for the benefit of another entity (Alternative Logics for Service Science The Service-Dominant Logic Perspective). The shift occurs in the following areas
Shifting paradigm, GD logic to SD logic
Goods Dominant Logic Service-Dominant LogicGoods Service(s)Tangible IntangibleOperand Resources Operant ResourcesAsymmetric Information Symmetric InformationPropaganda ConversationValue Added Value PropositionTransactional RelationalProfit Maximization Financial FeedbackTaken from the Powerpoint Presentation The Service-Dominant Mindset by Robert F. Lusch and Stephen L. Vargo
Basic to SD Logic is the shift in marketing focus from goods to services. Therefore, firms shift from selling maximum number of goods to maximum flow of service from the firm to the customer. The firm thinks about the service system by thinking about the configuration of goods, level of service or the network configuration to maintain a high level of service to the customer.
Another concept would be selling a solution, not a thing. That is, from tangible to intangible which sells the brand more, and the goods less. A static operand resource requires some operation for it to be useful and valuable, while an operant resource is dynamic and can produce a result or effect.
Exchanges between firms and customers, in the new SD Logic, are symmetric, not asymmetric. This kind of customer-firm relationship fosters trust because symmetric flow of information is promoted between firms and customers. Unfair advantage between trading partners is also discouraged in this new service logic. Furthermore, communication between firms and customers is transformed from propaganda to conversation because firms are encouraged not just to talk to customers but to listen to them as well, Lusch and Vargo said ( The Service-Dominant Mindset). Furthermore, the new SD logic sees all businesses as service firms.
Here are the foundational premises of the SD logic according to Lusch and Vargo
Foundational Premises of SD Logic by Stephen L. Vargo
PremiseExplanationJustificationFP1Service is the fundamental basis of exchange.The application of operant resources (knowledge and skills), service, is the basis for all exchange. Service is exchanged for service.FP2Indirect exchange masks the fundamental basis of exchange.Goods, money, and institutions mask the service-for-service nature of exchange. FP3Goods are distribution mechanisms for service provision. Goods (both durable and non-durable) derive their value through use the service they provide.FP4Operant resources are the fundamental source of competitive advantage The comparative ability to cause desired change drives competition. FP5All economies are service economies. Service (singular) is only now becoming more apparent with increased specialization and outsourcing.FP6The customer is always a co-creator of valueImplies value creation is interactional.FP7The enterprise can not deliver value, but only offer value propositions The firm can offer its applied resources and collaboratively (interactively) create value following acceptance, but can not createdeliver value alone.FP8A service-centered view is inherently customer oriented and relational. Service is customer-determined and co-created thus, it is inherently customer oriented and relational. FP9All economic and social actors are resource integrators Implies the context of value creation is networks of networks (resource-integrators).FP10Value is always uniquely and phenomenological determined by the beneficiaryValue is idiosyncratic, experiential, contextual, and meaning laden.
Taken from the Powerpoint Presentation Service-Dominant Logic An Introduction by Stephen L. Vargo.
The SD Logic is a paradigm shift in marketing and might be a precursor for a new economic system that integrates goods with services. This customer centric marketing logic collaborates with and learns from customers, adapting to their individual and dynamic needs, so that value is defined and co-created by them rather than embedded in the product.
The essence of co-production and creation value development
The SD logic is often identified as the logic of co-creation. Here the customer is transformed from a passive audience to an active player. The consumer is involved in the creation of goods, from designing to consumption. He is also engaged in a dialogue with supplier in every aspect of the production-consumption process. Here value is created from experiences rather than products and services, and value is not about conventional advertising, but building processes to support customer experience. The development of the internet has provided an avenue for the consumers greater participation in designing products (Payne, et al. 379).
Their experiences develop, reinforce or alter the customers ability to co-create. External or supplier-initiated factors can cause customers to alter their behavior and existing practices in adopting new processes the model refers to these processes as customer learning. For example, the processes that retail banks use to help customers understand the value of switching from branch-based banking to online banking illustrate this form of learning. While the benefits of using on-line banking may appear obvious, a cognitive approach based on explanations and directions is unlikely to work satisfactorily by itself. Only by engaging the customer in a co-creation experience, and by learning from this experience, is the customer likely to change his or her routinized banking behavior. Suppliers who understand the nature of customer learning can develop processes to support and improve a customers capability to co-create.. (Payne, et al. 380).
Operant resources are vital in the SD logic. These are core competencies such as technology, knowledge and skills that can be used to create values on operand resources. Value creation becomes the driver in building of brands built around the customers rather than companys requirements. Branding is built more on relationship and based on consumer-brand interaction.
The customer can have greater involvement in co-creating a brand by contributing innovative ideas and co-designing it, thus deeper bond can exist between him and the brand.
Brand identity is co-created with consumers and other stakeholders and this element of co-creation is especially apparent in consumer groups such as brand communities. Typically, these groups become active carriers of brand meaning, rather than followers of the companys idea of the constitution of their brand (Payne, et al. 380).
Enhancing brand awareness through consumer relationship management
Customer relationship management as a philosophy and a way of viewing customers should never be seen as an addition or adjunct to a business but should be seen as a business strategy to increase customer loyalty. CRM supports the functions of marketing, sales, and service, and its successful implementation presents a lot of benefits to the company, which includes
reduction of customer communication cost
reduction of administrative and operational costs, through promotion of self-service
facilities
improved sales through better market segmentation
recognition of high profit customers
improved customer satisfaction
greater customer retention
employee satisfaction
improved access to information within the firm (Stockdale 208).
Consumers form attachment with brands mirroring their social relationships. Relationships are defined as a sequence of interactions between parties where the probable course of future interactions between them is significantly different from that of strangers. Even though peoples relationships with brands do not necessarily share the same richness and depth as their relationships with human partners, they can interact with brands as if they have a relationship with them (Payne, et al. 380).
Service quality and customer satisfaction are considered the crux of marketing theory and practice. Companies continually assess customer satisfaction of their products in the belief that a satisfied customer becomes a loyal customer, and may even result in additional customers through word of mouth referral from the satisfied customer (Bowden 63).
Customer satisfaction, however, is not in itself sufficient to encourage repeat visits and purchases Research has found that factors such as relationship benefits or product attributes, previously thought important to customer satisfaction, do not necessarily affect customer retention. It is the customers perception of value and their previous purchasing behavior that contribute to retention (Stockdale 209).
Friendship and loyalty, or some of their semblances, are required from the firm. Discounts and perks offered by the firm proved to be insufficient to retain customers loyalty. Customerprovider relationships is dynamic and complex, and where customers invest loyalty in the firm they subsequently act to protect or justify their investment (Stockdale 209).
Efficient communication is essential element in customerprovider relationships. For a long-term interaction to be maintained mutual understanding is necessary. Customers require accurate and complete information, good access, information searching facilities, prompt system response and reliable service if they are to commit to any online firm (Stockdale 209).
service technology as the future trend in the market
Technology plays an increasingly important role in todays fast paced world. More customers use services facilitated by technology rather than human beings. These technology facilitated services are referred to as self service technologies (SSTs) which are interfaces enabling customers to access services without the involvement of a human employee. Automated teller machines (ATMs), telephone banking, automated hotel checkout, and services over the Internet such as Federal Express package tracking are examples of SSTs.
The emergence of SSTs
Fast-food restaurants are developing electronic self ordering, while shoppers can purchase products over the internet without having to visit a store or talk to an employee. Rather than going through the traditional court system, an automated kiosk can now facilitate divorce or even evict a tenant. Technological advances will be a critical component of customer-firm interactions, and are expected to become a key criterion for long-term business success.
Before SSTs become prevalent in recent times, to accomplish the service, a human employee and the customer are usually involved doing interpersonal interaction (Meuter, et al. 51).
Types of SSTs in the market
Video or compact disc (CD) technologies, direct online connections and Internet-based interfaces, interactive voice response systems, telephone-based technologies, and interactive free-standing kiosks are some of the SSTs today. They are either used individually or in combination with other technologies. A company may provide a CD enabling a customer to view products or services linked directly to a website for more information or ordering. In similar fashion, through an automated telephone system a customer may buy a mail-order item and track package delivery time through a website that tracks packages automatically.
SSTs are provided by companies for a variety of purposes. Some forms of customer service are now available with the enablement of technology. Customer services provided through SSTs include questions regarding accounts, bill paying, frequently asked questions, and delivery tracking.
Direct transactions are rapidly growing arenas for SSTs. Through technology, customers can now order, buy, and exchange resources with companies without any direct interaction with the firms employees. Examples are Charles Schwabs online trading service, Amazon.com, and the Sabre Groups Travelocity. Internet-based transactions are rapidly growing for both consumer and business-to-business sales.
Self help, the broad category which refers to technologies enabling customers to learn, receive information, train themselves, and provide their own services, is another field using SSTs. This includes health information websites, tax preparation CDs and software, self-help videos, and telephone-based information lines. An example would be GE Medical Systems providing video and satellite-television-based just-in-time training on its equipment for hospital and clinic customers, enabling customers to train themselves at their convenience (Meuter, et al. 52). SD Logic within the tourism industry
The travel and tourism industry players, at the forefront of internet business development, are presented with new challenges in this new marketing medium. Traditional firms now invest in e-commerce strategies, giving rise to the emergence of new online agents. Customer self service technologies increased rapidly resulting in consumers being able to plan and book their travel requirements with little direct human interaction. The role of online intermediaries dramatically changed from selling travel products to booking services and facilitating information searches. A study on online intermediaries found that respondents believe the internet offers opportunities to identify market segments more closely, reach a wider market and develop closer relationships with customers (Stockdale 205).
Tourist behaviors changed, with consumer loyalty to a particular site down to low levels as they appear motivated by the search for bargains. Customers move towards reliance on self-service technologies with higher expectations on customization, value, choice, and convenience.
The intensely competitive electronic environment emphasizes the need to manage customer relationships for firms to gain competitive advantage (Stockdale 205).
The development of S-D logic, co-production, and co- creation value creation in the tourism industry
Booking a travel package with the travel agent is a good example of co-production and co-creation. When planning a travel, customers can initially design a plan to show their interests, and expectations. They can discuss with travel agents such issues as destinations, flights, hotels or resorts, preferred restaurants and pubs, and special indoor and outdoor activities. Through the processes of schedule design, agents can know better the tastes and desires of traveling individuals based on psychographic, demographic, and geographic attributes. Agents may then be able to provide personalized and suitable trips to fit on customers appetites. Once satisfied, not only does the firm know its customers better, but the latter may have good experiences and relationship with the travel firm, creating the value of co-creation. In this light, not only sales and benefits are built, but also relationship and brand loyalty in the long run. In essence, service dominant (S-D) logic represents the value of intangible resources, co-creation, and relationship with service providers, instead of a simple marketplace for product exchange.
Self service technologies as the future trend in tourism industry
People love self service technologies. They provide quick service and more convenience to the customer. It provides autonomy, privacy and the freedom from facing unpleasant interaction with a human employee. Aside from these benefits, they give the customer more control, flexibility and efficiency, while the firm using self service technologies saves on operating cost, increases customer satisfaction and identify more easily the profitable customers (Stockdale 205).
Self service technologies have become prevalent in the information rich travel industry. Twenty seven percent of US travel was booked online in 2004, while in the UK, the figure is about 40 percent. More and more people are seeking travel information independently online.
Firms are developing online businesses rapidly, too, and are effective in implementing self service technologies. Hotel chains and airline companies are implementing online booking to save on commissions from sales agents (Stockdale 207).
Why and how self service technologies are adapted in the tourism industry
Automated teller machines, self-fill petrol pumps and other SST offerings have become widespread nowadays, but the development of the worldwide web pushed self-service technologies to a new level. The ability of customers to do online purchasing and to gather information has increased with the use of the web for business. The aim of self-service technologies, from a consumer perspective, is to enable them to access all needed information for them to do business with a company.
According to Parasuraman (1996), it seems that mass markets are progressing from traditional people to people contact service to people to machine interaction, which means customers have more means and higher requirements on the quality of their products and the value they receive. Self service technologies (SSTs) are now prevalent in the modern society where airline, banking, quick serve restaurants, hotel, tourism, and supermarket industries make SSTs accessible and available to meet customers needs (Meuter, et al. 51). For example, SSTs in the tourism industry benefit tourists by time savings, better pricing, convenience, availability of the desired destination, and avoiding argument with service providers through e-booking. Travel firms using SSTs in arranging customized products and services according to customers needs also witness growth in sales. Through SSTs, travel providers have better control over service resources allowing them savings on investments on redundant resources needed for face to face interaction service.
Meuter, et al. (52) stated that the functions of SSTs can be divided into different categories according to distinctive technological interfaces (telephone, internet, kiosks, and CDs) and purposes (consumer services, transactions, and self-help) that customers use them for (See table 1).
Table1.
Technological Medium
PurposesTelephoneInteractive
Voice ResponseOnline InternetInteractive KiosksVideoCDConsumer serviceTelephone banking
Flight information
Traveling information
Package tracking
Account information
Booking trips
Updated traveling newsATMs
Hotel checkout
Flight check in
Weight scaleTransactionsTelephone banking
Making a reservationRetail purchasing
Financial transactions(On line payment)
Pay at the pump
Hotel checkout
Car rentalSelf-HelpInformation telephone
linesInternet information
search
Distance learningBlood pressure machines
Tourist information Tax preparation
software
Television
CD-based training
Table1 taken from HYPERLINK httpweb.ebscohost.comehostpdfvid11hid3sid039e50da-01a1-4055-a918-55187e56c656sessionmgr11 httpweb.ebscohost.comehostpdfvid11hid3sid039e50da-01a1-4055-a918-55187e56c656sessionmgr11
Self service technologies in E-tourism
The number of travel players has increased bringing about a tremendous increase in competition. The battle for consumers has become fierce, so has the need to retain customers. The need for online customer relationship management built within self service technologies has become a need to gain competitive advantage in this modern fast-paced world (Stockdale 207).
There is a need to cultivate a strong brand identity and to enhance customer loyalty. This requires that the firm understands that online SSTs over the internet is a medium centered on the customer who should be considered more as a partner than as a target for making sales.
Customers want to be loyal as they intuitively prefer and has a sense of security in established brands. Thus, they are willing to invest more on brands that can be trusted. However, in the online environment, this loyalty can be traded with anonymity and the hunt for bargains. Despite these facts, there is big potential for customer loyalty in the online world as many customers want to avoid uncertainties (Stockdale 207).
There is, therefore, a need to manage relationship with customers in the online world.
The impact of ICTs and E-commerce to the tourism industry
The development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) brought new innovations to the way businesses do things. This influences the development of the tourism industry as well. Traditionally, outbound and inbound travel agents give out travel information through TV advertising, radio, and telemarketing ( HYPERLINK httpwww.sciencedirect.comscience_obArticleURL_udiB6V9R-44CNNFP-3_user122866_coverDate062F302F2002_rdoc1_fmthigh_origsearch_sortd_docanchorviewc_acctC000010082_version1_urlVersion0_userid122866md590c869636d14b2aa6e27741d4861fe46 l bib5bib5 Buhalis and Laws 2001). However, travelers seem unavailable to arrange trips by themselves, and they could only rely on travel agencies which designed travel packages and booked reservations for them through computer systems linked to the global distribution network.
Such complex processes need to be improved. Thanks to e-commerce, B2B and B2C, work efficiency has witnessed a considerable improvement in performance. For example, e-tourism is a strategic and operational innovation in the tourism industry which advances the systems of information sharing, communication, transaction, and marketing research services. E-tourism introduces four main types of travel websites accessible for customers worldwide (Buhalis and Licata 210). The first one is websites of individual suppliers such as those of British Airways and Holiday Inn hotels that allow customers to directly make online reservations. The second one, such as in the case of Orbitz.com, is for multi-suppliers for airlines, car rental companies, and hotels which may cooperate in providing services on the same website enabling customers to link to them. Web pages of travel destinations are also available for tourists planning their trips using the internet. Finally, a variety of travel agencies such as Liontravel.com in Taiwan also provide relevant services through their websites. The internet seems to be a potent tool to advance sales performances in the tourism industry.
Advantages and disadvantages of SSTs in E-tourism
With the development of e-commerce, customers now have better chances to design and decide their own trips based on desired prices, places, time and transportation through the online booking system. Because tourists have different points of view on value creation, they may choose transportation services like budget airplanes, but have higher quality requirement on hotels. If e-commerce is available, they can plan their own trips according to their needs, through the internet, and with different suppliers.
Meanwhile, travelers can gather all needed information through online travel pages to do business with suppliers. Customers can also save money in booking flights and rooms online and directly with service providers without extra administration fees collected by travel agents.
Finally, saving time is also possible through self-service e-commerce. Many airlines have available self service technology such as self check-in machine to save customers time in queuing (Stockdale 210). Through self service e-commerce, customers can benefit from the value of co-creation where firms sell customized products to satisfy customers needs, wants, and desires.
In the firms perspectives, if customer relationship management has been adapted and emphasized by service providers through the self-service platform on the internet, they can also derive benefits from it. Firstly, with self-service e-commerce, services providers can better understand the marketing segments, especially the high profit ones. For example, Lion Travel targets their main customer segments by designing well their web pages, through which customers can derive more information about the most popular travel packages, destinations, as well as reasonable prices in different seasons.
If customers have questions and inquiries, companies may be able to include FAQs in their websites, from which companies can put the answers to the customers most frequent asked questions (Stockdale 212). In addition, companies can provide social network systems such as MSN, Skype, and Yahoo Live messengers to answer questions and provide booking services to customers directly on the internet. By doing so, companies may save money on extra investment in communication with customers.
Other advantages on the part of the firm using self service technologies includes savings on operating cost, increased customer satisfaction, the potential of higher bookings, return customers and the development of loyalty, if the company is able to develop an effective online self service.
Despite these advantages, however, there are a lot of disadvantages that the industry faces in using SSTs. Firstly, SSTs are usually technology based, and like other technologies, they can destroy businesses if they do not function well or are not properly designed, or if the technologies carrying the business is out of service. It also seems that majority of the customers still prefer person to person contact. Self-service will never eliminate the need for call centers and the need for live agents, Stockdale noted (207).
Stockdale explained that in 2007 around 70 percent of online retailers lack comprehensive CRM strategies. This is also likely in the tourism industry, which means many traveling companies still fail to efficiently respond to customers online questions. Because of this failure, it seems hard for travel and tourism firms to create and maintain customers loyalty and trust.
Conclusion
The increasing attention on customers requirements on the perceived value that firms provide is driving the shift in the current marketing orientation from goods-dominant logic to service-dominant logic. In the S-D logic, customers emphasize not only tangible products, but also the intangible products such as services and experiences through interactions with service providers. This concept considerably affected the tourism industry.
With the advent of new technologies, self-service technologies have been changing customers behaviors. They now focus on control of value creation while developing products and benefits contributed by firms through machines such as self check-in kiosks in many airlines. Furthermore, since the coming of the dotcom era, businesses seem to have unlimited potentials. Firms and customers benefit a lot from the potentials of e-commerce.
Online CRM (e-CRM) is an area where the travel industry needs a lot of improvement. For some companies implementing e-tourism can be a difficult task, but there are some possible solutions that tourism firms can implement, such as providing employees training in efficient response to customers messages. SSTs and e-tourism still present the tourism industry with a lot of potentials for customer loyalty and trust, and a lot of profits as well.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment