INTERFACE ADVANTAGE
Your monthly window into the front office revolution!
Monday, June 20, 2005
In this edition: - AGENCY.COM AND MARKETSPACE FORM RESEARCH CONSORTIUM
- Innovative Influencers: Why Your Customer Interface is Your Next Competitive Edge, CMO Webcast
- Better Customer Care on the Horizon, Inside 1to1
- Business 2010: Embracing the Challenge of Change, The Economist Intelligence Unit
- Burgers and CD Burners? McDonald's Flagship Tries Hip, USA Today
- Is the Check-in Kiosk in the Lobby for Real? The New York Times
- Home Depot Hopes SAP Can Help Boost Sales, Baseline
- Travelocity Embarks on Customer-Focused Journey, Inside 1to1
- Virtual Assistants & Mobile Phones: How Speech Makes the Merger, Speech Technology
AGENCY.COM AND MARKETSPACE FORM RESEARCH CONSORTIUM
Agency.com, May 23, 2005
As companies strive to establish new and better ways to interact with customers in increasingly competitive markets, Agency.com, a full service interactive agency, and Marketspace LLC (a unit of Cambridge-based Monitor Group), a strategic advisory firm that specializes in optimizing customer interactions, have formed a research consortium to explore best practices for creating integrated customer experiences -- both on and offline. A new book by Marketspace founders Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski from HBS Press, Best Face Forward: Why Companies Must Improve Their Service Interfaces with Customers inspired the two companies to join forces to engage the research effort. The book argues that a service revolution is taking places as technology increasingly provides innovative ways for companies to create more effective and efficient interfaces with their customers. "Companies are struggling to establish new sources of sustainable advantage as offerings and brands proliferate in nearly every sector of the economy," said Rayport. "Such competitive intensity has elevated customer experience to an unprecedented level of priority. As new front-office technologies -- websites, kiosks, and call centers -- have taken hold, smart companies are showing they can enhance the quality of interactions with their customers while driving down the costs of serving them. Realizing such results, however, critically depends on getting innovative combinations of people and technology right. That's why Agency.com, with its long history of delivering interactive services to Fortune 500 companies, is the ideal partner for this research." - Read the whole story...
INNOVATIVE INFLUENCERS: WHY YOUR CUSTOMER INTERFACE IS YOUR NEXT COMPETITIVE EDGE
CMO Webcasts, June, 2005
Jeffrey Rayport, author and former Harvard Business School professor, talks about why, in an age when products and services become commodities overnight, the way you touch your customers makes all the difference in the world. - View the webcast...
BUSINESS 2010: EMBRACING THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE
The Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2005
How companies do business will often be more important in 2010 than what they do now. New business models, according to 54% of respondents to a global survey of over 4,000 senior executives conducted between November 2004 and January 2005, will represent a greater source of competitive advantage in 2010 than new products and services. Products will matter, of course, but they are increasingly vulnerable to replication. Revisiting the business model -- how products and services are created, delivered and maintained -- will make the bigger difference, and firms will need to do this regularly. - Read the whole story... Download the report for free. Download the electric version of Business 2010: Embracing the challenge of change free of charge.
BETTER CUSTOMER CARE ON THE HORIZON
Inside 1to1, June 13, 2005
Horizon Healthcare understands the value of human interaction when dealing with patients, doctors and hospitals. - Read the whole story... (requires free subscription)
BURGERS AND CD BURNERS? McDONALD'S FLAGSHIP TRIES HIP
USA Today, June 14, 2005
Just outside its wooded headquarters campus, McDonald's is offering sneak previews of its fast-food future. Now playing at its new flagship restaurant: Digital media kiosks for burning CDs, downloading cellphone ring tones and printing photos. Dozens of plasma-screen TVs. Wi-Fi Internet access. New chicken sandwiches. Double-lane drivethrus. And an adjoining McCafe with gourmet coffees, fancy pastries and a fireplace. - Read the whole story...
IS THE CHECK-IN KIOSK IN THE LOBBY FOR REAL?
The New York Times, May 31, 2005
DUST collectors. That is what employees at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers call their new automated check-in kiosks, as one guest who has repeatedly tried to use them found. ..."I was checking in, and try as hard as I might, the kiosk wouldn't cooperate," Henry Harteveldt recalled.... - Read the whole story... (requires subscription)
HOME DEPOT HOPES SAP CAN HELP BOOST SALES
Baseline, May 18, 2005
The home improvement retailer, fresh off spending $1 billion in the last three years on self-checkout aisles and other store systems, wants to give its associates "real time access" to information about products and customers, its executive vice president and chief information officer, Robert DeRodes, said at the Sapphire 2005 conference in Boston. - Read the whole story...
TRAVELOCITY EMBARKS ON CUSTOMER-FOCUSED JOURNEY
Inside 1to1, May 23, 2005
After 18 months of customer-focused training and a $20 million investment in technology, Travelocity earlier this month unveiled its "Customer Championship" program, featuring a customer bill of rights and guaranteed quality of service. Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Glueck calls it an intensive mission complete with thousands of training hours, a mammoth cultural transformation, and a deep commitment to the company's brand. - Read the whole story...
VIRTUAL ASSITANTS & MOBILE PHONES: HOW SPEECH MAKES THE MERGER
Speech Technology, May/June 2005
Within the next decade, true interactive speech is expected to be pervasive and in everything. Digital cameras, air conditioners, watches, televisions, PCs, printers, mobile phones, cash registers, kiosks, automobiles and vending machines will all have voices to announce their status and function. Not only will they accept spoken commands, they will hold conversations with us. - Read the whole story...
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