Thursday, June 12, 2008

Cycle Time Reduction, Employees' Empowerment, Facilitate Customer Support

Cycle time reduction means shortening the time it takes for a business to complete a productive activity from the beginning to the end. E-Commerce plays an important role in cycle time reduction where it reduces the delivery time of digitized products and services and also the administrative work. The cycle time can be cutting down for more than 90 percent. For example, eBay is one of the successful online trading companies who reduce its administrative and transport time.

Many organizations have strategy of giving its employees the power to act and make decisions on their own. Individuals or teams who got the authorities from administration level can perform the work faster and with fewer days delay. For example, empowered salespeople and customer service employees are given the authority to make customer satisfied with their products and services and this helps to increase customer loyalty.

Since mid-1990s, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been enhanced by different types of information technologies. CRM technology is making use of new IT devices and tools. The use of internet, intranets and extranets make customer service much more effective and efficient than before the internet. CRM provides help features for online transactions. If a product is purchased off-line, customer service may be offered online. For example, when a customer purchases a product off-line, he or she may find detailed instructions online if needs expert advice on how to use it.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Uhuh I used eBay sometimes. It's just really convenient to use, and easy to use too.

All these are the internal working of e-commerce companies like eBay right? No wonder it works so fast.

I really like those companies that have good customer support. If the support is bad, I won't want to be their customer a second time. So you can say this part of the business is very important advertising for the company too.

Forza said...

Totally agree with Jane. The main attraction of e-commerce applications is the ease of use and time saving. So here, speed is the key.

And I like mizuno's comment. He says he'll not take a second look at a product / service if the first support case if bad. It shows that the typical user will treasure a good experience with the product / service that he buys. So naturally, it applies to me too. I also don't give a impression on a company if the support that the company gave me is terrible. Better proposition for the company is to provide empowerment and good support by its employees so that the after sales support is good. Just as what Jane mentioned here.

.:: JaNe GaN ::. said...

Customer support is very important for a company to maintain its image, especially for those e-commerce company.

I am agree to both of you.
The first impression that the company give to its customer is important to determine the loyalty of its customers to the company's products.

Samu said...

I fully agree, no doubt eBay is one of the most successful online trading company since its inception in 1995. It has certainly grown from its humble beginnings to become one of the leading players in the world of E-commerce. Of course the success does not come naturally.

Customer support is very important. eBay offers its customers various online help features.

.:: JaNe GaN ::. said...

E-commerce had actually speed up the transactions that occurs in society nowadays, or in other words is cycle time reduction. Ebay is one of the successful online company.

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