Class 8 – 9/24

Class 8: Customer Interface 9/24

Lecture (Notes posted on web)

Session Overview: This lecture introduces the concept of a technology-mediated customer interface. This lecture introduces the 7Cs, a framework to help firms design the look and feel or context of a site.

 

1. What are the seven design elements of the customer interface?

 

Context, Content, Community, Communication, Connection, Commerce

 

1. What determines the look-and-feel of the site?

 

The context. The sites layout, design, and colors are that determine the look-and-feel of the site

 

1. What are the dimensions of content?

 

• Content refers to any digital information included on a website, e.g. audio, video, images and text.
• Dimensions of Content:
  • Offering Mix
  • Appeal Mix
  • Multimedia Mix
  • Content Type

1. Why be concerned with community?

• Sense of community can encourage customers to return to a website primarily because:
  • Community can create attractive content
  • Community can make certain activities possible or easier, thus satisfying needs not attainable individually.

 

1. What are the levers used to customize a site?

Customization: To better address individual needs, a site can be altered by the user or by the organization.

Dimensions of Customization: Personalization and Tailoring

Personalization: Login registration, cookies, personalized email account, content and layout configurations, storage and agents.

Tailoring: based on past behavior or behavior of other users with similar preferences.

 

1. What types of communication can a firm maintain with its customer base?

 

• Communication refers to the dialogue that is initiated by the firm.
• Dimensions of Communication:

Broadcast

• Mass mailings, FAQs, email newsletters, content update notifications, broadcast events

Interactive

• E-commerce dialogue, customer service, user input

Hybrid

• Combination of broadcast and interactive

 

1. How does a firm connect with other businesses?

 

• Connection is the degree to which a given site is able to “link” to other sites through a hypertext jump, or hyperlink, from one webpage to another.
• Dimensions of Connection:
  • Links to Sites
  • Homesite Background
  • Outsourced Content
  • Percentage of Homesite Content

Pathway of Connection

 

1. What are the main features of commerce that support the various aspects of trading transactions?

 

• Commerce capabilities are those features of the customer interface that support the various aspects of trading transactions.
• Dimensions of Commerce:
  • Registration
  • Shopping Cart
  • Security
  • Credit Card Approval;
  • One-click Shopping
  • Orders Through Affiliates
  • Configuration Technology
  • Order Tracking
  • Delivery Options

 

 

Internet Marketing Event

 

Friday, November 14th, 2008

8:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Cost: $10

 

For the seven c’s project you need to describe the 7 c’s and how they relate to the value proposition of the business.

 

We discussed the following three websites

 

Baruch.cuny.edu

Columbia.edu

Harvard.edu

 

 

Seven Design Elements of Customer interface

 

Context – Site’s layout and design

 

Content – test, pictures, sound and video that WebPages contain

 

Community – the ways sites enable user-to-user communication

 

Customization – site’s ability to self-tailor to different users or to allow users to personalize the site.

 

Communication – the ways sites enable site-to-user communication or two-way communication.

 

Connection – degree site is linked to other sites

 

Commerce – site’s capabilities to enable commercial transactions

 

 

 

Why are there so many shopping carts abandoned?

 

Because many sites don’t tell you what the grand total for your purchase would be, so you have to add things to the shopping cart just to see this.

 

 

 

Context: look and feel of a screen-to-face customer interface

 

Dimensions of context: function and aesthetics

Function

Factors critical in site layout:

Section breakdown, linking structure & navigation tool

Performance of site:

 

 

 

What are the dimensions of content?

 

1. Content refers to any digital information included on a website, e.g. audio, video, images and text
2. Dimensions of content:
   • Offering mix
   • Appeal mix
   • Multimedia mix
   • Content tyep

 

Why community?

 

3. Sense of community can encourage customers to return to a website primarily because:
   • Community can create attractive content
   • Community can make certain activities possible or easier, thus satisfying needs not attainable individually.

 

 

How does a firm connect with other businesses?

 

4. Connection is the degree to which a given site is able to “link” to other sites through a hypertext jum, or hyperlink, from one webpage to another.
5. Dimensions of connection:
   • Links to sites
   • Homesite background
   • Outsourced content
   • Percentage of homesite content
   • Pathway of connection

 

 

 

Dimensions of commerce?

 

1. Commerce capabilities are those features of the customer interface that support the various