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From:
Cindy Lu <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:41:45 -0500
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I have some limited access to the order specialists who process the orders.  
According to what they told me, one of the reasons that some customers do 
not wan to use the online system is the usability of the system - it takes 
too many clicks to place an order. Sometimes, the screen is frozon for some 
reason and the order information entered is gone.  It is eaiser to use one 
page order form to fill out and fax it.

Even the customer orders the service offline, the customer still needs to 
login to a FTP server to get the order results. So for these customers, they 
will receive an e-mail for the instructions how to login to the system to 
get the results.

I am sure there might be other reasons that customers use offline services. 
It will take time to convince the company to spend resource to investigate 
the reasons. At the mean time, we have to move the project forward so some 
guess work is needed.

For those customers who do not use online service becuase of the usability 
problems, I am sure the improvement of the order process will encourage 
these customers use the online service.

Regarding penalizing customers who use offline services, I do agree it is a 
business decision.  I also agree that reducing the fee for the online 
process may generate more positive impact to the customers. However, 
providing discount will impact the business in a negative way - investment 
to the development and pricing issues for all products. Here I would like to 
share a real experience with you:

Last year, I helped an organization design, develop and deploy an online 
system. Before the online system, all the orders were submitted by e-mails 
and in-person. In order to encourage users to use the online system, the 
organization increased the fee for offline orders by $10/order. When the 
system was deployed, 80%  customers turned to the online system.  The number 
of total customers not changed. This year, 90% customers use the system and 
the total number of customers increased by 30%. Of course, the online system 
is not the reason for the increase of customers but it does show that 
penalty did not cause damage to the customer base.

I do agree that no matter what you do, there are still some customers who 
will use the offline services. So making the form and instructions available 
online is important.  Whether we should put them on the home page is another 
question.


Thanks!

- Cindy

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