E-Business

BUSI4458

Customer Interface
(User Experience – ‘UX’)

Module convenor: Dr Ashutosh Sharma

Email: Ashutosh.sharma2@nottingham.ac.uk

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 This lecture: Customer Interface

• Developing an online offering

• 7 Cs framework

• Customer journey thinking

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 Announcements
and
Clarification

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Announcements / Clarifications

•My Availability
–Mon-Fri between 9-5pm via emails.
•But I may respond during work hours on working days in 24hrs due to the large number of students.
–F2F via appointment
–Online via appointment
–Drop-in sessions announced weekly
–Next drop-in Session:
•Thursday (20/02/2025) 12pm-1pm Business School Library, D-Floor Business School South Building in the
Foyer.

•Assessment
–Groupwork- (non-assessed but Important for feedback)
–Individual Report (100%) (assessed)
•15 May 2025, 3pm.
–For guidance notes see documents on Moodle page for Ebusiness
•Module Outline (pdf)
–Available under Moodle -> Ebusiness -> Key Module Information
•Structure for individual report for eBusiness BUSI 4458 2024-2025 (pdf)
–Available under Moodle -> Ebusiness -> Assessment and Feedback -> Section-by-Section Guidance Notes for Individual Report

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Group presentation groups

Team: xxxxxxx Team: xxxxxxx

Yaofei Ji xxxxxxx
LIHUA YING xxxxxxx
Kaidi Dong xxxxxxx

Progress
CHANG LIU xxxxxxx
Wei He xxxxxxx
Shihui Zhang xxxxxxx

Team: xxxxxxx Team: xxxxxxx

about
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx your
groups ???
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

Team: xxxxxxx Team: xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

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Potential Reading
• See Moodle
– Any difficulties?
• Explore the library
• Scan appropriate documents in-line with
Library rules and regulation

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 Attendance

Just do it ☺
but once per lecture
And let me know immediately after
the lecture (and by email) if it did
not work for you !!
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 Developing an online offering

• Identifying customers’ decision-making processes

• Mapping the offering to customers’ decision-making processes

When can you influence customers on the

decision-making process?

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 adverts,
Problem recognition awareness

Customer Buying Process

Information search
online search
friends’ advice
staff help
Evaluation of alternatives

Purchase decision
Post-purchase

Satisfaction

Loyalty
Ongoing
relationship
Post purchase experience

9 Based on Kotler P (1991) Marketing management, seventh ed., Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
 7 Cs framework

- context

- content

- community

- customisation

- communication

- connection

- commerce

(Jeffrey F. Rayport and Bernard J. Jaworski (2003) Introduction to E-Commerce, McGraw-Hill)

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 Context
• Structural layout of the site
- section breakdown
- linking structure
- navigation tools

• Performance of the site

- speed
- reliability
- platform independence
- media accessibility
- usability

• Aesthetics
- colour scheme & visual themes
- ‘look and feel’

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 Context
Three context archetypes

(1) aesthetically dominant

(2) functionally dominant

(3) integrated (i.e. both)

- was faster PCs & broadband
- now about video speed and mobile functionality? [e.g. smart phones]
Apps ?

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 Form vs function: “look & feel”

integrated
Frontier
gradually
aesthetically moving
dominant outward as
technology
improves

e.g. :
Low

• speed issue was video,

functionally now loading speed of
complex pages
dominant
• look issue was
Low High graphics and colour, now
multi device
Function • now: broadband or
phone bandwidth ➔
speed
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Does your site look great on any device?
 Content
• what is offered

• mix of product/ service offering

• appeal mix
- cognitive appeal
- emotional appeal

• example types include

- entertainment
➔ video downloads of Man Utd goals

- informational
➔ weather information on BBC’s site

- transactional
➔ buying stuff on eBay

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 Content
Different ways to categorise based on content

• offering-dominant
- speciality store (winespectator.com) ➔ one product
- category killer (cheapflights.com) ➔ one category
- superstore (amazon.com) ➔ many categories

• information-dominant (nytimes.com, Reuters)

• environment-dominant
- C2C marketplace (eBay)
- Social environment (Facebook)
- B2B marketplace (alibaba.com)
- chat rooms

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 Offer-dominant archetypes

Tesco “Metro”/
number of product types

Sainsbury “Centre” Superstore

Wide

(bricks) (brick & clicks)

Breadth:
(categories)

Corner
shop
Speciality
(bricks)
Store
Narrow

Petrol
station Category
(bricks) Killer

Shallow Deep

Depth:
number of product variations
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 Group Discussion

Based on what you just learned,

what are some of the best websites that you have seen?

What do you mean by best?

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 Community - social networking
• elements of a community

– cohesion, effectiveness, help,

relationships,
– language
– self-regulation
– size, growth, membership

• types of communities

– just friends
– enthusiasts
– people in need
– players & traders

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Mechanisms for connecting needs with services
 Community - social networking
• member participation
– passives
– actives
– motivators
– caretakers

• member benefits include

– need fulfilment
– inclusion
– mutual influence
– shared emotional experience

Q: What is a Status Update in the above?

Q: How is user participation different?

Q: How many times a day do you go on Facebook,

Instagram, Tik Tok/ Douyin [etc]?
Communities sometimes form just because they can
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 Community - social networking
Elements of Types of Membership benefits
community communities

just friends degree of

cohesion participation
effectiveness enthusiasts

help
people in need
relationships -need fulfilment
-inclusion
players
language -mutual influence
-shared emotional
self-regulation experience
traders

Communities form when people who need something & people who have
something are connected (“bring a bottle” “matchmaker”)
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 Customisation, Communication, Connection
Customisation (personalisation)
• ‘Look & feel’, page view order, product configuration
• My Yahoo, Dell PC, home pages
• Channel customisation: via web, email, text, call centre

Communication
• Site to user & user to site communications
• Two way communications ➔ feedback, dialogue, improvement
• Multi-way communications ➔ Facebook walls, groups, forums

Connection
• Links to other sites
• Partners, building the full service offer – mashups (SaaS),
outsourcing
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 Commerce
• functional tools
– quality indicators (eBay’s trust index, Amazon’s star rating)
– credit card and personal details registration (Amazon’s “one-click”)
– order tracking (UPS)
– product configuration (Dell PC)
– Google Maps SaaS

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 Commerce
• commerce archetypes
– catalogue pricing
How
– auction (customer bid higher and higher)
customers
– reverse auction (suppliers bid lower and lower)
are matched
– demand aggregation pricing (comparethemarket.com)
with products
– haggle pricing
and prices

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 Summary: fitting 7Cs to Value Propositions

Customer needs

Customisation
Community

Commerce
Content
Context

Consistent reinforcement (Rayport & Jaworski, 2003)

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 The Customer Journey

This is related to:

• The Customer Decision Journey model from Mckinsey

• The Customer Buying Process model by Kottler
• Both these are used for step-by-step analyses of the Customer Journey
• But they use slightly different frameworks to look at customer journeys

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The Customer Journey – and CBP and CDJ

“Customer journey” – is the step by step activities of each customer

“Customer Buying Process” – is a theoretical model, you could overlay the CBP
model on actual customer journeys

“Customer Decision Journey” –like the CBP model

“Click-thru journey” – is the journey on a web site visit

Any timescale: seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, years, … LIFETIME

Video: Seeing through customers’ eyes & breaking down silos

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/the-ceo-
guide-to-customer-experience

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Group by people route not by destination

1 2

The route to get there, not the destination

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Provider
Customer
See the entire journey not just touch points
The Customer Journey: moving house example

http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-
insights/from-touchpoints-to-journeys-seeing-the-world-as-customers-do
B2B also uses Customer Journeys

Think:

• ‘shoppers = customer’s staff’

• different segments = different staff roles

• different staff roles = different needs & timings (customisation opportunities)

Get to the ‘end point’ of what they need, tell them

what they did not know and give them access to
capabilities that they do not have.

ease, indispensability, efficiency, capability

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 How analytics creates value

1. Give people better options (before they choose)

• more problem solving options than they knew they had coordination /
• understanding how they use your service orchestration of
• how it helps them not what you sell it for (121) data:

demand data, contact

2. Help people make better choices (choice)
• choose between the options more rationally data, solutions,
• more info, easier to compare – comparison sites problems, strange
uses, compliments,
3. Use how other people have solved the buying decision to weaknesses, defects,
help each new customer new ideas

e.g. Amazon book suggestions, Google search results, each website’s customer
buying process
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 Examples of better journeys

Ford
Hyundai
Porche
Tesla
https://econsultancy.com/blog/6949
6-four-examples-of-automotive-
brands-that-are-innovating-the-
customer-experience/

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 What about where you last worked?

Discussion

Who are your different customers? Internal/ external?

Who are their different customers?

What do you know about their values? [what & how & when & why]

What service-needs do you know about but they did not?

-from other sources [unmet needs, unknown needs]

What customer satisfaction surveys do you use? [Motorola]

Do you use all the knowledge and experience of all your staff and
customers to create better fit in your product/ service design?

How to manage this data?

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MANY MANY stages, e.g. buying a car
1. Old car makes strange noise 19. Transfer money to dealer
2. Ask wife to listen to it 20.Change insurance to new car
3. She laughs, says “talk to mechanic” 21.Change breakdown cover to new
4. Mechanic looks at car car
5. Mechanic laughs, says “this is dead” 22.Check dealer received the money
6. Google “new car” 23.Go pick up car
7. Look at car web sites 24. xxxxxxxx more
8. Look at review web sites 25.Xxxxxxxx more
9. Go to deals showrooms to test drive 26.Xxxxxxxx more
10.Pick short list of options 27.Xxxxxxxx more
11.Discuss with wife 28.Xxxxxxxx more …
12.Look what people say online
13.Discuss with wife
A. Make a Journey model
14.Discus with kids
15.Daughter says “your car is 100
B. Get problems data
years old”
16.Choose car (Kia Niro Hybrid)(blue)
C. Analyse
17.Phone dealer to tell them
18.Check bank account for cash to pay
D. Improve
19.Transfer money to dealer
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 More sophisticated Journey maps: join with staff journeys
Journey ➔ Journey ➔ Journey ➔ Journey ➔ Journey ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔ ➔

One

GOAL
Needed Needed Needed Needed Needed
customer activities activities activities activities activities
type

goal goal goal goal goal

Needed Needed Needed Needed Needed
Staff
activities activities activities activities activities

Needed Needed Needed Needed Needed

Staff
activities activities activities activities activities

Needed Needed Needed Needed Needed

Staff or activities or activities or activities or activities or activities or
external resources resources resources resources resources

More
Needed Needed Needed Needed Needed
stakeholders activities or activities or activities or activities or activities or
34 resources resources resources resources resources
 Group work - 7 C’s analysis

1] separate into teams

7 C’s framework
Context Team 1
2] divide C’s among the teams
Content Team 2
3] analyse your country’s Facebook eg Weibo
Community Team 3
4] suggest improvements
Customisation Team 4

Team 5

Team 6

Commerce Team 7

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 Summary

• Developing an online offering

• 7 Cs framework

• Customer journey thinking

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 How to get high marks: link data & theory

Linking theory and data to get different perspectives

what
and generate ideas
data
?

discussion
(synthesis)

different
perspectives
(analysis) conclusions recommendations

#? which theories? 37
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 Questions?

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