Services Innovation in Ireland - Options for ... - Europe INNOVA

and develop their services. This approach, it was pointed out, was a vital element of ‘survival’ in a
particularly competitive market, providing new opportunities for student recruitment and so on.
4.3.2 Customer Interface
As noted above, the internet represents an important enabler of service innovations. One key area,
here, has been the use of the internet as a new and innovative form of customer interface. Indeed, in
many respects companies no longer see such relatively recent changes as a form of innovation, given
its pervasiveness.
Box 4 New internet-based customer interfaces
Electric Paper is one of Ireland’s leading e-learning service provider. Since its establishment in 1998 it
has increasingly moved towards the provision of its software products through internet downloads
and licenses. This has not replaced more traditional boxed products, but is a key area of growth.
The case studies revealed that almost all companies are seeking to use electronic forms of interface as
a mechanism for the delivery of services. Examples here included the increasing sophistication of the
internet as a means of:
• Customer account management.
• Tracking and tracing.
• Delivery of online education and training via the internet/videoconferencing.
• Use of the internet as part of a ‘blended delivery’ approach to education, utilising e-learning and
traditional classroom based learning approaches.
Innovation in the telephone interface was also evident. A key innovation in relation to telephone
services for the Irish based companies interviewed for this study has been the growing functionality
of voice activated response systems. It is important to note, however, that such electronic interfaces
were often complementary to, rather than replacing, existing face to face interactions.
Box 5 New voice based customer interfaces
Chorus installed its Interactive Voice Recognition switch as part of their call centre operation. This
system allows customer calls to be automatically recognised, and an immediate display of their
account displayed to the call answering representative. This helps to improve the level of customer
service. It also means that automated message can be targeted to particular geographic areas. Such
features are particularly useful when outages occurred.
The Irish case studies also revealed innovations in traditional customer interfaces. Organisations in
both the financial services and the education traded services, for example, described a shift towards
more flexible branch/campus ‘opening hours’ in order to meet the requirements of customers/
students. Axa, for example, identified the requirement for different opening hours via a structured
service innovation process known as ‘Madhouse’, discussed below.
A related strategy noted in a number of case studies was one of a greater focus on customer
relationship management. A focus on customer relationships is not necessarily innovative, but CRM
strategies that are highly reliant on human resource development and skills seem to provide the basis
for a more systematic innovation approach, facilitated by software technologies.
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