From telesales to tele-advisory in travel agencies

Abstract

This article describes a multiloop design approach, demonstrating two concatenated build-and-evaluate loops of a project that aims at enhancing and improving tele-counseling at travel agency call-centers. The socio-technical system design intends to implement and support a collaborative travel counseling concept which equalizes travel agents and customers within a value co-created service encounter to resolve the specific problems in travel agency call-centers. The design is finally guided by four instrumental goals: (1) increase transparency, (2) improve information quality, (3) support joint problem solving, and (4) create advisory experience. While the first build-and-evaluate loop mainly enhanced the workplace picture, the second build-and-evaluate loop primarily revealed organizational demands. This indicates that the proposed design approach enables sequentially broadening the problem space for design and supports iteratively moving forward the utility of the emerging artifact. Design is informed by concatenating insights from the previous loops which enrich understanding of the instrumental goals. The presented goals as well as the design approach are encouraging candidates for additional testing as a base for general design principles.

A Self-Determination Perspective on IT-Based Citizen Advisory Support

“…In these situations, human advice is superior to computer-based advice, e.g., electronic services on governmental web appearances, since a human can empathize with another person and elicit hidden needs in a question-answer dialog. Schmidt-Rauch et al [24] and Schwabe et al [26] refer to this as supporting the elicitation of the citizen's implicit needs (DR1).…”

“…We refer to this as supporting joint problem-solving (DR3). Schmidt-Rauch et al [24] connect this design requirement with the recognized trend within service-oriented marketing [16] that clients become co-creators of value (cf. [32], [36]).…”

“…Thus, an important design requirement is to improve information quality (DR5) (cf. [24]). For the organizational context of citizen advisory, Schenk and Schwabe [23] describe correspondent design requirements on a more detailed level.…”

Designing IT-Support For Citizen Advisory Services: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

“…In these situations, human advice is superior to computer-based advice, e.g., electronic services on governmental Web appearances, since a human can empathize with another person and elicit hidden needs in a question-answer dialog. Schmidt-Rauch et al (2010) and refer to this as supporting the elicitation of the citizen's implicit needs (DR1).…”

“…We refer to this as supporting joint problem-solving (DR3). Schmidt-Rauch et al (2010) connect this design requirement with the recognized trend within service-oriented marketing (Lusch and Vargo 2006) that clients become co-creators of value (von Luke 2011, Whitaker 1980. Within the first step of the joint problem-solving process, where a common understanding of the citizen's (true) needs is established, the advisor and the citizen individually create their own mental models, which have to be harmonized .…”