A continuous real-time commercial relationship : the
omnipresent customer
Internet users complain constantly about the slowness
of data transmission online. It's true that a page takes
on average between 30 seconds and 3 minutes to load, so
you can't usually consult more than about 100 different
documents per hour (excluding reading time), which is
much less than in all other media.
But Internet's strength doesn't lie here. Before you've
finished reading this page, two new sites will have been
created online, and tens of thousands others updated,
hundreds of new products will have been launched, thousands
of companies will have changed the prices of their goods,
up-to-date information on your field of activity will
be available to the whole world at a mouse-click, thousands
of internauts will have reacted and transferred the information
they've just received to partners on the other side of
the planet.
Making information internationally available in a matter
of a few seconds, where previously hours or even days
were needed, this is Internet's strength. But the implications
for businesses cut both ways ...
As a general rule, it has been observed that customers
increasingly expect immediate replies to their questions
(requests for estimates, complaints, orders). When they
first start to use Internet, they are impressed when they
receive a reply in a matter of hours, a wonder at the
marvels of technology. But they soon become accustomed
to it, and become even more demanding ; they don't understand
companies who don't reply immediately, and will chose
a competitor who is able to satisfy their request for
information. This phenomena sometimes reaches astonishing
proportions, to the point where Regis MacKenna sees it
as the key issue of the problem of electronic commerce
in REAL TIME: Preparing for the Age of the Never Satisfied
Customer (Harvard Business School Press, August 1997).
In the same way, in the United States, when an event
takes place (the launch of a new product, the publication
of quarterly results), Internet users automatically connect
to the Website of the company where they think they'll
find further developments on the information they first
heard by other means. If they don't find anything, they
are disappointed. A Website must not only be updated in
real time but must give access to complete information.
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