A final article reflecting on the power and potential pitfalls of e-mail as a communications channel.
Previously I’ve looked at fielding simple enquiries and more complex follow-ups.
This time it’s a successful case study, following on from our failure to secure a booking in Costa Rica.
Next on our millennium list was Indonesia. In contrast with Costa Rica, there was a dearth of Internet-based information.
However, a tentative e-mail enquiry to ArcJourney produced a prompt and friendly reply
Three weeks and a dozen e-mails later and we had progressed to a confirmed booking. ArcJourney has yet to send us a single printed brochure, itinerary or booking form. All transactions have been on-line.
While it has eliminated traditional facility and transaction costs, use of e-mail is undoubtedly time-consuming. The key to cost-effective success is mixing personal, customised material with pre-prepared cut and paste. Our first response from David at ArcJourney included brief paragraphs which explicitly responded to the details of our enquiry, with a couple of standard exemplar itineraries added on.
Initial trust established on both sides, it was then a process of progressive refinement to agree the final trip.
I’m assured that we took fewer exchanges than most!
A final irony in this story, illustrates the power of e-mail to overcome boundaries of space and time.
We conducted all the initial correspondence secure in the knowledge that the physical address for ArcJourney was just a few miles up the road in Cambridge, and we could always chose to give David a phone call or even drop in to discuss the final details.
It came as a complete surprise to learn that we had actually been conversing with Australia, where David was preparing for a forthcoming trip. It really is possible to run your virtual office from anywhere with Internet access.
David can currently answer all enquiries personally and his knowledge and enthusiasm shines through even an e-mail dialogue. But what happens as the business grows and this level of personal attention is no longer feasible?
It is similar to the challenge in call centres, where the probability of converting an initial enquiry to a confirmed booking is dependent on the skills and knowledge of the individual call centre agent.
As with call centres, the solution lies in the balance of technology and people. Intelligent Call Routing seeks to direct incoming calls to the most appropriate agents and e-mails can be similarly sorted.
Dialogue screens guide call-centre agents through the basic interactions and skeleton e-mails can have prepared standard paragraphs.
Moreover, since e-mails do not require immediate interaction of a phone call, machines can automatically respond to selected senders in different ways.