Design/methodology Organisations are digitising the customer journey at a fast pace but have no idea what the effects of digitisation will be on customer experience and customer relationships. This paper describes two studies on digitisation in customer contact and the effects on customer experience and customer relationships. The first study examines how a relatively new medium, such as chat, relates to more a traditional medium such as the telephone. The second study examines the effects of re-directing customers from a traditional channel like telephone to the internet. Purpose: The research described in this paper was designed to measure these effects of digitisation on customer experience and customer relationships. Findings: Findings show that customers have a more positive customer experience when they use a digital channel like chat than when they use a traditional channel like phone, regardless of whether they have a simple or a complex question. The use of a digital channel does not have an impact on the customer relationship. Channel direction, however, has a negative impact on customer experience but also does not have an impact on the relationship. Practical implications: Our research shows that the use of digital channels like chat, unlike what people often think, do not necessarily have to lead to a deterioration of customer experience. In certain cases, the use of digital channels will lead to an improvement of customer experience. The research results also show that neither the used communication-medium nor a restriction of freedom of choice have a significant influence on the relational models. Originality: The most important contribution of this paper to the scientific literature is that it provides a deeper insight into the effects of some aspects of digitisation on customer experience and customer relationships. It also provides insight into the applicability of relational models in existing customer–supplier relationships.
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Many countries experience waning public trust in government, while digitisation of society is on the rise and public authorities continue to further digitise their services. If governments do not pay enough attention to the perspective of citizens and adopt a citizen-centric approach while designing digital services, accessibility of government services may decrease and further erode public trust. Against this background, this chapter explores the digitisation of government services from a citizen’s perspective, with a special focus on the role of the law and legal professionals. The chapter is based on the experiences of the authors over the past years with using digitisation to enhance citizens’ access to the law and to improve the way in which (internal and external) processes of public legal departments work.In current practice, the logic of the law often requires that citizens split up their problems or requests for help and approach different government bodies for different aspects of their problem. Well-designed digital government services put real-life problems that citizens experience first and combine all regulations that offer possible solutions, thus reducing complexity for the citizen and increasing their capacity to act. The limited capacity for personal contact can then be reserved for those citizens that need it. From a legal perspective, it is essential that government services are based on a traceable and transparent connection to the underlying regulations, using external knowledge models. Current government practices leave a lot to be desired in this respect. Methodologies are available to create these connections and are an important element for designing legally sound and citizen-centric government services.
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Fabricated is an award-winning, international exhibition on how digitisation is changing democracy. Through games and interactive moments, fabricated helps participants build their digital literacy and learn about AI, misinformation, and more. fabricated just completed a successful European tour, engaging with over 2,250 European residents and collecting a wealth of data on how participants feel about our rapidly digitising society. The fabricated team has secured funding to tour the United States in October 2024 in the lead-up to the American Presidential Elections. Fabricated is a traveling research exhibit that promotes digital literacy. This project, led by the Sustainable Media Lab (SML), brings together an international, cross-sector partnership of researchers, students, nonprofits, journalists, government representatives, and libraries. fabricated uses games and interactive moments to teach communities about digital issues like AI, misinformation, content moderation, targeted advertising, and the industry of digital services designed to influence your vote. Fabricated is currently available in English, Dutch, and German.
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Technology, data use, and digitisation are based on mathematical structures, and this permeates many aspects of our daily lives: apps, online activities, and all kinds of communication. Equipping people to deal with this mathematisation of society is a big challenge. Which competences are needed, which skills must be mastered? Which dispositions are helpful? These are the questions that matter in the development of adult education. The concept of numeracy is mentioned already for many years as a possible useful approach to equip adults with the necessary skills. In this paper we will argue that is only true when numeracy is defined as a multifaceted concept which combines knowledges, skills, higher order skills, context and dispositions.
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Within large service organizations there are currently two trends visible. These trends seem to be diametrically opposed. On the one hand organizations face increasing price pressure and thus a pressure to cut costs. One of the consequences of this trend is that organizations are increasingly encouraging customers to make more use of digital communication channels. At the same time, companies find it important to know their customers in order to respond adequately to their needs. To do this, organizations must have a certain degree of personal involvement to their customers and they must have regular personal contact. It is assumed that both trends – digitisation and personalisation – will have a strong impact on customer experience and (perhaps) on the relational models customers use. If it is true that relational models - so the way in which people perceive and assess a relationship - play a role in the perception of the customer, it is also interesting to know if it is possible to influence these relational models. During the last fifty years much research has been done into the possibilities to influence customers by using subliminal priming techniques. In these techniques thoughts and feelings are unconsciously activated by showing people certain words or images (eg Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996; Dijksterhuis, 2005). In recent years a number of experiments were performed in which customers were unconsciously primed at some type of relationship (eg Aggarwal, 2004; McGraw & Tetlock, 2005; Tuk, Verlegh, Smidts & Wigboldus, 2009). These experiments showed that it is possible to activate a certain type of relationship. The experiments however the researchers used scenario’s based on an interpersonal relationship, and often to a fictitious relationship. The question is whether priming techniques also work for an already existing and more complex relationship between an organization and its customers. From 2010-2013 we conducted research for six large service providers in banking, insurance, utilities and social welfare to discover what the customer experience of these organisations, what role relational models played in customer experience and whether it was possible to influence these relational models. The research project has provided answers to the following questions: - Which relational models are used by customers and what is the influence of these models on customer experience? - What is the influence of digitisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? - What is the influence of personalisation in customer communication on relational models and customer experience? And finally, - Is it possible to influence relational models (and customer experience) by using specific words and images that are associated with relational models (relational framing)?
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Background: Peer review is at the heart of the scientific process. With the advent of digitisation, journals started to offer electronic articles or publishing online only. A new philosophy regarding the peer review process found its way into academia: the open peer review. Open peer review as practiced by BioMed Central (BMC) is a type of peer review where the names of authors and reviewers are disclosed and reviewer comments are published alongside the article. A number of articles have been published to assess peer reviews using quantitative research. However, no studies exist that used qualitative methods to analyse the content of reviewers’ comments. Methods: A focused mapping review and synthesis (FMRS) was undertaken of manuscripts reporting qualitative research submitted to BMC open access journals from 1 January – 31 March 2018. Free-text reviewer comments were extracted from peer review reports using a 77-item classification system organised according to three key dimensions that represented common themes and sub-themes. A two stage analysis process was employed. First, frequency counts were undertaken that allowed revealing patterns across themes/sub-themes. Second, thematic analysis was conducted on selected themes of the narrative portion of reviewer reports. Results: A total of 107 manuscripts submitted to nine open-access journals were included in the FMRS. The frequency analysis revealed that among the 30 most frequently employed themes “writing criteria” (dimension II) is the top ranking theme, followed by comments in relation to the “methods” (dimension I). Besides that, some results suggest an underlying quantitative mindset of reviewers. Results are compared and contrasted in relation to established reporting guidelines for qualitative research to inform reviewers and authors of frequent feedback offered to enhance the quality of manuscripts. Conclusions: This FMRS has highlighted some important issues that hold lessons for authors, reviewers and editors. We suggest modifying the current reporting guidelines by including a further item called “Degree of data transformation” to prompt authors and reviewers to make a judgment about the appropriateness of the degree of data transformation in relation to the chosen analysis method. Besides, we suggest that completion of a reporting checklist on submission becomes a requirement.
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The popularity of Electronic Sports (esports) have grown tremendously in the last few years, becoming one of the most popular forms of digital entertainment. Despite continued growth, definitions and classifications of esports remain elusive, and the industry is still considered by many to be in its infancy. Understanding of esports originate from diverse, sometimes conflicting fields, which has created fragmented interpretations of its definition, positioning and core components. This has hindered esports from embracing opportunities afforded by emerging digital technologies and progressing as a distinct field. The purpose of this conceptual paper is threefold, to redefine esports, propose a unified framework to capitalise on esports business potential, and inspire a more structured future esports research agenda. The proposed esports Matrix, presents four distinct realms that distinguish esports; esports as a representation of current physical sports (sports digitalisation), esports as traditional (multi-player) game experience (competitive multiplayer computer games), esports that modify existing sports, player rules and setups through digital augmentations (digitally enhanced sports), and new types of esports involving emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality (immersive reality sports). The esports Matrix was developed incorporating industry expertise thus verifying its suitability and relevance to advance conceptual and empirical understanding, and importantly, facilitating a more structured approach, to enable businesses to realise the potential of esports.
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Digitalization has profoundly permeated our lives. In Europe; The Netherlands, together with Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, are digitisation leaders. This intense use of technology asks for specialized IT professionals to manage it. Focusing on The Netherlands, there is a scarcity of IT professionals on the labour market. In order to gain more insight into the diverse perspectives employers have on the challenges and solutions around recruitment and retention of IT professionals, an exploratory-explanatory qualitative research design was operationalised and 36 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with one or more representatives of SMEs and larger organisations. The outcomes showed that both, SMEs and large companies have vacancies and an increasing demand for support with digitisation and that the market demand mainly requires senior staff which are difficult to recruit and retain. Large companies mainly focus on IT knowledge while SMEs focus on ‘cultural fitness'. Both types of organisations practise “aggressive” forms of recruitment and they would prefer and focus on “more organic” forms of recruitment. The in-house recruitment is present mostly in large organisations and training and knowledge development is an important tool for recruiting and retaining staff in organisations. The recruitment focuses on more income, influence and involvement, by improving the primary and secondary employment conditions where well-being and maintaining a healthy work-life balance are of utmost importance.
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Network Applied Design Research (NADR) made an inventory of the current state of Circular Design Research in the Netherlands. In this publication, readers will find a summary of six promising ‘gateways to circularity’ that may serve as entry points for future research initiatives. These six gateways are: Looped Systems; Extension of Useful Lifetime; Servitisation; New Materials and Production Techniques; Information Technology and Digitization; and Creating Public and Industry Awareness. The final chapter offers an outlook into topics that require more profound examination. The NADR hopes that this publication will serve as a starting point for discussions among designers, entrepreneurs, and researchers, with the goal of initiating future collaborative projects. It is the NADR's belief that only through intensive international cooperation, we can contribute to the realization of a sustainable, circular, and habitable world.
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