From telesales to tele-advisory in travel agencies: Business problems, generic design goals and requirements

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.

References

1. Barnett, M. and Standing, C. 2001. Repositioning travel agencies on the Internet. J. Vacation Market. 7, 143--152.
2. Belkin, N. J., Oddy, R. N. and Brooks, H.M. 1982. ASK for information retrieval: Part I. J. Document. 38, 2, 61--71.
3. Buhalis, D. and Licata, M. C. 2002. The future eTourism intermediaries. Tourism Manag. 23, 3, 207--220.
4. Buhalis, D. and Law, R. 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet-The state of eTourism research. Tourism Manag. 29, 4, 609--623.
5. Briggs, R. O., Reinig, B. A., and de Vreede, G.-J. 2008. The yield shift theory of satisfaction and its application to the IS/IT domain. J. Assn. Inform. Syst. 9, 5, 267--293.
6. Cyr, D., Head, M., Larios, H., and Pan, B. 2006. Exploring human images in website design across cultures: A multi-method approach. In: Proceedings of the of 5th Workshop on HCI Research in MIS Conference. 55--59.
7. Decrop, A. and Snelders, D. 2004. Planning the summer vacation -- An adaptable process. Ann. Tourism Res. 31, 4, 1008--1030.
8. DeLone, W. H. and McLean, E. R. 1992. Information systems success: The quest for the dependent variable. Inf. Syst. Res. 3, 1, 60--95.
9. Eisenhardt, K. M. 1989. Agency theory: An assessment and review. AMR 14, 1, 57--74.
10. El Emam, K. and Koru, A. G. 2008. A replicated survey of IT software project failures. IEEE Softw. 84--90.
11. Freedman, J. B. 2007. What motivates voluntary engagement in cooperative information systems. In Proceedings of the HICSS Conference. IEEE Computer Society.
12. Frias, D. M., Rodriguez, M. A., and Castaneda, J. A. 2008. Internet vs. travel agencies on pre-visit destination image formation: An information processing view. Tourism Manag. 29, 163--179.
13. Friedman, B., Khan, P. H., and Howe, D. C., 2000. Trust on-line. Comm. ACM 43, 12, 34--40.
14. Goossens, C. 2000. Tourism information and pleasure motivation. Ann. Tourism Res. 27, 2, 301--321.
15. Hassenzahl, M. 2010. Experience Design: Technology for All the Right Reasons. Morgan and Claypool.
16. Hassenzahl, M., Burmester, M., and Koller, F. 2003. Attrakdiff: Ein fragebogen zur messung wahrgenommener hedonischer und pragmatischer qualität. In Proceedings of the Mensch and Computer Conference. 187--196.
17. Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., and Ram, S. 2004. Design science in information systems research. MISQ 28, 1, 75--105.
18. Hyde, K. F. 1999. A hedonic perspective on independent vacation planning, decision-making and behaviour. Consum. Psych. Tour. Hospital. Leisure 177--191.
19. International Organization for Standardization. 1999. ISO 13407. Human-Centered design processes for interactive systems. http://www.iso.ong/iso/catalogue-detail.htm?csnumber-21197.
20. Karlsen, J. T., Andersen, J., Birkely, L. S., and Odegard, E. 2006. An empirical study of critical success factors in IT projects. Int. J. Manag. Enterprise Devel. 3, 4, 297--311.
21. Khattak, A. J., Yim, Y., and Stalker Prokopy, L. 2003. Willingness to pay for travel information. Transport. Res. 11, 2, 137--159.
22. Liebman Parrinello, G. 1993. Motivation and anticipation in post-industrial tourism. Ann. Tourism Res. 20, 233--249.
23. Lusch, R. F. and Vargo, S. L. 2006. The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, and Directions. M.E. Sharpe.
24. Moliner, M. A., Sanchez, J., Rodriguez, R. M., and Callarisa, L. 2007. Travel agency relationship quality. Ann. Tourism Res. 34, 2, 537--540.
25. Novak, J. 2009. Mine, yours…ours? Designing for principal-agent collaboration in interactive value creation. In Proceedings of the Wirtschaftsinformatik Conference.
26. Novak, J., Aggeler, M., and Schwabe, G. 2008. Designing large-display workspaces for cooperative travel consultancy. In Proceedings of CHI Conference. ACM Press, New York.
27. Novak, J. and Schmidt, S. 2009. When joy matters: The importance of hedonic stimulation in collocated collaboration with large-displays. In Proceedings of Interact Conference.
28. Novak, J. and Schwabe, G. 2009. Designing for reintermediation in the brick-and-mortar world: Towards the travel agency of the future. Electron. Markets 19, 1.
29. Nussbaumer, P. and Matter, I. 2011. What you see is what you (can) get? Designing for process transparency in financial advisory encounters. In Proceedings of Interact Conference to Appear.
30. Osborn, A. F. 1953. Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Problem-Solving. Scribner'S.
31. Pavlou, P., Huigang, L., and Yajiong, X. 2007. Understanding and mitigating uncertainty in online exchange relationships: A principal-agent perspective. MIS Quart. 31, 1.
32. Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., and Chatterjee, S. 2008. A design science research methodology for information systems research. In JMIS 24, 3, 45--77.
33. Reichheld, F. F. and Schefter, P. 2000. E-Loyalty: Your secret weapon on the web. Harvard Bus. Rev. 78, 105--113.
34. Rosson, M. B. and Carroll, J. M. 2002. Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction. Morgan Kaufmann.
35. Rodden, T., Rogers, Y., Halloran, J., and Taylor, I. 2003. Designing novel interactional workspaces to support face to face consultations. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference. ACM Press, New York.
36. Schmidt-Rauch, S., Fux, M., and Schwabe, G. 2011. Tourist office counselling service. In Law, R., Fuchs, M. and Ricci, F. Eds., Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism. Springer.
37. Schmidt-Rauch, S. and Nussbaumer, P. 2011. Putting value co-creation into practice: A case for advisory support. Proceedings of the ECIS. (Paper 138).
38. Schmidt-Rauch, S., Schaer, R., and Schwabe, G. 2010. From telesales to tele-advisory services in travel agencies. In Proceedings of the ICIS. (Paper 131).
39. Schwabe, G. 1995. Objekte der Gruppenarbeit - Ein Konzept für das Computer Aided Team. Gabler.
40. Schwabe, G. 2001. Gemeinsames material und gruppengedächtnis. In Schwabe, Streitz and Unland Eds. CSCW-Kompendium. Springer, 447--453.
41. Sein M. K., Henfridsson, O., Purao, S., Rossi, M., and Lindgreen, R. 2011. Action design research. MISQ 35, 1, 37--56.
42. Simon, H. A. 1996. The Sciences of the Artificial. MIT Press.
43. Stebbins, R. A. 2001. Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences. Sage Publications.
44. Stebbins, R. A. 2006. Concatenated exploration: Aiding theoretic memory by planning well for the future. J. Contempor. Ethnography. 35, 5, 483--494.
45. Stempfle, L. and Zartmann, R. 2007. Aktiv Verkaufen am Telefon. Gabler.
46. van der Heijden, H. 2004. User acceptance of hedonic information systems. MISQ 28, 4, 695--704.
47. Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., and Davis, F. D. 2003. User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MISQ 27, 3, 425--478.
48. von Hippel, E. and Katz, R. 2002. Shifting innovation to users via toolkits. Manag. Sci. 48, 7.
49. Zhang, L., Pan, B., Smith, W., and Li, X. 2009. Travelers' use of online reviews and recommendations: A qualitative study. J. Inf. Technol. Tourism 11, 2.

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Enterprise computing

    • Enterprise information systems

• Human-centered computing

  • Collaborative and social computing

    • Collaborative and social computing systems and tools

      • Synchronous editors

• Information systems

  • Information systems applications

    • Collaborative and social computing systems and tools

      • Synchronous editors

    • Enterprise information systems