Discuss about the Customer Value in Self-Service Kiosks.
Change is required for every organization to retain the old customers and to cover the new customers. In order to attract the customers towards the organization implementation of the new changes in the customer service system is required (Rosenbaum et al. 2018). Use of technology is helpful to bring changes in an organization. In the recent years customers are modern and technology oriented. Thus they prefer quick service from the organization. At present online retailing has been growing rapidly to satisfy the market demand. Customers prefer online support rather than the traditional retailing. Woolworths is seeking to adopt new changes in their organization to satisfy their customers by using modern technology. In order to serve a better customer service Woolworths needs to establish a self service kiosk in their stores. This study deals with the change management through the implementation of self service kiosk in Woolworths.
Woolworths is the eminent retail sector in Australia. They provide groceries and other retail products to the customers. However, in the recent years Woolworths has been facing customer service issues. The customers often fail to communicate with the appropriate department regarding their issues and they have to wait to order product via online (News.com.au 2018). Apart from this the check out is another issues that is faced by the Woolworth’s customers. In order to deal with this issue Woolworths has decided to introduce a change in their organization by introducing self service kiosk (Woolworths.com.au 2018). Kiosk is a computer terminal includes specialized hardware and software to provide access to information and application for commerce and communication. In Australia many retail sectors focus to utilize the technology to maximize the customers’ experience. Woolworths needs to implement self-service kiosk as it will enable the customers to order from a shop catalog when the products are not present in the stock. Therefore, this self service system allows them to deal with issues regarding the online transaction.
The traditional self-service check-out includes transaction via cash. This system is not appropriate and leads the organization to face theft and loss. By using Kiosk self-service system they will be able to improve their check out process through implementing a cashless system (Hayes 2018). The major benefit of Woolworths which comes through kiosk is the improvement in ordering system. The customers will be able to order their product when they are not present in the stock, which is a big opportunity for the customers. This scope will enhance the customer experience and influence the customers to purchase products from this organization. Such self service kiosk allows Woolworths to carry out self service check out, self ready packaging and automated ordering system. This automated self service system will help Woolworths to reduce their annual wages burden. As per the IBIS report Woolworths has increased 1.5% that is $8.3 billion in the year 2016 by using self-service system. Hence, incorporation of kiosk will improve the traditional self-service system as well as maximize the revenue. Such change in Woolworths is effective to attract their customers by fulfilling their needs. An improved and modern customer service is established by this self-service system, which increases the customer numbers and improves the brand image of this organization.
Change management refers to a critical discipline of the organization to improve the likelihood of success and the return on investment. In order to maximize the benefit and to attract the customers change management is crucial (Van der Voet and Vermeeren 2017). Change management makes the employees flexible with the new environment. In the recent years maximum business organizations are focusing on implementing new changes in their existing system to attract customers. However, Australian retail sector focuses on implementing new technical system to give a better customer service to the individuals. In the context of Woolworths it has been seen that they have established self service to satisfy their customers. However, the traditional self-service process was not effective to give excellent customer service. Woolworths has faced huge loss due to the traditional self-service system. In order to deal with this issue they have decided to implement self-service kiosk. This proposed change management system will allow this organization to improve their ordering system and checkout system. The customers will get a better experience from this self-service kiosk system. The major objective of this self-service system is to attract the customers and to enhance the profit. By improving the ordering system Woolworths will be able to enhance their revenue and by providing modern checkout system they will be able to attract the customers.
Several theories are associated with the change management process. One of the vital theories is Kotter’s change management theory. This theory highlights the reason of changes in an organization (Rajan and Ganesan 2017). Therefore, How to implement a change successfully can be analyzed by using this theory. This theory includes eight steps through which the change can be implemented successfully. The first step is the creation of a sense of urgency. In order to implement the proposed change Woolworths needs to create a sense of urgency among the employees, which will motivate them to accept the new changes in an organization. The next step is to build a team. In the context of Woolworths they need to build a team to establish a self-service kiosk. However, skilled employees are required to operate this technical process. A change can be implemented successfully by selecting knowledge, skill and commitment (Teixeira et al. 2017).
The third step of the change management is to create a vision. In order to meet the change management plan it is important to create a vision regarding the change (Doppelt 2017). In the context of Woolworths the vision helps this organization to share the importance of change in this organization, which will lead the employees to develop a clear idea regarding the new change. The next step is to communicate with the vision. After creating a vision it is crucial to communicate with the vision. Communicate with the vision refers to communicate with the employees regarding the change. Woolworths need to communicate with the employees to reveal the benefits of the new self-service kiosk for the organization. The next step is get things moving. In order to get thing moving Woolworths needs to get support from the staffs and remove the barriers from the implementation of the change management process. Many barriers will come during the implementation of the proposed change. One of the major barriers is the employee resistance. Often the employees do not accept the new change in an organization (Levy 2018). Hence, Woolworths needs to deal with the barriers while implementing self-service kiosk. Therefore, Woolworths needs to focus on the short-term goal rather than the long-term goal. This will help them to implement the change properly and to gain success quickly. Therefore, Woolworths should not give up while proposing and implementing the new changes in their organization. The last step is to reinforce the change. However, besides implementing the change Woolworths needs to incorporate the change into the workplace culture.
Lewin’s change management theory is one of the most popular theories that is followed by many organizations. This theory includes three steps include unfreeze, change and refreeze. In unfreeze step the preparation of the change is discussed (Endrejat et al. 2017). By applying this step Woolworths needs to get prepared for the proposed change. In this step Woolworths wants to share the necessity to change the existing system in this organization. It has been found that the old self-service system was not effective and it led the organization to face loss. Thus, it is crucial to make change in the self-service system. The second step is the change step in which the change or real transition takes place. This step is time consuming and the staffs of an organization need to embrace new things in this phase.
In the context of Woolworths they are going to implement a self-service kiosk in their organization to improve the customer service. In order to give shape this change Woolworths needs to manage proper resources that include both financial resources and workforce. One of the most important things in this phase is the good leadership. To embrace a change in an organization a good leadership is required. In the context of Woolworths both the internal and external stakeholders should involve in this change management process. Therefore adoption of the transformational leadership will be effective to embrace the change as transformational leadership is effective to communicate with the change management process (Rosenbaum et al. 2018). The last step of this model is the refreeze step. After the implementation of the change in an organization it is important for an organization to make the change stable. In this step the proper monitoring is required and the staffs need to go back to their previous routine. In Woolworths after implementation of self-service kiosk they need to monitor this process to understand its effectiveness.
ADKAR theory is goal oriented tool to reveal the change management process. According to this theory the organization needs to focus on those specific activities that directly related to the change objectives (Gilani et al. 2017). This model includes five steps. The first step is the awareness that highlights to generate awareness among the employees regarding the importance of the change in an organization. Woolworths has to define the change and to create awareness among the employees. The next step is desire that means to bring the change and involve in this change management process. In the context of Woolworths every stakeholder needs to participate in the change management process.
However, it is important to share knowledge while implementing change in an organization (Smuts et al. 2017). Woolworths needs to share information regarding their proposed self-service kiosk. They need to communicate with the employees and deliver the necessary information to implement the change. Therefore, they can collect feedback from the internal stakeholders, which will help them to generate new ideas and to give shape their proposed change. Knowledge sharing is the crucial part of the change management process as without gaining knowledge it is difficult for an organization to implement the change. After knowledge sharing it is important to show the ability to manage the change in an organization. Woolworths needs to incorporate the change on a regular basis. This will help them to maximize the customer service by implementing the self-service kiosk. The last step of this theory is the reinforcement. In order to keep the continuity of the flow of implemented change it is crucial for Woolworths to monitor the change management process on a regular basis.
In the recent years the retail sectors focus on the implementation of self-service system to reduce the time. As argued by Lundberg (2017), often the customers have to wait in a line to pay the bill of the products in the retail sectors. This is a major issue of the retail sectors, which hampers their customer satisfaction. Hence, implementation of self-service kiosk will allow Woolworths to reduce the waiting time and it provides an easy and quick way to the customers to pay their bill during the check-out. However, the self-service kiosk will reduce the need to wait in a line. Woolworths wants to maximize their customer experience. As commented by Vakulenko et al. (2018), retail organizations spend money, time and other resources to train and develop their employees to serve a better experience to the customers who purchase the products from this organization. In the traditional check-out process the customer need the staffs to pay bill in the counter. This is a time consuming process and creates a negative experience. Retail self-service kiosk will allow Woolworths to offer a walk-in bill payment system to the customers. This enables the customers to get a transparent and effortless way to pay their bill.
As criticized by Lee (2017), often the staffs are distracted from their work due to complex payment process. This often hampers the productivity. However, retail self-service kiosk allows the staffs to be more productive. This system saves the time of the staffs and they are able to concentrate on sales and service. Therefore, such self-service system saves money and cuts the operating cost of the business (Collier et al. 2017). In the context of Woolworths such implemented change will allow Woolworths to increase their profit and customer service besides cutting the cost. Kiosk allows an organization to increase the sell without any error (Fam et al. 2017). This is a major benefit. However, customers show different behavior when placing order via individuals. This is often difficult for the organization to understand. On the other hand, when people order via machine their behavior can be understood easily. Hence, for Woolworth’s application of retail self-service kiosk will be effective to understand the changing behavior of the customers, which is essential to improve the customer service. Besides such benefits self-service kiosk has some negative impacts on the business.
As argued by Wei et al. (2017), reduction of the staffs is a major drawback of self-service kiosk. Implementation of this automation technology reduces the need of the manual handling as a result, many workers loss their job. Therefore, due to lack of workforce it is often difficult for the organization to get creative idea to improve the performance of their business. Woolworths needs to reduce their employees during the implementation of this new technology as they do not need manual handling. This may create employee resistance in the organization, which can affect the productivity of this organization.
The main objectives of Woolworths are to increase the revenue and to maximize the customer service. To do this they are going to implement self-service kiosk. Implementation of kiosk allows this organization to engage the customers at the point of sale. This boosts the sales of Woolworth. Therefore, this system allows the customers to get an exciting and easy purchasing experience (Lee 2017). As a result the customer service will be improved. On the other hand, kiosk can be used for the brand marketing campaign when it is not used for ordering. This proposed change can be made successfully by using skilled labor in Woolworths. As argued by Vakeel et al. (2018), lack of knowledge can hamper the implementation of a change in an organization. In the context of Woolworths it can be said that they need to manage the technical experts to give shape to their proposed change and kiosk is a technical process and it needs more knowledge during its implementation. On the other hand, if the employees are not able to access the technology properly then the implementation of self-service kiosk will be failed.
Research shows that maximum customers prefer to place the order via online and they want self-service as it allows them to view the menu-item images. This need of the customers can be fulfilled by implementing the retail self-service kiosk. Therefore, Woolworths will be able to reduce the time and money by implementing self-service kiosk. This automated system gives benefit both retailers and the customers (Fam et al. 2017). This allows the customers to order and pay the bill quickly, which is a big factor to improve the customer service. On the other hand, this system is completely error-free. If Woolworths implements this self-service process then they will be successfully meet their objectives and the need of the current markets.
One of the major consequences of self-service kiosk is the failure of the machine (Lundberg 2017). However, retail self-service kiosk is an automated system hence; it can fail at any time. As a result, the entire customer service can be hampered and the entire change will be failed. Therefore, the hardware cost is too high and the installation charge is also high which may affect the implementation of such self-service system.
Implementation of the kiosk system into the traditional POS payment system will improve the payment system. Woolworths needs to integrate the kiosk into the traditional payment system. This will allow the customers to handle the payments by themselves without relying on the server or the staffs. Implementation of kiosk into a traditional payment system allows the customers to get the option of self-pay, which will ensure the top-notch customer service in the context of Woolworths.
Often the customers face difficulties when they see a kiosk screen is packed with options and information. This makes the consumer confused and they are not able to choose the next option. Development of a simple screen with a single task will be effective for Woolworths to give easy self-service kiosk system to their customers, which is easy to access. This will make Woolworths unique in the competitive market while providing the self-service to the customers.
Conclusion
The entire piece of work reveals the advantages and disadvantages of self-service kiosk in the context of Woolworths. Self-service kiosk allows the customers to order the product while these are not present in the stock. This system will boost the sale of Woolworths. Self-service kiosk helps the retailers to improve their customer satisfaction level as the customers as able to get real-time information regarding the products. The customers are able to browse the latest catalog, check the stock and get detailed product information through this self-service system. Kiosk is popular for providing fast customer service. The traditional methods are not faster. Hence, kiosk self-service is effective to provide quick service to the customers. On the other hand, system failure, high installation cost and reduction of the workforce are the major drawbacks of this self-service system.
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