Creating value-added internet offers

Abstract: Many companies have started head over heals using e-commerce without
understanding their customer needs and wants, thereby failing to reach
established goals. The critical issues are the necessary business process
reengineering and the need of a new way of thinking in order to maximize
customer value. This has lead to an increasing need for companies to
evaluate their business processes and to develop new products and services
adapted to the features of the Web. A lot of questions arise when a marketer
wants to create value-laden offers on the Web. Common questions are: How do
customers view buying products on the Web? What are the customers
expectations and demands of using the Web as a tool in the purchasing
process? What service attributes can create superior customer offers on the
Web? What are the unique features of the Web and how does one use them to
their greatest potential?

Based on this, the aim of the study was to get an understanding of how a
company could take advantage of the Web’s unique features when creating
value-added customer offers for business-to-business customers. Multiple two-
level case studies served as research strategy, whereas the empirical data
was gathered through direct observations of three business-to-business e-
commerce sites and through telephone interviews with the respondents
responsible for the sites, and two of their customers that were using the
sites.

The empirical data collected, showed great similarities between the
organizational customers’ perceptions of what is critical and what is not in
order to do business on the Web. The study also revealed that the e-commerce
sites greatly increased the perceived total customer value. In general e-
commerce adds value to the customer by offering a set of new services, and
thereby making the total customer offer more attractive. Further, the
importance of designing Internet offers that support interaction between the
customer and the supplier during the three sales phases pre-sale, sale, and
post-sale, has been proved by this study. Independently of the industry
there are some core services that the majority of the interviewed customers
agreed upon, and which the study has identified as a basic Internet offer.
What has become clear during the study is that the key features of the Web
have greatly influenced the customers experienced value of the suppliers
offers.