I was really impressed with the latest Rental Car reservation I made with Alamo Rent A Car.
They sent me a confirmation email message and right there there was a link for me to enter all my Driver's License information, my Insurance Options, etc, way before I show up to rent the car.
Then, all I had to do to get the car is to check in at a Kiosk at the airport, pickup the car and drive it away, showing the papers to the people at the gate at the Rental car location!
Check-in Kiosks are all too common at Airports and everyone is familiar with them.
I have auto insurance with GEICO and most my transactions, policy related or claims related I can do at their web site.
Process Improvement and Efficiency improvements happening right under our very own noses.
There is no need to wait in a line for some one to help you with all the annoyances that that carries.
The Internet and the Web have enabled a whole slew of Self-Service Improvements to a lot of Business Processes. These things cut down a lot of annoyances and at the same time, saves the company or the organization money spent on people, training on software, scheduling problems and a hundred other problems with humans providing services to humans.
Of course, there will always be the 80/20 rule where personal service may be needed in the 20% of cases but the 80% cases will be simple, straightforward cases that can very effectively use self-service.
It's a win-win for all, the end users, the company or the organization and accuracy and the efficiency with which many business processes are conducted.
The only downside is that with more and more self-service, many Rental Car Agents or Airline Agent jobs may go away reducing employment opportunities for people who want those jobs.
Unfortunately, once these business services offer self-service, there is no stopping the flood.
IT departments in any company can prove to be very valuable to their company's bottom line leveraging the web and the Internet to have end-users - their customers or their own employees do their own work on web based interfaces to their systems - even if they are ancient and legacy ones!
In tough times like these, this is a great way for IT departments to truly earn their keep. By adding identifiable improvements to their Business Process Efficiency and Effectiveness!.
If you want good service, serve yourself - Spanish Proverb
Good post. I'd be interested in understanding how people go about measuring the before and after of a project like this.