From customers for customers: Crowd services as an extension of the digital customer experience
HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik, 54 (5):
821-837 (2017)DOI: 10.1365%2fs40702-017-0345-y
Abstract
The “Platform Economy” is currently changing the way how work is
performed. Particularly, crowdworking platforms have gained momentum during
the last years. By now, they can be used by companies for a wide range of activities
along their value chain. One example is the customer support that increasingly
gains importance given the more and more complex end products. Based on the
crowdworking platform Mila and its client and 51-percent owner Swisscom AG,
we demonstrate how companies that use the crowd extend their digital interface
to the customer and expand their services, generating an added value for all those
involved. With its innovative approach, the crowdworking platform Mila connects the
paradigm of the crowd, particularly the utilization of a variety of providers, with the
principles of the On Demand- and Sharing Economy, primarily the inclusion of the
customers as service “producers”. Similarly to well-known platform-based examples
of the Sharing Economy such as Airbnb and Uber, the initiation of work and the
customer interface is shaped in a digital way, though the work itself is then usually
performed directly on site at the customer’s. Based on in-depth expert interviews
with those responsible of Mila and Swisscom, we analyze this new kind of work
system including the interplay of all participants. Subsequently, we show advantages
and disadvantages of using crowd services and derive concrete recommendations of
action for companies for the design of the digital customer interface.