Monday, November 28, 2005

Case study: Broadband — a therapy for retail

There are some businesspeople who question what broadband can possibly do for them, but Mark Gould is not one of them. The managing director of Hughes & Hughes has witnessed the dramatic impact it has had on his retail operation in the past two years.

The bookseller — which has 180 employees and 15 branches across the country — has always prided itself on its customer service. In the past, if a customer couldn’t find the book they wanted, staff would search a CD-Rom-based book database, a fresh version of which was supplied by Hughes & Hughes’ book distributor on a monthly basis. When the internet came along, staff were able to dial up and connect over the web direct to the distributor’s online catalogue. The change was very welcome from a customer service viewpoint, but it had its drawbacks.

Click here for the full story.

No comments: