9.6 Global Impacts of Blockchain
The globalization of the world has improved the conditions of the world’s poor, advanced the rate and significance of our scientific discoveries, and by certain metrics, improved global stability. But this progress comes with inherent complications and risks. More than ever, the world’s problems share a common theme: authenticity and information security. It is foreseeable that without modern solutions to these issues, much of the last century’s progress could be lost. The argument for Blockchain is not just that it is a good business proposition and one that would make many aspects of daily life more convenient. The argument is that there are legitimate areas where current systems are showing signs of stress and may fail in the near term, the consequences of which could be disastrous.
By the same token, there is reason to be optimistic that the solution has been discovered at the right moment. The success of Bitcoin in a relatively short period of time and against so many formidable obstacles is one such proof. As this paper has outlined, it is possible that there may soon be others.
References
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Appearances and Reality. (n.d.). Retrieved August 12, 2016, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zcpfvcw/revision/4.
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Yurcan, B. (2016, April 8). How Blockchain Fits into the Future of Digital Identity. Retrieved August 15, 2016, from http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/how-blockchain-fits-into-the-future-of-digital-identity-1080345-1.html.
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Glyn, D. (2015). History of money. Place of publication not identified: Univ Of Wales Press.
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Fiat paper money: the history and evolution of our currency, Ralph Foster - Paul Myslin - Ralph T. Foster - 2008
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The New Yorker Mark Gimein - http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-digital-money-hasnt-killed-cash
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The age of cryptocurrency: how bitcoin and digital money are challenging the global economic order, Paul Vigna - Michael Casey.
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2018
Claudia Linnhoff-Popien, Ralf Schneider and Michael Zaddach (eds.)Digital Marketplaces Unleashedhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49275-8_10
10. ‘Local’ Is an Asset, Response Time Is Key: Lessons Learned from the Amiona St. Gallen Local Digital Marketplace
Mark Schleicher1 , Philipp Osl2 and Hubert Österle3
(1)University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
(2)Institute of Information Management, St. Gallen, Switzerland
(3)Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Mark Schleicher (Corresponding author)
Email: [email protected]
Philipp Osl
Email: [email protected]
Hubert Österle
Email: [email protected]
10.1 Motivation and Challenges
The Amiona St. Gallen digital marketplace was supported by the Gebert Rüf Foundation within the framework of “The Viral Digital Village – Services for Citizens”, a project that aimed to provide access to local service providers, social services organisations and informal services in the neighbourhood more easily than by phone, and bring people together using a user‐friendly organisational and enrolment tool for local events.
When the platform was launched in October 2014, finding businesses from the user perspective was already very easy thanks to search engines and online directories, such as yellowpages.com or local.ch; however, when it came to making use of specific services, a phone was still required as most directories did not provide an additional function to connect the user to the provider. Such media breaks are an inconvenience, especially as providers also often only have specified calling hours when calls are answered. Although an e‐mail address is sometimes provided, stating services, dates, personnel and any other preferences can be quite tedious, especially on mobile devices, and the entire process has to be repeated for every new appointment.
In contrast to the search engines and online directories missing the function, there were also a range of vertical direct booking platforms that offered convenient access to specific services, such as Treatwell.ch or Quap.ch for hairdressers, and Eat.ch or Foodarena.ch for food delivery; yet none covered the bandwidth of everyday needs. Access to services via these platforms is quite handy, as the user can view the available dates and book accordingly, alike the functionality of provider‐specific booking software such as Appointmind or Shore. However, it means that consumers have to use several platforms or systems to access the services they require. In addition, some smaller‐scale providers might not be available on these platforms as direct booking requires a minimum level of digitisation in the form of an electronic calendar, and currently there is no competing system pursuing a similar approach.
What was missing from the user perspective was therefore a combination of the two types of solution described above: the Amiona St. Gallen local digital marketplace1, an online platform that provides easy‐to‐use 24/7 appointment coordination processes and a single point of contact for all kinds of services, including anything from driving services by social services organisations and food and drink delivery services by local bicycle couriers from local bakeries and breweries, to physiotherapist, dentist or car repair appointments and tailored shirt and dry cleaning services.
As we discovered that new users might be confused by the wide scope of the service portfolio, we adjusted the design of the landing page in an aim to target users in different demand situations, such as the need for a hairdresser, a craving for ice cream or seasonal offers like occasional personal city tours for charity. As can be seen in Fig. 10.1, the landing page focuses on the idea of making appointments with service providers in St. Gallen by showing examples and providing a familiar search field for immediate access to the comprehensive portfolio below. Scrolling down further leads the user to a catalogue of categories for browsing services and an information section at the bottom of the page. The entire platform uses responsive web design for optimised use on mobile devices, which were observed as a frequent point of access.
Fig. 10.1Landing page of the Amiona St. Gallen local digital marketplace
In order to simplify everyday life we had to master the following challenges: create an open marketplace that allows all providers and consumers to participate; assure the required quality standards; overcome the low level of digitisation at many smaller‐scale providers; bring about a change in consumer service searching and booking behaviour; and improve the consumer and provider experience through quick response times and efficient end‐to‐end processes for confirmed appointments. The following chapters describe our technical and organisational solutions in addressing these challenges. In combination with a range of marketing measures, we were able to accumulate over 600 registered service offerings and record increasing levels of usage among the citizens of St. Gallen.
10.2 Addressing the Challenges of Local Service Marketplaces
10.2.1 The Open Marketplace and Required Quality Standards
In order to make the marketplace available to as many users as possible, it had to have low entry barriers whilst still fulfilling vital quality standards. Both consumers as well as service providers had to be able to register by themselves. Identification by e‐mail address and confirmation link, as well as a business phone number made sure that only real service companies and private offerors could register. In the case of uncertainties, we contacted the provider in question personally and double‐checked the provided information. As we also encountered varying requirements from other regions with regard to the platform’s “degree of openness”, we decided to make self‐registration for providers an optional tool to be opted for or declined at every new marketpl
ace.
However, many customers and service providers do not want to register when using a platform for the first time and registration is therefore not required to request a listed service. Instead, we created a new temporary user account for every request without registration. If the user later decides to register, they can easily activate their account by clicking on the “benefit from all advantages of Amiona St. Gallen by registration” button that is in all e‐mails that are sent, e. g. for appointment confirmations.
In addition, we also introduced the option for users to send requests to non‐registered providers, such as their favourite small business next door, by simply entering the phone number or e‐mail address of the provider to enable viral seeding, e. g. like the seeding of WhatsApp. In this scenario, a temporary provider account is created and can again be activated and completed later by the new provider.
10.2.2 Critical Mass
Despite the above‐mentioned measures to allow for viral growth and keep entry barriers as low as possible, we were unable to overcome the critical mass problem in double‐sided markets, where a broad range of consumers and providers is required for a growing and interesting user experience. We therefore had to implement additional measures to extend the number and scope of providers listed in the marketplace. The best way to achieve this was to also integrate all service providers in St. Gallen listed in Google Places (i. e. almost everyone) in addition to the acquisition campaign. Additionally using the Google Places API offered the advantage of allowing us to detect which providers were of particular interest to our users, so that we could commence talks with the companies in question with the bonus of immediately gaining new customers.
In order to provide an adequate degree of transparency, we wanted a slightly different design for the external search results that would not confuse users who are indifferent to the source of the provider and simply want to send an appointment request as easily as possible. We therefore used two different colours, one for the registered providers and one for the additional results supplied by the integrated Google Places search, and decided to display the external results below the registered providers (thereby also complying with the Google regulations that prohibit the manipulation of listings from their Places API).
Fig. 10.2Different search results for car repair shops
As can be seen in Fig. 10.2: Different search results for car repair shops, the yellow search results from Google’s API only display the name of the provider (car repair shops in this example) and an image, if available (otherwise the default Amiona image is displayed). Unlike the green search results for the registered providers above them, they do not list any specific services, such as tyre fitting or car cleaning. By doing so we ensure that providers still have an excellent reason to register on the platform, as it will allow them to serve their customers more directly with their specific offerings. The functionality for requesting an appointment does not differ for registered and non‐registered providers, thereby serving the user with a similar process and consumer experience.
We received very positive feedback for the additional Google Places API listings in terms of general user acceptance (“Oh, it’s cool that you extended your portfolio by also making this information available”) and provider reactions to the request. The influence on viral seeding was however not as high as we had hoped for. A possible explanation could be the missing information on specific services offered by the provider, including pricing, which may cause a high level of uncertainty for the user before requesting.
10.2.3 Low Level of Provider Digitisation
When talking to and registering some of the smaller‐scale businesses in St. Gallen we encountered many providers who used paper‐based agendas for scheduling appointments, checked their e‐mail only once a day or even less, and sometimes possessed only very elementary computer literacy. Providing sufficient information on how to use basic functions, e. g. on how to respond to appointment requests or change a service’s pricing information, was therefore crucial. We also ensured help for new providers with the first requests that they received and offered phone‐based support during business hours.
Due to the large number of paper‐based agendas, providing a direct booking function that integrated with providers’ calendars was not an option at the start. Instead, we first developed a request‐answer‐based coordination system that had to be designed as flexibly and conveniently as possible, whilst still assuring confirmed appointments through structured processes. As we had to set up a structure for service providers with paper‐based agendas, electronic calendars and mixtures of both systems we finally came up with three different process scenarios that a user could choose from when sending a request. The first, basic scenario was to ask the provider for some available and bookable dates that consumers could then choose from. In order to improve the success rate of this type of request, there was also a hint to add the preferred dates and times to the request by using the comments field below. As it is sometimes very important to have an appointment on a very specific date, the second scenario was to request a preferred date right away. In this case the provider would only have to click an accept button if the date was available or, if it was unavailable, reply with alternative dates by selecting them from a calendar view for the user to choose from as in the first scenario. The third, most convenient solution, at least for consumers, is to select an appointment from a list of directly bookable dates. In order to also allow providers with paper‐based agendas to offer this third option, the directly bookable dates are entered by the service provider manually and supported by the option to import external calendars or export the Amiona calendar to other calendar systems via ICS feed. By offering these three different options to request appointments, it is possible to cover all types of service provider, calendar system and service type. The result is haircut requests are mainly sent for a preferred date; gardener requests are mostly without a date with effort and time restrictions in the comments field; and Sunday morning bakery deliveries are best done by direct booking. In the long run we expect direct booking to be the standard for nearly all providers, particularly as soon as big players like Google or WhatsApp would implement local marketplace and booking system interfaces.
10.2.4 Change in Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Measures
Whereas the digitisation of many consumers is already advanced and smartphones make up an integral part of everyday life for many people in Switzerland, this is certainly not true for everyone. Furthermore, while using smartphones or computers for online shopping, food delivery or train tickets is broadly accepted and frequently used, the idea of “shopping” for services using appointment coordination systems is still quite novel and certain services are even exclusive to the platform (e. g. a service for hiking with goats in the Appenzell Alps). We therefore had to provide easily accessible support for users via a free of charge telephone hotline and real‐time chat service using ClickDesk software.
It was also very important and useful to have a Facebook page for communicating with the citizens of St. Gallen, as it allowed us to inform them on new services on the platform and upcoming events, like the personal charity city tours, or to set up targeted and smaller‐scale advertising campaigns. We also launched several promotional campaigns, such a competition where we collected wishes for new providers by raffling a tablet computer, or service specials with a local or seasonal focus, e. g. winning tickets to the OLMA Agriculture and Food Fair, the biggest in St. Gallen, or a special Valentine’s Day package delivered by the bakery. We also used the page to attract attention by promoting time‐limited coupons for certain businesses.
In order to reach consumers directly on the web pages where they search for service providers and appointments, we also ran
Google AdWords campaigns and introduced an “Amiona request button” to be added to the service provider websites (see Fig. 10.3). The button links to all of the provider’s services listed on the Amiona St. Gallen marketplace.
Fig. 10.3Amiona request button on a provider’s website
We also created a visual presence at the shops of registered service providers by producing QR code stickers and applying them to the shop doors. Scanning the QR code displays a list of the provider’s services on Amiona and offers consumers the option to also request appointments outside business hours. In addition, we printed flyers for every new provider with a readable short URL and corresponding QR code, both linking to the provider’s services available at the Amiona marketplace. We sometimes also included temporary coupons in cooperation with the provider to encourage consumers to use the new appointment requesting method.
Finally, we posted printed promotional material with online coupon codes for special discounts on the platform into letter boxes and distributed coupon booklets among the almost 1500 new students at the University of St. Gallen during “freshers’ week”. As the majority of these students are quite price‐conscious and most of them are new to the city without provider contacts for hairdressers and the like, the two freshers’ week coupon booklets became our most successful printed marketing measure, with over a hundred transactions resulting from every booklet. In total we distributed over 50,000 individual coupons with a value of over CHF 1.5 million financed by local service providers in St. Gallen.
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