Services Marketing Quick Response Code

Question: Discuss about the Services Marketingfor Quick Response Code. Answer: Introduction Quick response code or QR code is a machine-readable code that includes an array of black and white squares that are used for storing URLs or other information for reading by the camera. This QR is extremely advantageous for the consumers these days. In this case study, it is seen that number of companies are gaining benefits because of this technical innovation which is helping the companies to gain attention of a large group of consumers without providing advertisements to mainstream media. In this report, based on the case study some questions will be answered. Figure 1: Six Stage model of C ustomer Decision making (Source: Barrera et al. 2014) From the above model, it can be seen that there are six steps that relate to the consumer decision making attitudes. QR codes are relevant in the third stage of the consumer decision making model. The third stage is evaluation of alternatives that include search for attributes and professed risk. In this step, consumers do not buy the products and services but try to find out information related to the product. In this stage, the consumers collect reviews about that product and try to find out if there is any alternative product or not (Malik et al. 2014). When a consumer scan a QR code provided on a product, he becomes able to see the specification and specialties of that product along with its drawbacks. Besides, they can also see the other products that are similar. Based on this information, the consumers decide where they will buy the product or not. Opportunity for QR Codes in the Service Sector: In the case of retail sector, QR codes can become extremely useful tool. The best possible method to use QR codes in retail is to place a mobile barcode on the tag of each item in a store. In this method, customers will be able to scan the code and will be able to look at the product specifications as well as reviews of the product provided by previous buyers. There is another method that can be used to introduce QR code in retail industry (Cata et al. 2013). Retail companies can mobilize retail sites and can use QR codes to drive probable consumers to the site to hopefully make purchase. In order to this, QR codes can be places around towns and cities. Besides, QR codes can also be placed on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. In terms of health care sector, QR codes has bigger opportunities that in retail sector. Billboard advertising hospitals can provide QR codes to the travelers so that they can easily find nearest emergency department. In magazines and newspapers, QR codes can be published through which reads will be able to get health information and health product coupons. Besides, QR codes can be provided on cleaning and food products so that consumers can find out if those products contain something that they are allergic to (Okazaki, S., Navarro, A. and Campo, S., 2013. Urgent care facilities and emergency rooms can be equipped with CR codes for instant access to wait times. QR codes in health care sector will also help the users to download mobile healthcare applications that will help to control chronic illness and will help to lose weight. For transportation sector, public vehicles can be equipped with QR codes. Recently, governments are taking serious actions against those vehicles that omit poisonous gasses. All the certified vehicles can be marked with QR codes through which passengers can understand the condition of the vehicles. Advantages of QR Code Easy to use: QR codes can be used in almost anything as it is technically friendly service. Range of uses: QR codes can be used in any industry as regardless what type of technologies is used in there. Track able: By using web analysis and by using specific codes for different placements, markets can easily achieve some useful knowledge about how well campaigns are going and what is working and what is not. Easy to attract mobile users: The QR code offers a fast response mechanism that has the capability to save the effort of the users of typing in a URL or an SMS shortcode. If this system is used properly, then it can attract consumers at the exact point where they have shown interest. It can also attract consumers to sign up for an email and tempt them into making a purchase. Not possible to hack: Hacking a QR code means that the action triggered would have been enhanced through a exploitation. However, this is absolutely not possible. The data in the QR code is encoded by the module arrangement (Vadura et al. 2015). In order to change this action, the hackers will have to change the arrangements of the modules. This means physically changing the QR code which is really impossible. QR codes make it easy for the consumers to gain awareness about a product in service industry such as retail stores. It is not possible every time to type URL in ones phone in order to gather information about a product. However, most of the products these days include its name, ingredients and specialties. Cautions and safety measures relate to the products are also mentioned on the products nowadays. However, it is obvious tha3t an organization will highlight the good things about its products only (Sanz-Valero et al. 2016). Therefore, the best options are to find out what the other customers are saying about the product. While shopping, it is really annoying to access the review based websites to find out what other users of the product are saying. In this situation, if QR code is provided, then a potential consumer can easily scan the code and can directly go to the website where he can get proper reviews about the product. It not only makes shopping a fun; but also helps the cus tomers to appropriately distinguish between fresh and fake products. However, on the other hand, there are several business analysts who have criticized this QR code system mainly for its availability. Currently, only 20% smart phones are equipped with QR code scanners which are absolutely not feasible. On the other hand, it is also said that most of the consumers are totally unaware about the QR code system (Lorenzi et al. 2014). Developers and the business organizations have totally failed to implement awareness among the people about QR codes. Therefore, most of the consumers have no idea about it unless he is from marketing background. Two Way Video: This technology is absolutely not a new technology; however in recent times, the costs relate to this technology has gone down along with bandwidth concerns are eased (Siegle 2015). Therefore, it can be stated that two-way video chat will become an important feature of service in any industry. Augmented and Virtual Reality Once the customers are comfortable with virtual reality and augmented reality, immersive familiarity will become the new normal. Then the consumers will not look for anything different in place of this. Virtual Assistants Consumers will be able to achieve on-demand support when virtual support will be enhanced with machine learning and enhanced speech recognition (Jamu et al. 2016). Some business organization in the payment and commerce sector has already started to experiment with dissimilar tools designed for Amazons Alexa. Connected Devices It is evident that proliferation of connected devices will put powerful emphasis on consumer relationship. It will also help the companies to change their model from a product based organization to service based organization. References Barrera, J.F., Mira-Agudelo, A. and Torroba, R., 2014. Experimental QR code optical encryption: noise-free data recovering.Optics letters,39(10), pp.3074-3077. Cata, T., Patel, P.S. and Sakaguchi, T., 2013. QR code: A new opportunity for effective mobile marketing.Journal of Mobile Technologies, Knowledge and Society,2013, p.1. Jamu, J.T., Lowi-Jones, H. and Mitchell, C., 2016. Just in time? Using QR codes for multi-professional learning in clinical practice.Nurse Education in Practice,19, pp.107-112. Lorenzi, D., Vaidya, J., Chun, S., Shafiq, B. and Atluri, V., 2014. Enhancing the government service experience through QR codes on mobile platforms.Government Information Quarterly,31(1), pp.6-16. Malik, J., Girdhar, D., Dahiya, R. and Sainarayanan, G., 2014. Multifactor Authentication Using a QR Code and a One-Time Password.Journal of Information Processing Systems,10(3). Okazaki, S., Navarro, A. and Campo, S., 2013. Cross-media integration of QR code: A preliminary exploration.Journal of Electronic Commerce Research,14(2), p.137. Sanz-Valero, J., lvarez Sabucedo, L.M., Wanden-Berghe, C. and Santos Gago, J.M., 2016. QR codes: Outlook for food science and nutrition. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 56(6), pp.973-978. Siegle, D., 2015. Using QR Codes to Differentiate Learning for Gifted and Talented Students.Gifted Child Today,38(1), pp.63-66. Kim, E.Y. and Lee, M., 2013. An exploratory study of perceived benefits and risks for QR code based virtual fashion stores.Korean Journal of Human Ecology,22(5), pp.477-490. Vadura, D., Tsai, W.K. and Nelson, T.H., Badu Networks Inc., 2015.Qr system for business cards. U.S. Patent Application 14/657,928.