The future of mobile apps? Provide good Servuction!

The other day I posted about the necessity to analyze social networking sites, online travel agencies, central reservations systems, a fancy monument in their tourism destination …You name it, inside a chain of value, which can be specialized or generic. Something similar happens when somebody creates an application for smartphones.

If this application wants to improve the level of satisfaction of one tourist it must offer a set of services fully integrated with the chain of value aiming to get the trust and add value to this tourist. Makes sense, rigth? But, usually, this is not the approach. You can watch this very interesting presentation about the future of mobile.  It’s really good, BUT something is missing. To me, the future of mobile apps passes through providing good Servuction!

Luckily we are seeing things moving in this direction, WorldMate which we talked in a previous post created a good video where the main character makes fun of mobiles apps that do a lot of things but NOT useful ones! Worldmate itself create mobiles apps which integrated all the members of the chain of value in what they call an itinerary travel.

I like to highlight those sentences from this article:

1) “Our company is built on the fact that mobile will be the primary device for travel suppliers for informing, communicating and transacting with travellers. According to us, mobile should be first and foremost a service channel and can only become a successful sales channel if you get the service part right. So the only sale you’re going make is the sales that is being perceived as a service,” explained Van Velzen CEO, Sound of Data.

2) “Mobile provides unique opportunities to improve the traveller experience, which can lead to customer loyalty. It can also be a great mechanism to capture incremental revenues through upsell of ancillary revenues and reduce operating costs through self-service. This is the primary lens through which travel companies should view monetisation, says Glenn Gruber, AVP, Market Development, Travel Technologies, Ness Technologies.”

Perfect! At the end of the day, mobile apps are just a physical support and, as you already know, we have to add tourists and staff in contact and then define the interactions between them. Welcome to Servuction world! (more about Servuction here and here).

Touristology’s framework clearly recommends/guide us to put trained people inside viable and competitive enterprises and all them inside a chain of value. Then you can create and offer services from the beginning to the end of the trip! Check this video out to get a visual explanation...

 

If you want to see better and better mobile applications offering services which include all the enterprises and organizations inside a chain of value you should wait for the ones that my Touristologists will create. I will be the proudest man in the world when I share those mobile apps with you. Don’t worry you won’t have to wait for a long time…They are the future of Touristology and… 

They are coming hungry for success!