ISSD Fall 2010 School of Information, UC Berkeley

As the Web matured as a platform for online commerce and information services, upstart firms like Amazon.com with no physical presence became competitive threats to incumbents like Barnes and Noble. For these “brick and mortar” firms, creating a web channel was an urgent and critical strategic decision, and the concept of “multi-channel services” as a distinct service design context emerged. The Web channel also inspired the vision of “E-government” services that would radically improve service delivery to citizens and let them avoid inefficient face-to-face encounters in government offices. The key strategy and design decisions for multichannel services concern the allocation of services to one or more channels and the manner in which the channels fit together. These decisions ultimately are implemented in terms of the content, direction, and reciprocity of information exchange between the channels.