Increased Usage of QR Codes in Recent Years
QR stands for Quick response. QR codes were developed in Japan 23 years back however their usage is still in its infancy. The reason for the limited usage is that people do not have access of device, which is used to scan such codes. However, with the advent and flourishing use of smart mobile phones, QR codes are also gaining popularity because it becomes quite easy to scan them by people using their smart devices. Not only this, While similar applications like Maxi code and Data matrix are designed for usage in particular categories like logistics, QR codes can be used everywhere (Demir, Kaynak, & Demir, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to discuss about the increased usage of QR codes in last few years especially in service sector by reasoning the below questions:
1. In this age of Globalization where disruptive technologies are emerging and consumers have become very demanding, it is the need of the hour for the organizations to revisits their marketing strategies and establish a better connect with their customers by becoming more transparent and providing them more information about their offering in a real quick way as per their convenience. QR codes are perfect for this requirement of the organizations. However, using QR codes effectively requires innovative ways of thinking and redesigning business processes.
Organizations are leveraging QR codes in reaching to their customers and have become quite relevant in consumer decision-making process. Usually consumer decision-making process starts with the identification of a need by the consumer. At this stage, QR codes do not come into picture. However, the next stage of consumer decision making process is searching for the solution in the market where QR codes comes very handy in reaching to their potential customers (Dou, & Li, 2008). QR codes could be found in advertisement, billboards, bus stands, parking area, posters, packaging material. Though traditionally advertisements are not capable of providing much information but with the help of QR codes, consumers can be redirected to where organizations want in order to provide the consumers with the relevant information and thus are quite valuable at this stage.
Next stage is comparison of alternatives in which QR codes are also been used in educating people about the uniqueness of the product and why it is different and suits them.
Once consumers finalized the product, he can buy the product also using QR codes. There are many advertisements which contain QR code that can directly take people to the payment page and also people will be motivated to buy through QR codes by providing them additional discounts and coupons.
QR Codes and Consumer Decision-Making Process
Once consumers buy the product, last stage is evaluation of post purchase decision and here also many organizations with the help of their innovative business processes remain in contact with their consumers and collects their feedbacks using QR codes and assures them of after sales services. Thus, QR codes are very much relevant in consumer decision making process in today’s dynamic world.
2. There is a huge marketing opportunity for QR codes in services sector as their usage is still in its infancy. If anyone observes carefully, he will find that all the Industries like Banking, Retail, healthcare and transport are using QR codes to automate their business processes and inventing new business processes which are more cost effective. Below are the few examples:
- In Education sector, University of Bath, UK is leveraging QR codes are been used in library. When students search about the title, he will get a QR code which when scanned gives information about the shelf, title and other key information about the title. Each student has to submit the assignment with QR code. In case, teacher needs to reply, he can simply scan the QR code and get the student details (Wash, 2010)
- QR codes are widely used in Healthcare in Australia in managing Blood tests
- QR codes are used in Japan in issuing pass to Bus commuters
- QR codes are also used in Sushi freshness control system (Murakami, 2016)
- Payment slips in various companies worldwide
- Patient identification in various hospitals
- Transferring money in bank accounts and making payments to merchants
3. Usage of QR codes across all the categories and their ability to bypass multiple layers of distribution and support marketing is a kind of breakthrough and disruptive thing in the digitalization journey of this world and will soon grow become mainstream. Some of the potential advantage of this specific to service sector are as follows:
- Service companies are highly dependent on intermediaries for selling their services. For instance, pharmaceutical companies depends on lobbying, banking industries depends on the agents, Airlines companies on tour and operators. With QR codes ability to bypass multiple layers of distribution, Service companies are quickly reaching to their customers
- Service companies are creating database of their potential customers by this and targeting their marketing efforts in a much more concentrated way than tail wagging the dog
- Service companies are more transparent in explaining their offerings to customers and do not depend on the limited knowledge of intermediaries that can sometimes put the reputation of the organization on stake.
- Cost savings by service companies by reducing their marketing budget as well as by cutting commissions to various agents and brokers.
4. Service sectors often use services of intermediaries and agents in selling their services. Agents sometimes do the misspelling of the products for their commission, which invites negative reviews from the customers and put the reputation of the organization at the stake. In this world of globalization and social media where people read reviews before buying the product, negative reviews will become popular very quickly. QR codes will be very effective in dealing with such risks by reaching directly to their customers.
Perceived risk often arises because people are not fully aware about the usage of the product, its value and worried about aftersales service, time risk, financial risk. Service organizations can leverage the QR codes in educating the customers about its offerings and do the honest selling to remove such risks (Lee, Kim, Lim, & Lee, 2010).
QR codes can be used to share the reviews of the products at the social media platforms and other distribution channels and to bring more transparency in the process. According to a research, financial products are among the top products where misspelling happens (Gonzalez, Curbera, & Olit, 2016). Products are sold to people irrespective of their risk profile by agents. Companies can educate people about their products using QR codes.
5. Quizzes, surveys, campaigns, infographics, blogs are few examples of other forms of interactive content which is used by the organizations to support service operations. Today, if one opens the website of any bank, they will be a pop up saying “May I help you” and this is an example of interactive content. Once user will provide share his data, sites can recommends appropriate products to him be it financial product, insurance product or travel package. Such interactive content is very helpful in automating the customer queries (Kannan, Chang, & Whinston, 2001). Organizations save time and efforts and customer gets satisfaction by getting instant response, which is a win-win situation for both the parties.
References
Walsh, A. (2010). QR Codes–using mobile phones to deliver library instruction and help at the point of need. Journal of information literacy, 4(1), 55-65.
Dou, X., & Li, H. (2008). CREATIVE USE OF QR CODES IN CONSUMER COMMUNICATION. International Journal of Mobile Marketing, 3(2).
Demir, S., Kaynak, R., & Demir, K. A. (2015). Usage level and future intent of use of quick response (QR) codes for mobile marketing among college students in Turkey. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 181, 405-413.
Murakami, T. (2016). Service Innovation in Japan and the Service-Dominant Logic. In Global Perspectives on Service Science: Japan (pp. 17-29). Springer New York.
Lee, Y. S., Kim, N. H., Lim, H., Jo, H., & Lee, H. J. (2010, November). Online banking authentication system using mobile-OTP with QR-code. In Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology (ICCIT), 2010 5th International Conference on (pp. 644-648). IEEE.
de la Cuesta González, M., Paz-Curbera, C. R., & Olit, B. F. (2016). Banking System and Financial Exclusion: Towards a More Comprehensive Approach. In Liquidity Risk, Efficiency and New Bank Business Models (pp. 127-161). Springer International Publishing.
Kannan, P. K., Chang, A. M., & Whinston, A. B. (2001, January). Wireless commerce: marketing issues and possibilities. In System Sciences, 2001. Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on (pp. 6-pp). IEEE.
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