INTRODUCTION

In the past three decades, service delivery has moved from the ‘bricks-and-mortar’ shop front to the home telephone, to the Internet, to the cell phone. Consumers have come to expect convenience, rapid response times and ubiquitous 24/7 access to the services that they need – and there does not appear to be any slowdown in the number of delivery channels and services that are – and will be – available to these consumers in the future.

The challenges of ubiquitous service delivery are compounded by the availability of technologies (most notably, the Internet) which move consumers to a global marketplace. Organizations realize that they are no longer competing against two other local providers, or even ten other national providers ...

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