Content area
Full Text
Te.dy Marketing: How and Why Your Customers Adopt
A. Parasuraman and Charles L Coby
Free Press
New York NY
2000
202 pp.
$27.50
Keywords Customers, Marketing, Technology
Technology dominates the marketplace today, whether it be its sale or its use. Business professionals can hardly have any conversation without using or referring to some form of technology. Techno-Ready Marketing is a timely book providing a profile of the five categories of technology customers, based on a Technological Readiness Index, and how to market to them. The first half of the book covers the assumptions of the researchers, the instrument, and the results of the research. Chapters 6-9 apply the results to marketing decisions, while the concluding chapter briefly discusses implications for nonprofit organizations. This book complements the current focus on customer-driven marketing and offers solid advice, but the case for the uniqueness of this product category in a marketing effort isn't strong. The data and application may be applied to any product category that has a degree of sophistication and some attending consumer risk. Also, the authors do not adequately explain how they come to their most significant findings.
Well written, clearly explained, and easy reading, Techno-Ready Marketing begins with the authors' underlying assumptions and the assertion of four core principles, arguing that the consumer adoption of technology is different than with any other product category. Consequently, it requires distinctive marketing strategies, it increases the importance of customer satisfaction and emphasizes the need to generate critical mass in markets. Using examples ranging from the acceptance of the early railroad to AOL's triumph over CompuServe in the ISP market due to its ease of use, the authors suggest the technological adoption process is both historic and unique; "the influence of technology is ancient .. . archetypical".
Parasuraman and Coby use chapter 2 and chapter 3 to explain technological readiness (TR) but sidetrack briefly on the corollary issue of e-commerce. This "sidebar" is used to introduce their first research, the National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS), conducted in 1999. An abbreviated example of the NTRS is included. The Technology Readiness Index (TRI) is then outlined in chapter 3. While the TRI is apparently a quantitative instrument - based on the continual reference to empirical data throughout the book -...