Gas Station Service Offers Travel Parallel
<H1>Gas Station Service Offers Travel Parallel</H1><H3>by Terry Sullo</H3>We often use the acceptance of ATM machines by the banking public as a model for the successful adoption by users of emerging travel industry technology. While it may be common to romanticize about such consumer acceptance, the
technology has not always been as successful as it could have been. We need to broaden our prospective by taking a closer look at the way the buying public learned to appreciate the shift to the self-service gas station, as described in "The American Gas Station" by Michael Karl Witzel.
As Witzel unfolds the success story of the self-service "Gas-A-Teria," startling parallels emerge between the gas station transformation and current influences on the travel industry. Please keep in mind as we speculate about these parallels how we might do as well or better with consumer acceptance of self-service travel reservations systems.
1. In 1947, a California dealer with only three locations "forever altered the nature of the gas station by discounting to consumers who pumped their own gas." The appeal of the five-cent-per-gallon discount (a hefty cut in postwar times) in return for accomplishing a "seemingly simple task" caught on immediately. Station owners saw increased sales and began buying fuel supplies in bulk.
Travel industry parallel: Travel agencies show up on the Internet
2. Station hours increased to a convenient seven days per week, 24 hours per day at lower cost to the station owner than previously. In return, self-service station owners modified the service they provided in two key ways: They were focused on handling the cash transactions, and they monitored performance on the lots, such as enforcing no-smoking laws.
Travel industry parallel: changing access to, and role of, the travel agency
3. Oil companies "secretly encouraged" the self-serves, while at the same time they "worried about alienating" the full-serves. Two key reasons prevented oil companies from opening direct self-serve outlets: They wanted to let the "game play out" among the full-serves, and they wanted to avoid the excessive costs of building or redesigning stations themselves.
Travel industry parallel: While publicly supportive of travel agencies, U.S. airlines' technological advances appear to disintermediate them.
4. Political figures were prominent in the changes taking place. Among them was Lady Bird Johnson, who called a "special Red Room meeting with oil marketers to advocate standards and consistency in station design." (Apparently, things had gotten out of hand as gas station design became an art form and a hodgepodge of "bigger is better.")
Travel industry parallel: Al Gore supports the Information Superhighway.
5. Oil companies learned that "while motorists weren't concerned about which particular oil company refined the fluid," they were influenced by sophisticated brand marketing. Consumers clearly sought the more "eye-catching and sensory design" of the updated self-serve stations.
Travel industry parallel: Consumers are drawn to GUI graphics and the functionality of online booking products.
6. The interstate highway was the most devastating blow to the already struggling full-serves. It caused consumers to change their buying habits by planning purchases off highway exits instead of visiting the local full-service establishment.
Travel industry parallel: The Internet has a positive influence on sophisticated travel agencies and an impact on the technologically disadvantaged.
7. The impact of the oil embargo in the early 1970s dealt the final blow to 5 percent of the original 218,000 full-service station owners, who gave up and closed their doors.
Travel industry parallel: Airlines impose commission caps.
Of course, not everyone shared the vision of the self-service concept right away. Yet more than 20 years later, most of us choose to pump our own gas at regular price and pay a premium for full service. What we might learn from this piece of folk history is twofold:
-The demand of "do-it-yourself technology" appears to have been driven by a combination of discounted pricing and expanded customer convenience.
-It's prudent for technology providers to position their new products against a tangible benefit, such as a discount, expanded hours of access or the ability to book without waiting for an agent. It may be a mistake to promote technology as a substitute for contact with human beings as the primary benefit.
The introduction and acceptance of new technology, especially when it's a mixed blessing to its users, has always been difficult to predict. But one thing is certain: Acceptability never turns out to be as widespread or as fast as most technology advocates predict without managing the process carefully.
Terry Sullo is corporate travel manager for Cambridge, Mass.-based BBN, a provider of Internet solutions to business. Bruce Papazian is the director of human factors for BBN Hark Systems, where he strives to perfect the usability and acceptance of BBN's high-tech products.