CHAPTER III: REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCES, RECOMMENDATION AND PETITIONS

1. 
   GENERAL VIEW OF INTERNSHIP PROCESS
   

During my internship period, I have practiced as an E-Business staff. My tasks were to maintain the existing business relationships, accept orders, and establish the new business relationships; check product quality with customers; learn about customer needs, and search for potential customers.

Advantages and difficulties when researching

Advantages

In the past internship process, I have received many enthusiastic help of instructor, and the same time, Hau Phong Co. Ltd has constantly supported me. This helped me get valuable information about E-Commerce.

In recent years, the State as well as Hau Phong Co., Ltd has achieved great achievements in applying E-Commerce. The State has officially opened for E-Commerce, material facilities have improved. Even though everything has not been perfected yet, but they also partly meet the requirements of E-Commerce. Hau Phong Co., Ltd formally adopted E-Commerce in business activity. The company has built the infrastructure that enough to meet the E-Commerce activities. These achievements help me get a rich data resource for my researches.

Difficulties

Although data resources on E-Commerce are very rich, they are very sketchy and lack orientations. They make difficulties for me to synthesize and analyze data. The E-Commerce data in Vietnam is updated slowly from the actual situation which leads to many errors.

Although the company understood the benefits of E-Commerce and has determined that online business is the focus business methods, the company still relies heavily on traditional business. Data analysis does not, therefore, ensure yet objectivity.

There is many information concerning the internal situation of the company is not provided. It causes many limitations for the collection of information.

2. 
   EFFECTIVENESS OF E-COMMERCE ACTIVITIES IN HAU PHONG CO., LTD
   

Human resources

Since determining E-Commerce was the main business method, Hau Phong Co., Ltd has focused to invest finance in it, especially developing human resource. The staffs of technology department, sales online division, and customer care division must be having knowledge of IT, especially the staffs of sales online division.

Currently, Hau Phong Co., Ltd has over 10 online sales staff. In addition to the understanding of IT, these online sales staffs are also experienced in E-Commerce. The number of staffs and their ability are adequate to meet the requirements of E-Commerce for a small and medium-sized enterprise.

Equipment

Along with developing staffs, Hau Phong Co., Ltd also focuses to invest in the purchase equipment. Currently, the company has a high-speed Internet transmission line and more than 20 powerful computers. The company also invested in E-Commerce software.

Success of Hau Phong Co., Ltd in applying E-Commerce

Although Hau Phong Co., Ltd. was established in 1996 but due to many objective conditions, until 2010, the business method of the company has been changed to E-Commerce.

Chart 3.1: Chart of the average monthly income of the company over the years

Chart 3.2: Income of 6 months in early 2012 of the company

Previously, the company's customers are mainly the longtime customers, typically business. Since E-Commerce was applied, the business scale of the company has been enlarged. Every day, there are hundreds of visitor accesses to the company's website. Thanks to E-Commerce website, Hau Phong Co., Ltd has attracted attention and interest of many new clients, especially individual clients.

According to a survey of the company, after applying E-Commerce to business, most customers were very satisfied with the services of the company. Thus we can see that E-Commerce has brought Hau Phong Co., Ltd a new face.

Remarks on E-Commerce of the company

With the successes that the company has achieved in applying E-Commerce as well as considering the current economic conditions, the company recognized that E-commerce is a potential market. And that is the trend of modern economy. According to Mr. Hong Chanh Chi, director of Hau Phong Co., Ltd, in 2011, economic was difficulties, however, not only E-Commerce was not affected, but it also develops more. It is because businesses need to find new revenue sources that are beyond geographical barriers, and consumers are more careful with purchase activities to curb expenses. Therefore, two this object has shifted to the form of the buying and selling online in order to save costs as well as get more convenient.

Talking about the development of E-Commerce, firstly, we must mention the development of the online payment gateway. In 2011, the company has witnessed significant improvements of the online payment system and e-wallets in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the E-Commerce trend on mobile is expected to boom from 2012 onwards. Many businesses provide digital content services on mobile devices are focusing on the mobile payment (banks, e-wallet) and mobile marketing solutions (Naiscorp, Gapit).

In the last 2 years, group purchasing was also grown, besides the online payment. This method is beneficial because the sellers can sell more goods and the buyers are benefited in price. In recent years, however, this purchase form begins also to show some weaknesses when consumers complained about the quality of service that caused loss of their confidence.

In 2012, probably there will be much volatility in the online market. The group purchasing websites that are insufficient capacity will have to retreat. The group purchasing websites that are leading the market will have to have tighter controls to ensure the interests of consumers.

In addition, the online retail market was also good progress in the past year but it did not have a significant change. Some factors had been considered a major obstacle for the deployment of E-Commerce a few years ago were mostly removed in 2012. It was the elements in IT infrastructure, the legal validity of the electronic contracts and electronic documents. Meanwhile, the barriers need to be resolved at the present time is the elements in consumer confidence, personal information security and consumer protection, dispute resolution in online transactions, the formal human resources.

Solving these major barriers, E-Commerce will definitely boom.

3. 
   ANALYZING CUSTOMER SERVICE FEATURES ON E-COMMERCE WEBSITE OF HAU PHONG CO., LTD
   

Currently, Hau Phong Co., Ltd has 5 websites altogether, including 1 website to introduce about the company and 4 E-Commerce websites. These website correspond with the business fields of the company. In which, www.thietbidiengiare.com, www.smc-hp.com, and www.satmynghe.net have relatively similar structures, so in this section, I will only focus to analyze www.thietbidiengiare.com website.

www.thietbidiengiare.com was officially opened on November 30^th 2011. It was developed based on Drupal. Drupal is an open source content management platform. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. Drupal allows us to easily organize, manage and publish our content, with an endless variety of customization. This platform is considered the best open source software in the world. Using the open source help the company to save significantly costs to build the website. The company also gets the best out of the advantages of Drupal to serve the business purposes of the company.

A good quality website should meet user requirements. It must satisfy three conditions on the content, form and texture.

On the content

The language of www.thietbidiengiare.com is Vietnamese. This is easily understandable because Hau Phong Co., Ltd only focuses on the domestic market.

A very important point is content that must be updated regularly. A very common error of the website in Vietnam is that people built it to bring up the network, and then the site was forgotten. Such websites do not bring anything to the enterprise, even counterproductive. Drupal source code provides Hau Phong Co., Ltd with many useful tools to update, change or add content. But, until now, the content of posts on www.thietbidiengiare.com does not change anything. This is a serious fault of the company.

On the form

Perhaps this is the most difficult point for the enterprises; our views on beauty often do not the same. Sometimes you think it is beautiful, but the others are motley; you think it is simply, the others think it is very characterless.

Although using Drupal, Hau Phong Co., Ltd has yet built for themselves an eye-catching interface to users. Background website is slightly dark. Special point of discomfort on www.thietbidiengiare.com is font error. www.thietbidiengiare.com uses the Oswald and Sans serif fonts. These fonts do not support the Vietnamese well. Using color in the page is not logical yet.

On the texture

In terms of layout, www.thietbidiengiare.com can be considered reasonable. The website uses the block layout style. Menus on the menu bar are quite flexible. Viewers can find items that they need in 3 steps. Sorting content is also very intuitive. We can see that the layout is a strong point of www.thietbidiengiare.com.

Applying “PACT” formula to Customer Service

In customer service, PACT will satisfy the customers and the company will have more loyal customers. If you have a good Process, you will meet expectations of customer. If your staffs have a positive Attitude, you will make customers surprised. With effective Communication, you always provide enough information for customers. If you perform process on Time, you will meet customers well. And if you have the full PACT, you will bring pleasure to the customers.

Process

Hau Phong Co. Ltd has a closely sales process from the stage of purchase to delivery. After visiting the online store, if customers have questions, they can get support through the hotline; when you have selected a satisfactory product, customers can purchase or order just in a few steps.

Attitude

When you got a process; and if you want to operate it effectively, you need to have an attitude. That is a zealous attitude. Coming to Hau Phong Co., Ltd, you will feel that the all of staff here have a positive attitude when working. Each staff in the company understands the work process, and they work to meet customer expectations.

Communication

Many companies have broken an efficient process and attitude by defects in communication. This is showed clearly when the customer service staffs communicate with customers.

Hau Phong Co., Ltd is always interested in human development, not only in professional skills but also soft skills, especially communication skills. The staffs of customer service division, including sales department and customer care division, are often trained soft skills by the company.

Effective communication, both the internal and external customers, can help the company overcome many difficulties in business. Equity in communication helps you develop the knowledge; it shows that you are very well-versed in work.

Time

Time is always the number one priority. In a busy world, time plays an important role determining the satisfaction of customer. The quick action is always appreciated more than delays with apologies.

Understanding these problems, Hau Phong Co., Ltd always looks for many different ways to shorten time in every process. Delivering on time and resolving timely are always noticed by the company.

Purchase and payment process

To purchase or order at www.thietbidiengiare.com, you need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Login

If you have an account at www.thietbidiengiare.com, you can login to purchase or order.

If you are a new customer and do not have an account, that is not problem, you can skip this step. You will be created an account automatically after completing the order.

Step 2: Searching for products

You can search for products by searching tool or through the catalog of the site.

Once you have found satisfied product and you want to see more product information, you can click on its picture to view product details.

Step 3: Purchase and payment

To purchase, you click on "Add to cart" button.

Image 3.1: Some products of Hau Phong Company

Image 3.2: The message and detail information about your cart

In here, you can delete selected items, change quantity, and enter the discount code. If you want to continue shopping, select "Continue shopping".

To continue payment, select "Pay".

System continues to redirect to your order. You need to fill your personal information and select "Review the order". The system will require you to enter your payment account information. Currently, Hau Phong Co., Ltd accepts payments by PayPal or Credit card. If this information is empty, the system will count as you are ordering.

After completing the above tasks, the system will automatically update, send email and call to confirm the purchase and payment.