CHAPTER V
Besides, other important findings in this thematic paper are main factors that has found it related to customer’s acceptance to use mobile medical consultation services application.
Table 5.2 Summary of main factors that related to customer’s acceptance to use
Research Question Summary
What are the main factors that influence the
consumer’s acceptance to use the mobile medical consultation service application?
This study conclusively found that there are four main factors to influence customer to accept and use. Which are perceived ease of use, value, usefulness and consumer acceptance.
In term of perceived ease of use, they find it easy to use because it is less step, delivery and one-stop services.
In term of perceived value, it showed that saving time, money, and convenience are all important.
In term of perceived usefulness, the speed of services, the safety of using the services, and the direct recommendation by a dermatologist are of great benefit to them.
In term of consumer acceptance, professionality and presence of dermatologist, stability of application and confidentiality of personal data are key factors to make customer accept and trust in using application.
Based on the semi-structured interview results, there were some recommendation of the group of users and non-users that related among each others.
These suggestions can be adapted to strategies for improving and enhancing the application's customer experience in order to meet the customer expectation and needs for Thai consumers.
Table 5.3 Summary of recommendations to improve application to meet Thai consumer needs.
Research Question Summary
What are the
recommended strategies for improving the application to meet the expectation of customer needs?
From this study, first, features that provide online consultation services application should include a notification to remind for appointments, an analyzing tool to assist with diagnosis, and an auto-chatbot to provide customers with instant assistance.
Second, it is about product and service information, which should include product and service displays for customers to view, reviews for customers to read, and diagnostic information for customers to track their progress in their personal profile.
Thirdly, the application will be more attractive if there are many promotions to attract customers' interest.
Finally, there is the registration process, which has a direct impact on the Customer Journey. If it is difficult to use the services or time consuming to fill in the data.
It will lose customers during this process.
In conclusion, the acceptance of Thai consumers for using a mobile medical consultation services application for beauty clinics resulted that the application must be simple to use or user-friendly in order to reduce the amount of effort required, valuable in order to enhance the perception of the benefits of users or customers, useful in order to improve their lives or receive speed services, and acceptable in order to encourage them to use it. These factors were also linked to the diagnostic ability to analyze and ensure customers for effective results and safety through the use of an online consultation application.
Apart from the aforementioned result, there was a previous study. The research summarized the needs of medical standards and legal issues that could also influence consumers to use medical applications more than usual (Attapond Sukasame, 2019). This reference could be taken into consideration.
5.2 Recommendation
This research develops the understanding consumer needs and acceptability in order to influence Thai consumers to use the medical consultation service application for beauty clinic. The result of this study could serve as a guide for entrepreneurs of beauty clinic to adapt or see the benefits in order to create a competitive advantage and improve their ability to provide better services on application to their customers.
Apart from the findings of recommendation, one could suggest that the notification feature of the application could be developed. It can send a notification one day, one hour and five minutes ahead of time to remind customers. Another feature that comes to mind is the analysis feature, refer to the skin log application (Figure 4.1). It helps in pre-screening and recording the skin while providing the customers with skin conditions. This feature will make the application stand out from the competition. Also, to implement an auto chatbot, it could answer the most important questions that customers often ask with a standard answer. For example, how to treat sunburned skin or how to reduce inflamed acne in one night. Moreover, it is better to provide information about products and services, review photos and diagnostic information in the online consultation application for beauty clinics. The more information they have, the better they understand how to use the services. Including promotions, the application should have promotions that drive up the bill such as monthly package, bundle package.
Lastly, the registration process should be as simple as possible at the beginning. It can start with a screening pop-up question to verify the source of customer information and the ability to connect with social media to speed up the registration process. The application must automatically connect to the customer's address once they enter their zip code and then just simply click, no need to fill them all. These recommendations were developed from the interview of sample group for this study.
5.3 Research Limitation
In my opinion, as this study used qualitative method, the number of informants in this study was too small. Then future research should include more numbers of informants with a wider range of ages to see how they react or accept the medical online consultation services application for beauty clinics. The second limitation is that there were no informants in this study who have used the application from market competitors as mentioned in chapter one. Then, future research should include users who have experience in using medical online consultation services application in order to gain more insight. Therefore, comparing and determining what should be improved to make it more successful and meet the needs of direct customers is not that quite complete and represent the entire acceptance of using from Thai consumers.
5.4 Future Research
According to the limitation of the research, I have one recommendation for the future research. I think the next research should conduct by quantitative research on Thai consumers in wider areas in Thailand to increase the number of sample sizes to survey in order to understand and see more about their acceptance to use and the consumer wants and needs. It could enhance data reliability and validity. Moreover, to continue the study, it will help to acquire more finding to recommend or help the entrepreneur of this business, marketer and developer to focus on the right way to improve their services more efficiently.