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Transactional websites
I have chosen to explore Western Union for this assignment.
General Information about western union:
Western Union is the most reliable, fast and convenient way to send/receive money across the world from most countries. Western Union are brick and click business, most of transition of company takes place from the click side of the business. They are mainly located at Indian but they have got approximately 435,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. Western Union is believes that they are significant part of each other's lives. They have been operating their business for 150 year now (2010). Their business value is to do business each day with absolute integrity, honesty and passion, partnering as a team to meet their consumers' needs. Benefits of moving business into online:
• People can use it worldwide, so therefore the business can be aimed to larger scale of people
• It is when business it at online it can be operated 24 hours and 7 days a week, people can make transition whenever they want, so therefore it increase profit of the company.
• There is no data handling cost, so that would reduce the labour cost for the company, which mean increase the profit of the company.
• The other benefit of moving business at online is that people are now day preferring the payment systems to buy their good or service of other businesses.
Transitions at Western Union:
These following are the transition that occurs at Western Union business:
C2C (Customer to Customer):
The C2C service lets their customer to send and receive money worldwide, mainly by global network third-‐party agent, only for people who uses their service to transfer money at across the world.
They offer their customers many different ways to send money through Western Union, Orlandi Valuta and Vigo agents worldwide, their agent are located at big cities and also on the remote towns. At many countries they provide online money transfer system, were people can send money by using their Credit card or debit cards.
Within the C2C service they provide lots of different type of transitions that occurs and they are as follows:
• Walk-‐in money transfer • Online money transfer • Telephone money transfer • Mobile money transfer • Payout services
B2B (Business to Business):
Western union developed another company called Custom House LTD, is complete package for business to send money across the world, it uses the market leading technology to enables business to make quickly, efficiently and securely – in person or online – through our dedicated global banking relationships. It is available to everyone around the world, 24 hours, 7 days a week. It is faster and secure to make a payment through this transition method.
Within the B2B service they provide different type of transitions that occurs and they are as follows:
• Walk-‐in money transfer • Online money transfer • Payout services • Bill payment
C2B (Customer to Business):
Western Union C2B services provide their customers with fast and flexible and most convenient way to send bill payment,
This C2B service provides many different types of online payment and also cash payment method, which will let their customer to send bill payment on a one-‐time on a regular basis. It might useful for Western Union customers to use this service to make for these following payments:
• Utility bills, • Auto loans, • Mortgages, • Financial • Insurance service providers and • Government entities through their network of third-‐party Agents and various
electronic channels. Method of sending payment through telephone or Internet by using credit cards, debit cards or through an Automated Clearing House (ACH), depending on the country of origin and the biller to pay the amount.
Other services:
Western Union not only provide a money transfer and bill payment services they also provides prepaid cards, money order and corporate incentives services to consumers and businesses. All of these other services can be through online payment method and also cash method.
The some of the information in this section is ref to: Western union website; http://corporate.westernunion.com/about.html
Key feature of the transitional site The main feature of this is that it is database driven site and the benefit of that is that people can access the database driven faster than others, it is stable, and as all the data apart from the customer card detail will be saved at private server therefore it will be secure, it is also easy to use as when you are doing the php coding you can make variable which will reduce the total time (after you make variable you can refer it to any section) and it is also open source which means that there no additional cost for buying the software to build the php website, therefore it will cheap to build the site. Western union has used lot of advanced features, which would be really beneficial to their customers and these following are the most of the advanced featured used by Western Union: java scripts, it uses CSS to manage their layout, it has login page/registering page, it can give details to users about the local Western union branch near you, you can view your transfer statue, site map, animation at the homepage, uses email form, languages options, detecting the IP address and auto redirecting to the page that you are internet of or located at, currency converter feature ,etc.
Evaluation of the key feature of the website: Feature: Java script Evidence of having the java script on site:
Good point of having it on site: It lets users to use the site that is relevant to them or the country that they are citizens of; for example: if a was Indian citizen and I live at India and to send money to UK, I would want to look at the Indian Western Union site rather than UK site and Java script loads up faster than others (like flash, java applets, etc) and the other good point of java script is that they are easy to edit , build and is also cheap to build it and edit it, therefore by having java script, decreases the total expenses of the company. Bad point of having it on site: Not browser is capable of running java scripts, therefore it might add additional cost to company as the website developer will need to add by saying that if the user is running at certain model of browser or software, then use this feature or use the another feature and if don’t add that system then the company might loss some of their customers. What could have they done to make it better: Well there isn’t much that could to be done for the improvement, but they could have added a function to make sure that if the user is not capable to use some of the features then let the user use the alternative feature which all user will be able to access it. Justification of that choice: I think by adding that function feature it will not only increase their profit as more people can use their feature and if most people use the website then the values of the website increase and also the values of the company as by adding that feature, they can choose wider range of customer with being able to use that feature or not.
Feature: CSS Evidence of having the CSS on site:
Good point of having it on site: User can load the western union site quicker, it trims and aligns the content/elements of the website at place, so all the content stay at place were it been coded to and Bad point of having it on site: It has the same issue as the java script, as not all of capable with the CSS, so there could be capability issue for the users. What could have they done to make it better: As it has same issue as the java script, the things that they could have done would be the same as Java script. Justification of that choice: The justification would same as the java script.
As you can see that even at size of 50%, the layout is still centred, it is centre due to CSS script.
Feature: Email Functions Evidence of having the emailing function on site:
Good point of having it on site: The good point of having this feature would be that their customer can create an enquiry from anywhere around the world where there is an internet access. It lot cheaper than posting method and quicker as well. Bad point of having it on site: The user won’t get the reply instantly, but if the user contacted the company than the user can get their answer instantly, can’t be access by people who hasn’t got internet. What could have they done to make it better: They could have added instant messaging service. Justification of that choice: By adding that feature it could help their customer to get their question’s reply instantly.
Feature: login page/registering page Evidence of having the login page/registering page on site: Login in page
Sign up page
Good point of having it on site: It stores all your data in database which means that the customer don’t need to type in their billing address, their name date of birth and other personal data, it will do it automatically for the customer. Bad point of having it on site: Need to fill lots of form, which might mean that customer get bored half way through filling out the registration form; the website developer will need to add functions, parameters, etc, on their coding, which means that it will add extra cost on developing the site. What could have they done to make it better: Justification of that choice:
Feature: Transfer statue Evidence of having the Transfer statue on site:
Good point of having it on site: By having the Transfer statue feature, people can view the statue of their transition, which mean that people don’t need to phone the company to get detail on their transition that they recently made, and it will also save the customer phone cost. Bad point of having it on site: It cost a lot to build the tracking system, other than that I don’t think that there is any bad point about this. What could have they done to make it better: They could make a system so it emails the sender every 5 min, to update on what’s happening with the transitions. Justification of that choice: By addition that feature it will eventually increase the company profit as if the customers are happy then healthier the profit, because if the customers are happy with the service that company are providing then they will intend to use the company service again and also recommend to others.
Feature: Uses email form
Evidence of having the uses email form on site:
Good point of having it on site: It reduces the company’s labour costs and also saves the customers phone costs. Bad point of having it on site: It can’t be used in case of emergency, because their won’t always some looking for email, the staff might response late. What could have they done to make it better: They could include the VOIP system (Voice over Internet Protocol) or even online instant messaging feature. Justification of that choice: By adding that feature it will provide their customer with better service and also helps to solve emergency case quickly and makes the customer happy, but it might cost more to build the system as it includes lots of coding, but adding that system the investing amount could be earned up within two to three months.
Feature: Languages option Evidence of having the uses email form on site:
In english
In Español
Good point of having it on site: It enable business to aim for wider range of customer, for example if a Spanish user uses this site and if his English wasn’t that good then he would rather look at other site, which provides same service but in the languages that he understands, which means that western union would be losing their customers and also therefore they would be losing profit, so by adding this feature it would enable the Spanish users to use their service. Bad point of having it on site: It only offers one different language other than English. What could have they done to make it better: They could include have the several different languages to choose from. Justification of that choice: By adding the feature they would not only increase their sales they could also get good customer feedbacks in terms of the service.
Feature: Detecting the IP address and auto redirecting to the page that you are internet of or located Evidence of having the Detecting the IP address and auto redirecting to the page that you are internet of or located on site: Before
After
Good point of having it on site: Customer don’t need to select the country they are at, it does it for you, through the codes. How does it work? It uses the IP (internet protocol) to detect the location that you are using the internet from and Bad point of having it on site: There isn’t any bad thing What could have they done to make it better: There is nothing really that could be improved at the moment, because of the technology that we have got currently around the world Justification of that choice: As there wasn’t anything that could be done to improve this feature, therefore there isn’t anything to justify my choice. Feature: Currency Converter Evidence of having the Currency Converter on site: Input the data Output data
Good point of having it on site: It uses real life information to calculate the total amount that receiver would receive from the sender. How does it work? People would enter the currency that they want send it from and the currency that they want to convert it to, the inquiry then goes to the company’s database server and the rate set by the company would multiply the sender amount and that’s how the system works. Bad point of having it on site: When the database table dies, it might mean that false information might process out of the database. What could have they done to make it better: There is nothing really that could be improved at the moment, because of the technology that we have got currently around the world Justification of that choice: As there wasn’t anything that could be done to improve this feature, therefore there isn’t anything to justify my choice.
Method to capture the customer data: Well when the user registers to the site, the information is then stored at Western Union database server, that is the method that it uses to capture the customers data and the reason for not using Caches feature, because the users might store information such as credit/debit card details and as these information should be secure therefore they don’t use the remember in next time feature and this code shows the evidence show the evidence of that it doesn’t save the user name detail as a cache,
The code is was taken off homepage of western union as I am not able to view the login page code, due to the security issue and you can also see that it is clearly written at code that <meta http-equiv="Pragma" content="no-cache" /> <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-store,no-Cache" /> <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="-1" /> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" /> These codes mean that don’t store any information as a cache. And it doesn’t let any browser to store any king users personal detail, all the information would be stored at service provides database server so it would increase the security level of site and people could feel more comfortable using the site. Therefore, it doesn’t use any short of cache, cookies method to store user’s personal information. All the information would gathered and stored at the service provider database.
Structure of the site I think that western union hasn’t got good a structure as it fails to keep its constant layout throughout the site. UK Site
USA Site
About us Site
Philpian western union site
All the Western union sites has got a navigation panel at top/bottom of the site, site map and also has a navigation section at bottom of the page, by adding that feature people can also navigate ounce they reach bottom of the page and when are bottom of the page build on them, therefore I think ta t in terms of navigation it is pretty good and here is the evidence of navigation section at site: Top panel navigation
Site map
Bottom navigation panel
Usability and Accessibilty of the site The website has got any feautre that could help disable people to access the site, what could they have done? They could have added the text inlargement feaute which could help the disable people to read the text of the website according to their needs, well on another hand it is really reasy to use the site as there is help section for pople who has no clue on how to use the site,
It has also got links to the external sources to help their customer on providing as much as detail that they possibly can,
Markup Validation Services As you can see the screen shot below that there 239 errors and 118 warnings, which means that western customer has got more chances of face technical difficulties, but they might not as well because the php coding ignore the minor errors or warnings:
Feature that is used to engague their customer? It gives berif information about what their company is about it services and information about it’s agents around the world the site is easy to navigate, it has interactive navigation pannel (it change it font colour when user mouse mouse overs the text. 1st 2nd mouse over
It is HTTPS site which means that the site secure website, which means that it, will be able to get people trust and the user will fill comfortable filling out his detail into company system
There is animation on site, to give information on the leatest offers
Video tutorial on how to use the site, by having that feature the user will get better idea on how to use the site, by adding that feature it might increase the sales of the company as if people feel easier using the eservice then they will wish to use it again. People who want to send money could be interested on using the searching location feature
Is it fit for purpose? I thin k that it is fit for purpose because, their target customers are adult as people under is not allowed to sign up and make a transition, the layout is professional, and the tone of the website is formal. The website is more to do with the transition and doing things then reading and it simple to use, as people running at 40’s would prefer to use website which are east to use and I think that Western has fulfil the requirement as it includes the help page, video to help people on how to use the site and also got site map; to help people who is lost while using the site.
Evaluation Good thing about the site:
• As I mention earlier that the western union site is a database driven site, compared with most of the database driven site, the website western union website, runs really quickly; all the data is processed, fairly quickly and accurately.
• The site is user friendly; there is site map, help page for people who need help to use the site.
• Also a video on how western union send people money across world, • Easy online payment system. • It automatically picks that country the user at according to the IP address. • There are two different languages option (Española and English) for the USA and Philippian
site. • Search feature, so the user can search their local western union branch, if they want pay by
cash. Bad points:
• There is no facilities for disable people • The design for UK site is not very attractive • There is long form that people have fill to create an account with western union • People have to scroll at the home page
Customer experience As the western union hasn’t got its own forum were the user could post their experience, I some of the friend who previously had made a transition with the western union for the B2B service. These were his following comments about the site: “It website is very user friendly, it is really simple to use, can make a transition within minutes, can track transition and the system itself sends a conformation on whether the payment has been received by the western union or not.” As you can see that the website it’s self is very easy to use, the transition could be made within a minutes, and the disadvantage of not being able to make transition fast could mean the data thief, as people can hack the pc get all the important information such as credit card information, address, email, date of birth, etc.