The Managing Director of an education start-up had commissioned the services of a consulting firm to audit its web-portal and suggest improvements. The company provided educational software to schools and ran the portal as a supplementary service. The educational software to schools mostly held academic content in video format which was played out inside the classrooms for the students. The same material was made available to students through the web-portal. The MD was not happy with the services offered by the portal. It was not successful in its objective. Barely 2% of the students who viewed the content in their schools were willing to buy subscriptions for the portal. The MD wanted to revamp and relaunch the portal. The consulting firm offered the following suggestions. 1. Registration into the portal was a time taking and inconvenient affair. The portal was asking for too many data points, which made it difficult for the prospective subscriber to register. The process needs to be streamlined, and registration should be made available with the customer's mobile number or email ID. 2. A paid website needs to offer a trial pack to its customers for a limited period. This would enable the customer to spend some time with the web site, familiarize himself with its featured before deciding to buy it. 3. All subscriptions are annual in nature. Short duration packs with validity ranging from a month to a quarter should be offered to the students of whom join midway. 4. The content, after subscription, is viewable using the internet. This causes problems, especially in rural areas where the internet connection is weak and slow. Instead, on purchase, the content should be available for download to the student's computer of choice. 5. The subscriber should be protected against any loss. He should be given a unique identification number for instant identification, and if he Inses the files stored in the PC. he should have the option of regaining access to them by citing this unique number. 6. The various academic services have not been adequately arranged which leads to confusion. All services must be ordered appropriately and should be categorized under four headings, LEARN ,PRACTICE, TEST, and REPORTS. 7. A video should be added in the portal explaining all services included in the portal for an innate understanding of the subscriber. 8. A chat line needs to be added for additional queries on the part of the subscriber. 9. There should be a doubt clearing service where the students could mail their doubts to be cleared either by a peer group or a group of experts. 10. The portal needs to be upgraded to meet the challenge of change in syllabus, question pattern, etc. Such upgrades must be made available to customers free of charge. I. What are the different service differentiators? Briefly explain them. (5) II. The consultant has made ten suggestions as given above. Place them under the categories of these differentiators