Matt’s Business Machines sells, leases and services a variety of copiers, computers, and other office equipment.  The company receives many calls daily for service, sales, accounting, and other departments.  All calls are handled centrally by customer service representatives and routed to other individuals as appropriate.

 

A number of customers have complained about long waits when calling for service.  A market research study found that customers became irritated if the call was not answered within five rings.  Dave Walsh, the company President, authorized the customer service department manager, Jim, to study this problem and find a method to shorten the call-waiting time.  Jim met with the service representatives who answered the calls to attempt to determine the reasons for long waiting times.  The following conversation ensued:

 

Jim:  This is a serious problem.  How a customer phone inquiry is answered is the first impression the customer receives from us.  As you know, this company was founded on efficient and friendly service to all our customers.  It’s obvious why customers have to wait:  You’re on the phone with another customer.  Can you think of any reasons that might keep you on the phone for an unnecessarily long time?

 

Robin:  I’ve noticed quite often that the person to whom I need to route the call is not present.  It takes time to transfer the call and to see whether it is answered.  If the person is not there, I end up apologizing and transferring the call to another extension.

 

Jim:  You’re right, Robin.  Sales personnel often are out of the office on sales calls, away on trips to preview new products, or away from their desks for a variety of reasons.  What else might cause this problem?

 

Ravi:  I get irritated at customers who spend a great deal of time complaining about a problem that I cannot do anything about except refer to someone else.  Of course, I listen and sympathize with them, but this eats up a lot of time.

 

Lamarr:  Some customers call so often, they think we’re long-lost friends and strike up a personal conversation.

 

Jim:  That’s not always a bad thing, you realize.

 

Lamarr:  Sure, but it delays my answering other calls.

 

Nancy:  It’s not always the customer’s fault.  During lunch, we’re not all available to answer the phone.

 

Ravi:  Right after we open at 9 a.m., we get a rush of calls.  I think that many of the delays are caused by these peak periods.

 

Robin:  I’ve noticed the same thing between 4 and 5 p.m.

 

Jim:  I’ve had a few comments from department managers who received calls that didn’t fall in their areas of responsibility and had to be transferred again.

 

Mark:  But that doesn’t cause delays at our end.

 

Nancy:  That’s right, Mark, but I just realized that sometimes I simply don’t understand what the customer’s problem really is.  I spend a lot of time trying to get him or her to explain it better.  Often, I have to route it to someone because other calls are waiting.

 

Ravi: Perhaps we need to have more knowledge of our products.

 

Jim:  Well, it seems to me that we have four major reasons that cause customers to wait:  the phones are short-staffed, the receiving party is not present, the customer dominates the conversation, and you may not understand the customer’s problem.  Next we need to collect some information about these possible causes.  I will set up a data collection sheet that you can use to track some of these things.

 

Over the next two weeks the staff collected data on the frequency of reasons why some callers had to wait.  The results are summarized as follows:

 

Reason                                                                      Total number

A.  Operators short-staffed                                     150

B.  Lack of operator understanding                      38

C.  Customer dominates conversation                 11

D.  Receiving party not present                             66

E.  Other reasons                                                    5

 

System Improvement:

After reviewing  the data, Dave Walsh directed Jim to put together a quality improvement team to evaluate the data and implement some suggestions to reduce the number of complaints.  One month later, Jim asked the staff to collect data for two weeks beginning on a Monday morning, until the following Friday afternoon, for a total of ten days.  Although the complaints were not reduced to zero, there was a marked improvement that occurred in overall complaints.  Below is the raw data for the “improved” two week period.

 

 

Adapted from:  Total Quality, Management, Organization and Strategy. Third Ed.  James R. Evans, James W. Dean Jr. 2003

Complete a report that Jim will present to Dave Walsh.

 

1.  Title page, Table of Contents and Executive Summary. Complete an              Executive Summary to open your report. The Executive summary should be a concise summary of the results of quality initiative undertaken at Matt’s Business Machines. It is NOT an introduction. Avoid general statements such as: “there was a big improvement”  Discuss results in terms of % change.

The Executive Summary should be no more than 2-3 paragraphs.

This report should NOT be written in the first person.

 

2. Create a Fishbone Chart for the reasons that cause delays in handling customer calls.  Use the four main categories, Receiving party, Customer, System, and Operator.

 

3. Using the original data collected, create a Pareto Analysis for the reasons for customer delays. Explain how the Pareto analysis can help you to improve the system.

 

4. Discuss how you would have solved these problems. Adding staff is not a solution.

 

5a  For the data obtained in the Improved System, create a checksheet  that might have been used to collect the data.

 

b  Create a run chart for the daily total number of poorly serviced calls during the two weeks.

 

c Create a Pareto chart for the Improved system.

 

6. Was Jim’s team successful?  Comment on the specific improvements.  What, if any further action would you suggest should be taken next?

 

Refer to the rubric for specific evaluation criteria.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call #	Day	Reason
1	1	Receiving Party not present
2	1	One operator
3	1	Receiving Party not present
4	1	Lack of Operator understanding
5	1	One operator
6	1	Receiving Party not present
7	1	Customer long winded
8	1	Lack of Operator Understanding
9	1	One operator
10	1	Customer long winded
11	2	Receiving Party not present
12	2	Receiving Party not present
13	2	Customer long winded
14	2	Receiving Party not present
15	2	Receiving Party not present
16	2	Customer long winded
17	3	Receiving Party not present
18	3	One operator
19	3	Customer long winded
20	3	Receiving Party not present
21	3	Customer long winded
22	3	Customer long winded
23	3	One operator
24	3	One operator
25	4	Receiving Party not present
26	4	Receiving Party not present
27	4	One operator
28	4	Customer long winded
29	4	Lack of Operator understanding
30	4	Customer long winded
31	5	Receiving Party not present
32	5	one operator
33	5	other
34	5	one operator
35	5	other
36	5	Receiving Party not present
37	6	One operator
38	6	Receiving Party not present
39	6	Customer long winded
40	6	One operator
41	6	Lack of Operator understanding
42	6	Receiving Party not present
43	6	Receiving Party not present
44	6	One operator
45	7	Lack of Operator understanding
46	7	Receiving Party not present
47	7	other
48	7	Receiving Party not present
49	8	Receiving Party not present
50	8	one operator
51	8	other
52	8	One operator
53	8	Receiving Party not present
54	8	Lack of Operator understanding
55	9	Receiving Party not present
56	9	Receiving Party not present
57	9	Lack of Operator understanding
58	9	Receiving Party not present
59	9	One operator
60	10	Receiving Party not present
61	10	Lack of Operator understanding
62	10	Customer long winded
63	10	other
64	10	Receiving Party not present