Case Study QuestionThe Caribbean Team Vibes or Not: Another Day in the Life of a Call CentreIn a rare moment alone in her office, Jennifer Ames reflected on the past $10$ years of her career at GerberGoodstart Corporation $($GGC$)$ She could easily chart her successes: She had taken on challenges andproduced results where her colleagues had failed; she had increased the diversity of the work force in everyunit she had led; she had successfully launched new products and developed several new markets. In fact,just a few months before, Ames had been part of a team that had led a highly successful launch of severalGGC product lines into the Latin American market. That success and the ensuing demand for its productsdrove GGC to centralize customer support in a call center in Kingston, Jamaicaand to create Amessnew position: senior director for global customer support. Ames had studied other call$-$center models andcreated a team of four as a prototype for customer support. She had a goal of scaling up as the businessexpanded.But as she sat in her office, looking at the latest financials and mentally reviewing the events of a disturbingmeeting earlier that morning, she saw the failure of her prototype looming large. The call response timeswere on an upward trajectory that would quickly plunge her budget into the red if the trend continued. Evenworse, only one short month into her new position, Ames was worried that her team was stonewalling her.She was deeply troubled by the interaction she had just observed: there was friction among her staffmembers that was dividing them along Jamaican$-$versus$-$non$-$Jamaican lines.The team consisted of three Jamaicans from the Kingston, Jamaica, headquarters and one Costa Ricanfrom the Central American sales office. The three Jamaicans, already thinking about customer support,had spent the past few months working with product developers to create the web$-$based training videosthat provided step$-$by$-$step product use information, as well as testing competitor products. The employeefrom Costa Rica had also spent time with the product development team and had been an outstanding salesrepresentative. She had transferred from the Central American sales office to join the Kingston call center.The problem was that the Jamaicans were angry about the work habits of the Costa Rican member whosecall times were longer than theirs, so they accused her of effectively lowering their pay. During thatmornings meeting, things had deteriorated into a verbal onslaught that culminated in one of the Jamaicanmembers calling the Costa Rican member a chatty Latina. After that, the conflict got personal and highlyemotional. Was this the cultural iceberg shed heard so much about? And what exactly should she do tosteer the team away from it$?$Products in the Baby SpaceWhen Ames had joined GGC $10$ years earlier, it was a small U$.$S$.$ company selling baby formula. Sincethen, it had expanded to sell various maternal and infant$-$care products. Aside from baby formula, GGCsmost profitable product lines included phototherapy devices for the treatment of jaundice $($often called lightboxes$)$ and a sophisticated line of neonatal heart and breathing monitors. GGCs institutional customersincluded hospitals and nongovernmental organizations that cared for at$-$risk populations. The companyalso sold smaller versions of the phototherapy devices and baby monitors to families at home and formidwives to use. All manufacturing and distribution took place in the United States.By $2011,$ GGC executives were ready to expand sales of phototherapy and monitoring devices into LatinAmerican markets. The decision was based largely on the regions lack of competitors in the maternal andinfant$-$care product segments and a low entry barrier. Ames had been part of the team that executed thelaunch. They had decided to hire locals in each of their markets to create a Latin American sales unit andto focus on direct$-$marketing distribution channels to institutional customers $($hospitals and NGOs$).$The channel choice was important because many international organizations, such as UNICEF and theWorld Health Organization$($WHO$),$ had international codes of responsible marketing that GGC haddecided were in line with its values. The codes, which primarily targeted food and milk$-$substitute products,were not law in the United States, but they offered guidelines that GGC considered good businesspractices; they would be used to guide executive decisions, avoid bad press $($there were many internationalwatchdogs in the baby product space$),$ ensure the correct use of GGC products, and avoid internationallawsuits. Following these codes meant adopting practices such as never marketing directly to mothers orfamilies, training retailers and asking them to provide a point$-$of$-$purchase demonstration of the equipment,and having customer support available after the point of purchase to provide training and consistent andobjective advice, and further informationincluding information about the potential benefits of competingproducts.The product rollout to institutional customers in Latin America was a huge success. Within a year, GGChad established ten sales units: two in Mexico, three in Central America, and five in South America. Duringthe first few months of the expansion, the sales representatives were able to provide some degree ofcustomer support because their clients tended to be large hospitals sales representatives would train afew hospital employees who, in turn, would be the support people in their hospitals $($a train$-$the$-$trainersmodel$).$By the end of that year, however, the management team realized that it did not have the infrastructure toprovide customer support for all of the sales it was generating. As customer volume grew, the sales forcewas too busy to provide reliable customer support. The sales force was paid on commission, so was lessinterested in providing adequate customer support and was not necessarily made up of the best people todo so$.$ Employees in the manufacturing plant were more privy to company information about competitorsand infant$-$care guidelines as well as warranty and care information. Instead of relying on its sales force,the management team decided to provide customer support via call centers and, after much discussion, toestablish these call centers in$-$house instead relying on outsourcing. During GGCs original marketresearch, potential Latin American customers made it clear that being able to speak directly to thecompanyto talk to the same two or three people about their case rather than having to rely on retailersor third$-$party support would make them more likely to buy GGC products. Given that the consistencyand accuracy of information from customer service was essential to follow code and avoid lawsuits andhigh insurance premiums, GGC decided to first establish Jamaican$-$based call center supplemented byweb $-$based video training. The company did this for two reasons. First, the management team wanted toclosely monitor the calls to be able to communicate quickly with quality control in order to provide onsitetraining that was updated on a monthly basis. Second, it wanted to build trust with its customers. Ameswas in charge of making this happen. She immediately pulled four people, who spoke fluent Spanish, fromthe sales side of the organization to serve as customer support representatives in the call center.Differences in the Call Center TeamAs with most call centers, the team was rewarded based on how many calls it handled. In light of their largeand growing customer base, the team found itself with high call volume. Ames believed it was important tokeep calls short for two reasons. First, it was important to avoid long customer hold times in order to creategreater ease for customers. Second, she had been given a fixed percentage of company profit to devote tocall$-$center compensation. She did extensive analysis over a six$-$month period about realistic estimates ofthe length of time that her team of four could spend with each customer. She had the sales team documentthe time spent on customer support, used new customer forecasts and did a handful of scenarios withexisting customers to get an average time estimate for a typical call. She then divided the amount of moneyshe had to spend by the number of customers she anticipated would call each day, and determined that shecould afford to have representatives spend about seven minutes with each customer. This number wasroughly the same as her event$-$by$-$event scenario trials.In order to stay within her budget, she decided that each representatives pay would be docked by $$1\mathrm{.}00$per minute after seven minutes of conversation with a customer. While the representatives werecompensated with an annual salary, which was paid to them in monthly pay periods, she decided to maketheir monthly pay contingent on the team maintaining a daily seven minute call average. So the teammembers monthly pay was calculated as their salary minus $$1\mathrm{.}00$ for each minute of each day that theteam average was over seven minutes. She believed this would encourage the call$-$center members tocollaborate $($rather than compete$)$ with one another about the best strategies for quick and helpful service.Ames was discouraged that, at the end of their first month of working together, the team members callresponse average was a little over two minutes off target.She was also getting complaints from the three Jamaican team members. They calculated that together thethree spent an average of five and a half minutes with each customer; when customers wanted furtherinformation, the employees referred them to the training videos. In contrast, they observed that the CostaRican member, Maria Enriquez, spent about $15$ minutes with each customer, often walking the customerthrough the videos over the phone. These longer calls were affecting the compensation of all members, andthe Jamaicans were angry.At the most recent weekly team meeting, the tension had been palpable. The Jamaicans on the teamunderstood Enriquezs point about the need for customer satisfaction, but they believed that helpingcustomers solve problems and referring them to the training video was good enough. The complaints inthe meeting went like this:Jill Henley: This goes beyond being annoyed about how much Maria talks, it now affects my payits beingdocked. When she does a call, it goes way past product information; she carries on about family, getswrapped up in their problems, laughs and jokesbut the thing that really put me over the edge was whenshe told someone shed put the kids who used our equipment on her prayer list! Maria acts like a therapistinstead of providing technical support. For the love of Pete, we sell medical equipment! The less you talk,the more you listen, and the better you do your job.Jordan Burton: Maria talks so much that my mouth hurtsand Im being penalized because of it$.$ There isno off switch. She thinks her approach is a success. So$,$ she builds relationships with her customers, butwere here to provide information. We have training videos for a reasonand she needs to refer customersto those videos, not watch the things with the caller while shes got them on the phone!Jeff Garvey: I find myself increasingly angry at Maria for prioritizing her need to talk over any work thatneeds to get done. She couldnt care less that our pay is being reduced because of her. She has it in herhead that any conversation under $15$ minutes is rude and to cut calls shorter is bad manners. Callers dontneed to feel special; they need information to solve their problem, and that takes five minutes tops for allthe rest of us$.$ We are helping solve problems and providing good care too.Maria Enriquez: We dont do things that way in my country. You should have studied my culture beforeyou joined this team. This is serious business. The lives of many childrendepend upon our equipment, and their caregivers need to know our company cares about them. We haveto build trust that we arent going to sell them something and then hit the road. No one else on this teamtakes the time to earn health care providers respect. We need to make them feel confident in their decisionto buy our monitors and not someone elses. But dont take my word for ithave a look at the howcustomers have rated me: my satisfaction scores are exponentially higher than anyone elses on this team.Ames worried that both she and the team were at a breaking point.After reading the case, use your knowledge based on the information you have studied in units $1,2$ and $3$and answer the questions below:Questions$1.$ Think about this saying when is a group not a team, and when is a team not a group? andapply it to the case$\mathrm{.}2.$ Evaluate, using appropriate theories $($units $1-3),$ the main approaches to motivation that can bedeployed by the Ames at Gerber Goodstart Corporation to address team problems and get themost out of the new team$3.$ Using Tuckmans theory of team development, assess the current stage of development the teamat Gerber Goodstart Corporation is at$.$ Ensure you justify the reasons for your choice$\mathrm{.}4.$ Use appropriate theories to propose actions that the Ames Ames can take to $1)$ make her teambecome a more effective and $2)$ to move her team through to the next phase.