Part II Case study (each answer is worth 10 marks) Burger Business Machines Burger Business Machines sells and services a variety of copiers, computers, and other office equipment. The company receives many calls daily for servicesales, accounting, and other departments. All callsare handled centrally by customer service representatives and routed to other individuals as appropriate. A number of customers had complained about longwaits when calling for service. A market research study found that customers became irritated if the call wasnot answered withinfive rings Patricia Burger, thecompany president, authorized the customer servicedepartment manager, Tim, to study this problem andfind a method to shorten the call-waiting time. Timmet withthe servicerepresentatives who answered theCalls to attempt to determine the reasons for long waiting times. Thefollowing conversation ensued: TIM:This is aserious problem. HowaCustomer phoneinquiry isanswered is the first impression the customer receives from us. As you know this company was founded on efficient and friendlyservice to all our customers. It's obvious why customershave towait: You're onthe phone with anothercustomer. Can youthink of any reasonsthat might keep you onthe phone for an unnecessarily long time? ROBIN: I've noticed quite often that theperson to whomi need to route the call is not present. It takestime to transfer the callandtoseewhether itis answered. If the person is not there, I end up apologizing and transferring the call to another extension. TiM: You're right, Robin. Sales personnel often are outof the office on sales calls, away on trips to previewnewproducts, or away from their desks for a varietyof reasons. What else might cause this problem? RAVI: I get irritated at customers who spend a greatdeal of time complaining about a problem that Icannot do anything about except refer to someone else. of course! I listen and sympathize with them, but thiseats up a lot of time. LAMARR: Somecustomers call so often, they think were we are long-lost fiends and strike up a personal conversation. TIM: 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. Duringlunch, we're not all available to answer the 5 phone. RAVI: Right after we open at9 A.M, we get a rush ofcalls I think that many of the delays are caused bythese peak periods. ROBIN: I've noticed the same thing between 4 and5 P.M. TIM: I've had a few comments from department managers who received calls that didn't fall in their areasof 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 thatsometimes I simply don't understand what the customer's problem really is. I spend a lot of time trying toget him or her to explain it better. Often, I have toroute it to someone because other calls are waiting. RAVI: Perhaps we need to have more knowledge ofour products. TIM: Well, I think we've covered most of the majorreasons why many customers have to wait. It seemsto me that we have four major reasons: the phones areshort-staffed, the receiving party is not present, thecustomerdominates the conversation and you may not understand the customer's problem. Next weneed to collect some information about these possiblecauses. I will set up a data collection sheet that youcan use to track some of these things. Mark, wouldyou help me on this? Over the next two weeks, the staff collected dataon the frequency of reasons why some callers had towait. The results are summarized as follows: Reason Total number Operators short-staffed 172 Receiving party not present73 Customer dominates conversation 19 Lack of operator understanding61 Other reasons 10 2. Perform a Pareto analysis of the data collected. 3. What actions might the company take to improve the situation? DO Part II Case study (each answer is worth 10 marks) Burger Business Machines Burger Business Machines sells and services a variety of copiers, computers, and other office equipment. The company receives many calls daily for servicesales, accounting, and other departments. All callsare handled centrally by customer service representatives and routed to other individuals as appropriate. A number of customers had complained about longwaits when calling for service. A market research study found that customers became irritated if the call wasnot answered withinfive rings Patricia Burger, thecompany president, authorized the customer servicedepartment manager, Tim, to study this problem andfind a method to shorten the call-waiting time. Timmet withthe servicerepresentatives who answered theCalls to attempt to determine the reasons for long waiting times. Thefollowing conversation ensued: TIM:This is aserious problem. HowaCustomer phoneinquiry isanswered is the first impression the customer receives from us. As you know this company was founded on efficient and friendlyservice to all our customers. It's obvious why customershave towait: You're onthe phone with anothercustomer. Can youthink of any reasonsthat might keep you onthe phone for an unnecessarily long time? ROBIN: I've noticed quite often that theperson to whomi need to route the call is not present. It takestime to transfer the callandtoseewhether itis answered. If the person is not there, I end up apologizing and transferring the call to another extension. TiM: You're right, Robin. Sales personnel often are outof the office on sales calls, away on trips to previewnewproducts, or away from their desks for a varietyof reasons. What else might cause this problem? RAVI: I get irritated at customers who spend a greatdeal of time complaining about a problem that Icannot do anything about except refer to someone else. of course! I listen and sympathize with them, but thiseats up a lot of time. LAMARR: Somecustomers call so often, they think were we are long-lost fiends and strike up a personal conversation. TIM: 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. Duringlunch, we're not all available to answer the 5 phone. RAVI: Right after we open at9 A.M, we get a rush ofcalls I think that many of the delays are caused bythese peak periods. ROBIN: I've noticed the same thing between 4 and5 P.M. TIM: I've had a few comments from department managers who received calls that didn't fall in their areasof 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 thatsometimes I simply don't understand what the customer's problem really is. I spend a lot of time trying toget him or her to explain it better. Often, I have toroute it to someone because other calls are waiting. RAVI: Perhaps we need to have more knowledge ofour products. TIM: Well, I think we've covered most of the majorreasons why many customers have to wait. It seemsto me that we have four major reasons: the phones areshort-staffed, the receiving party is not present, thecustomerdominates the conversation and you may not understand the customer's problem. Next weneed to collect some information about these possiblecauses. I will set up a data collection sheet that youcan use to track some of these things. Mark, wouldyou help me on this? Over the next two weeks, the staff collected dataon the frequency of reasons why some callers had towait. The results are summarized as follows: Reason Total number Operators short-staffed 172 Receiving party not present73 Customer dominates conversation 19 Lack of operator understanding61 Other reasons 10 2. Perform a Pareto analysis of the data collected. 3. What actions might the company take to improve the situation? DO