Customer Service and Order Processors

The Human Side of Management Assignment Repairing plays That become to Satisfy Learning Goals Companies very much divide up meet as a elan to improve efficiency, but specialisation flock wiz to minus consequences. DrainFlow is a company that has effectively used specialisation to slew costs relative to its competitors costs for years, but rising node complaints kindle the firms strong position may be slipping. aft(prenominal) reading the case, you entrust suggest roughly ways it bath throw more interesting run for for employees.You testament in addition tackle the b otherwise of contracting people who are qualified and ready to perform the quaternary responsibilities required in these businesss. Major Topic Areas Job target Job mirth Personality Emotional labour The Scenario DrainFlow is a large residential and commercial quantifymaintenance firm that operates around the United Kingdom. It has been a major player in residential plumbingfor decades, and it s familiar rhyme motto, WhenYour Drain Wont Go, Call DrainFlow, has been plasteredon billboards since the 1940s. Leigh Reynaldo has been a regional manager at DrainFlow for astir(predicate) 2 years.She used to work for a newercompeting chain, Lightning Plumber, that has beendrawing more and more guests from DrainFlow. Althoughher think over at DrainFlow pays more, Leigh is non happywith the way things are going. She has noniced the work environmentis not as vital or energetic as the environmentshe saying at Lightning. Leigh thinks the problem is that employees are not motivatedto provide the display case of customer usefulness LightningPlumber employees offer. She recently move surveysto customers to collect cultivation active performance,and the data confirmed her fears.Although 60 percentof respondents said they were comfor gameboard with their experienceand would use DrainFlow again, 40 percent felttheir experience was not good, and 30 percent said theywould use a co mpetitor the succeeding(a) time they had a plumbing problem. Leigh is wondering whether DrainFlows seam designmight be contributing to its problems in retaining customers. DrainFlow has nigh 2,000 employees in quadruplebasic job categories pipe fitters, pipe fitters confederates, orderprocessors, and heraldic bearing representatives. This coordinateis designed to keep costs as low as possible.Plumbers piddle away very high wages, whereas plumbers assistantsmake closely one-quarter of what a licensedplumber makes. Using plumbers assistants is thereforea very cost-effective strategy that has enabled DrainFlowto easily undercut the competition when it comes toprice. ordinate processors make even less than assistantsbut about the same as billing processors. All work is veryspecialised, but employees are a great deal dep extirpateent on anotherjob category to perform at their most efficientlevel. Like most plumbing companies, DrainFlow getsbusiness mostly from the Yellow Pa ges and the Internet.Customers either call in to describe a plumbing problemor submit an online request for plumbing services,receiving a outcome call with information within 24 hours. In either case, DrainFlows order processors listen to thecustomers description of the problem to conditionwhether a plumber or a plumbers assistant shouldmake the service call. The job is then assigned accordingly,and a service provider goes to the military position. Whenthe job has been completed, via mobile phone, a billing representativerelays the requital to SHR034-6, 12-13 he service rep, who presentsa bill to the customer for payment. Billing representativescan get by customers credit card payments by phoneor netmail an invoice for online payment. The Problem Although specialisation does cut costs significantly, Leighis apprehensive about customer dissatisfaction. According toher survey, about 25 percent of customer contacts terminate in no service call because customers were confusedby t he symptomatic questions the order processorsasked and because the order processors did not havesufficient knowledge or skill to explain the situation.That means fully one in quaternity people who call DrainFlowto hire a plumber are worsened than dis at ease theyare not customers at all The remaining 75 percent of calls that did end in a customer service ensure resultedin other problems. The most frequent complaints Leigh found in the customersurveys were about response time and cost, especiallywhen the wrong person was sent to a job. Aplumbers assistant cannot complete a more technicallycomplicated job. The appointment has to be rescheduled,and the customers time and the staffs time havebeen wasted.The resulting delay often caused customersin these situations to decline further contactwith DrainFlowmany of them decided to go withLightning Plumber. When I arrive at a job I cant take care of, saysplumbers assistant Jim Larson, the customer getsannoyed. They thought they were getti ng a licensedplumber, since they were calling for a plumber. singingthem they have to have someone else come out doesntgo over well. On the other hand, when a plumber responds to ajob easily handled by a plumbers assistant, the customeris exempt charged at the plumbers higher pay rate.Licensed plumber Luis Berger also does not same being inthe position of vainglorious customers bad news. If I getcalled out to do something homogeneous snake in the grass a drain, the customerisnt expecting a hefty bill. Im caught in a difficult situationI take int set the rates or make theappointments, but Im the one who gets it from the customer. Plumbers also resent being sent to do much(prenominal) simplework. Obi Ani is one of DrainFlows order processors. She is frustrated also when the wrong person is sentto a job but feels she and the other order processors aredoing the best they can. We have a survey were supposedto follow with the calls to find out what the problemis and who needs to take the job, she explains. Thecustomers male parentt know that we have a standard form, sothey think we can answer all their questions. Most of usdont know any more about plumbing than the caller. Ifthey dont use the terms on the survey, we dont determinewhat theyre talking about. A plumber would, butwere not plumbers we just take the calls. Customer service issues also involve the billing representatives. They are the ones who have to keep contactingcustomers about payment. Its not my falling out thewrong guy was sent, says Elisabeth King. If two guyswent out, thats two trips. If a plumber did the work, youpay plumber rates. Some of these customers dont getthat I didnt take their first call, and so I get cry at. The billing representatives also complain that they seeonly the tail end of the process, so they dont know whatthe original call entailed. The job is fairly impersonal,and much of the work is recording customer complaints. Remember40 percent of customers are not satis fied,and it is the billing representatives who take thebrunt of their negative reactions on the phone.As you can probably tell, all employees have to engagein aroused labour, as described in your textbook,and many lack the skills or temperament traits to completethe customer interaction component of their jobs. Theyare not develop to provide customer service, and they seetheir work mostly in technical, or mechanical, terms. Quite a few are actually anxious about speaking directlywith customers. The character staff (order processors andbilling representatives) realise customer service is partof their job, but they also find dealing with negativefeedback from customers and co- thespians stressful.Two years ago, a management consultingcompany was hired to survey DrainFlow worker attitudes. The results showed they were less satisfied thanworkers in other comparable jobs. The following tableprovides a breakdown of respondent satisfaction levelsacross a fall of categories SHR034-6, 12-13 DrainFlow Plumbers DrainFlow Plumber Assistants DrainFlow Office proles Average Plumber Average Office Worker I am satisfied with the work I am asked to do. 3. 7 2. 5 2. 5 4. 3 3. 5 I am satisfied with my working conditions. 3. 8 2. 4 3. 7 4. 1 4. 2 I am satisfied with my interactions with o-workers. 3. 5 3. 2 2. 7 3. 8 3. 9 I am satisfied with my interactions with my supervisor 2. 5 2. 3 2. 2 3. 5 3. 4 The information about average plumbers and averageoffice workers is taken from the management consultingcompanys records of other companies. Theyare not exactly surprising, attached some of the complaints DrainFlow employees have do. Top management isworried about these results, but they have not been ableto formulate a solution. The traditional DrainFlow culturehas been focused on cost containment, and thesoft areas like employee satisfaction has not been a majorissue.The Proposed Solution The company is in trouble, and as revenues shrink andthe cost savings that were suppo sed to be achieved bydividing up work fail to materialise, a change seems tobe in order. Leigh is proposing using property rewards to improve performanceamong employees. She thinks if employeeswere paid based on work outcomes, they would work harderto satisfy customers. Because it is not easy to measurehow satisfied people are with the initial call-in, Leighwould like to give the order processors a small rewardfor every 20 calls successfully completed.For the hands-onwork, she would like to have each billing representativecollect information about customer satisfaction for eachcompleted call. If no complaints are made and the jobis handled promptly, a moderate cash reward would be precondition to the plumber or plumbers assistant. If the customerindicates real satisfaction with the service, alarger cash reward would be provided. Leigh also wants to find people who are a better fit withthe companys new goals. Current hiring procedure relieson unstructured interviews with each locati ons general manager, and little consistency is found in the waythese managers choose employees.Most lack training incustomer service and organisational behaviour. Leigh thinksit would be better if hiring methods were standardisedacross all branches in her region to foster managers identifyrecruits who can actually succeed in the job. Your Assignment Your projection is to prepare a persuasive report for Leigh on the potential potency of her cash reward and structured interviewprogrammes. Make certain it is in the form of aprofessional business document that you would giveto an experience manager at this level of a fairly largecorporation.Leigh is very smart when it comes to managingfinances and running a plumbing business, but shewill not necessarily know about the organisational behaviourprinciples you are describing. As any newproposals must be passed through top management,you should also address their concerns about cost containment. You will need to make a strong evidence-bas edfinancial case that changing the management style willbenefit the company. When you write, make sure you touch on the followingpoints SHR034-6, 12-13 1.Although it is dispatch employees are not especially satisfiedwith their work, do you think this is a reasonfor concern? Does research suggest satisfied workersare actually better at their jobs? Are any other behaviouraloutcomes associated with job satisfaction? 2. Using job characteristics theory, explain why thepresent schema of job design may be contributing toemployee dissatisfaction. Describe some ways youcould help employees feel more satisfied with theirwork by redesigning their jobs. 3. Leigh has a somewhat vague idea about how to implementthe cash rewards system.Describe some of thespecific ways you would make the reward systemwork better, based on the case. 4. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of usingfinancial incentives in a program of this nature. What, if any, potential problems might arise if peopleare given money for achieving customer satisfactiongoals? What other types of incentives mightbe considered? 5. piss a specific plan to assess whether the rewardsystem is working. What are the dependent variablesthat should change if the system works? How willyou go about measuring success?