Customer Service and Order Processors

The Human Side of Management Assignment Repairing Jobs That Fail to Satisfy Learning Goals Companies often divide up work as a way to improve efficiency, but specialisation can lead to negative consequences. DrainFlow is a company that has effectively used specialisation to reduce costs relative to its competitors’ costs for years, but rising customer complaints suggest the firm’s strong position may be slipping. After reading the case, you will suggest some ways it can create more interesting work for employees.You will also tackle the problem of finding people who are qualified and ready to perform the multiple responsibilities required in these jobs. Major Topic Areas Job design Job satisfaction Personality Emotional labour The Scenario DrainFlow is a large residential and commercial plumbing  maintenance firm that operates around the United Kingdom. It has been a major player in residential plumbing  for decades, and its familiar rhyming motto, â€Å"When  Yo ur Drain Won’t Go, Call DrainFlow,† has been plastered  on billboards since the 1940s. Leigh Reynaldo has been a regional manager at DrainFlow for about 2 years.She used to work for a newer  competing chain, Lightning Plumber, that has been  drawing more and more customers from DrainFlow. Although  her job at DrainFlow pays more, Leigh is not happy  with the way things are going. She has noticed the work environment  is not as vital or energetic as the environment  she saw at Lightning. Leigh thinks the problem is that employees are not motivated  to provide the type of customer service Lightning  Plumber employees offer. She recently sent surveys  to customers to collect information about performance,  and the data confirmed her fears.Although 60 percent  of respondents said they were satisfied with their experience  and would use DrainFlow again, 40 percent felt  their experience was not good, and 30 percent said they  would use a competi tor the next time they had a plumbing problem. Leigh is wondering whether DrainFlow’s job design  might be contributing to its problems in retaining customers. DrainFlow has about 2,000 employees in four  basic job categories: plumbers, plumber’s assistants, order  processors, and billing representatives. This structure  is designed to keep costs as low as possible.Plumbers make very high wages, whereas plumber’s assistants  make about one-quarter of what a licensed  plumber makes. Using plumber’s assistants is therefore  a very cost-effective strategy that has enabled DrainFlow  to easily undercut the competition when it comes to  price. Order processors make even less than assistants  but about the same as billing processors. All work is very  specialised, but employees are often dependent on another  job category to perform at their most efficient  level. Like most plumbing companies, DrainFlow gets  business mostly from the Yellow Pages and the Internet.Customers either call in to describe a plumbing problem  or submit an online request for plumbing services,  receiving a return call with information within 24 hours. In either case, DrainFlow’s order processors listen to the  customer’s description of the problem to determine  whether a plumber or a plumber’s assistant should  make the service call. The job is then assigned accordingly,  and a service provider goes to the location. When  the job has been completed, via mobile phone, a billing representative  relays the fee to SHR034-6, 12-13 he service rep, who presents  a bill to the customer for payment. Billing representatives  can take customers’ credit card payments by phone  or e-mail an invoice for online payment. The Problem Although specialisation does cut costs significantly, Leigh  is worried about customer dissatisfaction. According to  her survey, about 25 percent of customer contactsà ‚  ended in no service call because customers were confused  by the diagnostic questions the order processors  asked and because the order processors did not have  sufficient knowledge or skill to explain the situation.That means fully one in four people who call DrainFlow  to hire a plumber are worse than dissatisfied: they  are not customers at all! The remaining 75 percent of calls that did end in a customer service encounter resulted  in other problems. The most frequent complaints Leigh found in the customer  surveys were about response time and cost, especially  when the wrong person was sent to a job. A  plumber’s assistant cannot complete a more technically  complicated job. The appointment has to be rescheduled,  and the customer’s time and the staff’s time have  been wasted.The resulting delay often caused customers  in these situations to decline further contact  with DrainFlow—many of them decided to go with  Ligh tning Plumber. â€Å"When I arrive at a job I can’t take care of,† says  plumber’s assistant Jim Larson, â€Å"the customer gets  annoyed. They thought they were getting a licensed  plumber, since they were calling for a plumber. Telling  them they have to have someone else come out doesn’t  go over well. †Ã‚   On the other hand, when a plumber responds to a  job easily handled by a plumber’s assistant, the customer  is still charged at the plumber’s higher pay rate.Licensed plumber Luis Berger also does not like being in  the position of giving customers bad news. â€Å"If I get  called out to do something like snake a drain, the customer  isn’t expecting a hefty bill. I’m caught in a difficult situation—I don’t set the rates or make the  appointments, but I’m the one who gets it from the customer. †Ã‚  Plumbers also resent being sent to do such simple  work. Obi Ani i s one of DrainFlow’s order processors. She is frustrated too when the wrong person is sent  to a job but feels she and the other order processors are  doing the best they can. We have a survey we’re supposed  to follow with the calls to find out what the problem  is and who needs to take the job,† she explains. â€Å"The  customers don’t know that we have a standard form, so  they think we can answer all their questions. Most of us  don’t know any more about plumbing than the caller. If  they don’t use the terms on the survey, we don’t understand  what they’re talking about. A plumber would, but  we’re not plumbers; we just take the calls. † Customer service issues also involve the billing representatives. They are the ones who have to keep contacting  customers about payment. It’s not my fault the  wrong guy was sent,† says Elisabeth King. â€Å"If two guys  went out, thatâ €™s two trips. If a plumber did the work, you  pay plumber rates. Some of these customers don’t get  that I didn’t take their first call, and so I get yelled at. †Ã‚  The billing representatives also complain that they see  only the tail end of the process, so they don’t know what  the original call entailed. The job is fairly impersonal,  and much of the work is recording customer complaints. Remember—40 percent of customers are not satisfied,  and it is the billing representatives who take the  brunt of their negative reactions on the phone.As you can probably tell, all employees have to engage  in emotional labour, as described in your textbook,  and many lack the skills or personality traits to complete  the customer interaction component of their jobs. They  are not trained to provide customer service, and they see  their work mostly in technical, or mechanical, terms. Quite a few are actually anxious about speaking directly  with customers. The office staff (order processors and  billing representatives) realise customer service is part  of their job, but they also find dealing with negative  feedback from customers and co-workers stressful.Two years ago, a management consulting  company was hired to survey DrainFlow worker attitudes. The results showed they were less satisfied than  workers in other comparable jobs. The following table  provides a breakdown of respondent satisfaction levels  across a number of categories:  Ã‚  Ã‚   SHR034-6, 12-13 DrainFlow Plumbers DrainFlow Plumber Assistants DrainFlow Office Workers 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 avera ge plumbers and average  office workers is taken from the management consulting  company’s records of other companies. They  are not exactly surprising, given some of the complaints DrainFlow employees have made. Top management is  worried about these results, but they have not been able  to formulate a solution. The traditional DrainFlow culture  has been focused on cost containment, and the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"soft areas† like employee satisfaction has not been a major  issue.The Proposed Solution The company is in trouble, and as revenues shrink and  the cost savings that were supposed to be achieved by  dividing up work fail to materialise, a change seems to  be in order. Leigh is proposing using cash rewards to improve performance  among employees. She thinks if employees  were paid based on work outcomes, they would work harder  to satisfy customers. Because it is not easy to measure  how satisfied people are with the initial call-in, Leigh  wo uld like to give the order processors a small reward  for every 20 calls successfully completed.For the hands-on  work, she would like to have each billing representative  collect information about customer satisfaction for each  completed call. If no complaints are made and the job  is handled promptly, a moderate cash reward would be  given to the plumber or plumber’s assistant. If the customer  indicates real satisfaction with the service, a  larger cash reward would be provided. Leigh also wants to find people who are a better fit with  the company’s new goals. Current hiring procedure relies  on unstructured interviews with each location’s general manager, and little consistency is found in the way  these managers choose employees.Most lack training in  customer service and organisational behaviour. Leigh thinks  it would be better if hiring methods were standardised  across all branches in her region to help managers identify  recruits who can actually succeed in the job. Your Assignment Your task is to prepare a persuasive report for Leigh on the potential  effectiveness of her cash reward and structured interview  programmes. Make certain it is in the form of a  professional business document that you would give  to an experienced manager at this level of a fairly large  corporation.Leigh is very smart when it comes to managing  finances and running a plumbing business, but she  will not necessarily know about the organisational behaviour  principles you are describing. As any new  proposals must be passed through top management,  you should also address their concerns about cost containment. You will need to make a strong evidence-based  financial case that changing the management style will  benefit the company. When you write, make sure you touch on the following  points:  Ã‚   SHR034-6, 12-13 1.Although it is clear employees are not especially satisfied  with their wor k, do you think this is a reason  for concern? Does research suggest satisfied workers  are actually better at their jobs? Are any other behavioural  outcomes associated with job satisfaction? 2. Using job characteristics theory, explain why the  present system of job design may be contributing to  employee dissatisfaction. Describe some ways you  could help employees feel more satisfied with their  work by redesigning their jobs. 3. Leigh has a somewhat vague idea about how to implement  the cash rewards system.Describe some of the  specific ways you would make the reward system  work better, based on the case. 4. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using  financial incentives in a program of this nature. What, if any, potential problems might arise if people  are given money for achieving customer satisfaction  goals? What other types of incentives might  be considered? 5. Create a specific plan to assess whether the reward  system is working. What are the dependent variables  that should change if the system works? How will  you go about measuring success?