CASE ANALYSIS

“A MEASURE OF DELIGHT: The Pursuit of Quality at AT&T Universal card services”

SUBMITTED TO,Prof. Naresh patel

SUBMITTED BY,Beena Amin Bhoomika PatelVidhita Sinha

CASE ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS OF MEASUREMENT SYSTEM:

UCS’s survey team was proactively indulged in customer satisfier and contactor survey which together revealed explicitly about the preferences and needs of the customers according to which the services could be made better.

The measures used for finding the needs of the customers were ample and suffice to indicate the customer’s choice.

Indicators pertaining to not only service and customer care but that pertaining to HRM and information technology were also included to give a better idea of area of improvement.

The listening of calls by top authority for noting the courteousness gave a better idea of what was good and what needed improvement.

WEAKNESSES OF MEASUREMENT SYSTEM:

The imposition of tremendous changes often made in indicators to fulfil requirements of quality days gave a sudden blow and lead to demotivation of the employees thus reducing their efficiency.

There was a discrepancy prevailing between customer feedback which indicated that the cardholders viewed associates less courteous than before and internal quality monitors listening on phones which denied the less courtesy by the associates .Thus correct conclusion was a bit difficult to draw based on the two systems implemented.

STRENGTHS OF COMPENSATION SYSTEM:

The compensation system improved the performance of the employees and acted as an initial motivation factor as it was a way of acknowledging their achievement and rewarding them for the same.

The company supported 6 companywide awards,3 companywide recognition programs and 30 departmental awards which lead to higher job satisfaction, high performance ,low absenteeism and employee attrition was also lower.

WEAKNESSES OF COMPENSATION SYSTEM:

Quality aspect was ignored. The employees worked for compensation rather than the quality.

The employees started believing that the money obtained as compensation was their money i.e. it is part of their salary.

STRENGTHS OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT/ PROBLEM SOLVING:

The idea of introducing “QUALITY DAY” incited a feeling of motivation amongst the employees.

The continuous evaluation was used to give better idea to the employees about what they were good at and what were the prospects of improvement.

To enhance the performance and make work faster and easier of the employees due facilities like software namely “U WIN” was introduced and training sessions were organized

Empowerment lead to ample of suggestions out of which many were implemented.

WEAKNESSES OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT/ PROBLEM SOLVING:

Though Daily evaluation gave clear idea about the areas for improvements it lead to building up of excessive pressure on the employees.

The aim of this firm is continuous improvement but this shatters the hope of achieving the target amongst the employees.

To improve the performance the “TRIPLE COMPENSATION PLAN” was introduced but it rather lead to more expectations from employees and further became an obstacle for further improvements.

PROBLEMS IN THE CASE:

Competitors had also started implementing the policy of no membership fee and reducing interest rate for unpaid loan .

The resignation by 2 senior executives made the improvement plans even more difficult to implement because it was really hard to convince the employees to achieve even better results than they already had accomplished.

There were doubts arising in regards to where achievement of targets should be accompanied by the giving of compensation or not.

There was a tremendous pressure amongst the employees because on one hand they had to handle more calls and on the other hand on loosing quality they would loose the benefits associated with it.

The work pressure was high for the associates and it was hectic to do the same monotonous work repeatedly.

SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS:

To reduce the pressure due to performance of a monotonous work repeatedly the employees should be divided into teams for specific work for e.g. teams should be made for complain handling, handling new customers, relationship building etc and then they should be rotated after a certain amount of time.

To compete efficiently with the competitors product of universal card company should be differentiated from other companies cards this could be done by incorporating of schemes like redemption of credit points which would make the customers eligible for the gifts, offers pertaining to saving annually that could be the result of purchase of card now etc.

To reduce the pressure of the employees, information system should be used. Site should be made which can have FAQ (frequently asked questions) this would reduce the phone calls to some extent.

Similarly it can have general information about the product so that the pressure on associates handling phone calls could be reduced to an extent.

The modification should be made in analysis performance, it should be done weekly or once in a fortnight this would enable the employees to get out of the pressure and would reduce the fear of continuous monitoring.

Facilities should be provided online like View account summary, current or past statements, unbilled activity, Pay bills online, Get statements online only with Paperless Statements, Choose to receive customized account alerts via email

Instead of compensation intrinsic rewards which would be of utmost importance in career of the employee should be encouraged which includes certificates, titles of honours etc

Internal competition should be boosted by organizing contests, fun games etc to reduce the pressure which the employees had started feeling.

Stress management training could be given in addition to time management techniques development courses to enhance the performance of the employees.

The organization should implement 80-20 rule where it should focus mainly on potential customer’s more than new buyers.

Using Service Quality Gap Model, it is concluded that there is a gap between managements specification of delivering and actual delivery to the employees (Gap 3. Service quality specifications - Service delivery gap) due to pressure on employees which resulted either in reduction in quality or reduction in phone attending. Thus making customized sites could solve the problem to a certain extent and the saved time could be used for Routine transactional surveys after delivering the customer experience as it is important for an organization to measure customer perceptions of service.