Article | International Journal of Physical Distribution | January 1990

An Integrated Approach to Customer Service

Keywords: Customers;

Format: Print

Citation:

Shapiro, R. D., and H. Mathe. "An Integrated Approach to Customer Service." Special Issue on Mastering Information Management Series. International Journal of Physical Distribution (January 1990).

Delwarca Software provides business software to large corporate clients around the world. The firm serves customers who prefer to assemble corporate solutions using a combination of software programs from various suppliers rather than implementing a single enterprise resource planning system. Consequently, Delwarca must provide telephone support services for complex software-hardware interaction and performance problems in addition to the typical software support issues around software installation and upgrades, malware attacks, and processing failures. The manager of the remote support unit implemented a new triage program for customer calls hoping to reduce customer wait time, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce costs. After one year, customer dissatisfaction is at an all-time high and he must perform a quantitative analysis of the current process, considering wait times for customers as well as cost per call, before making a final recommendation. This case can be used in a first-year MBA course in Service Management or Operations Management or a course in industrial engineering. It can also be used to introduce simple queuing theory.

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