Management
The issue that is currently hurting Contact Center is their Store Operations Support. There has been a lack of focus in understanding the primary issue of servicing customers, and this has led to poor customer support. There are far too much interdependency of Support groups to handle customer complaints and complaint resolution. The problem of having three individual phone numbers for the three specific groups has only magnified the problem further. With so many departments involved in customer support; Store Repair Support, Store Operations Support, and Fleet Support, customer requests are taking far too long to resolve, as a result of which, customers are frustrated by the growing backlog to service them. The three departments of Store Repair Support, Fleet Support, and Store Operations Support on an average take approximately 186,000 support calls per year from their 2134 store locations via department specific hotlines. Along with the 186,000 support calls, customer support also receives over ten thousand email requests per month via the online. This has tested the employees so much that they have absolutely no time to contribute to the organization’s growth. The Incident Management System (IMS) and Site Management (SM) system Stores, which oversees customer support, has not been able to prioritize customer support, leading to time constraints. The current asset management/repair processes needs to be reorganized quickly to ensure better customer support.
Brainstorming Diagram
- Stores contact a Centralized Contact Center.
- The Contact Support Center; the first line of support for customers/vendors, will represent all support teams.
- This Contact Support Center will try and resolve the issue on its own. They are connected to Store Operations Support through CpC. This will provide better customer service, and take some of the call volume off the Store Repair, Fleet, and Store Operations Support groups.
- If they are not able to resolve the issue, it is then forwarded to a Central Front Office Support, which will be the second line of customer support, and which represents the Store Repair Support, the Fleet Support, and the Store Operations Support.
- Once the issue is resolved here, work orders in IMS or SM are prepared and, one is sent to the Accounts Support, and the other sent to the vendor.
- Once the work order is resolved, Accounts will send one set of invoice to Dispatch Department, and another to the vendor for payment.
- Dispatch will send a gate pass to Security so that the product is cleared for delivery.
The stakeholders to the new system will include the Key Sponsor, Jennifer Anderson, who is the VP Contact Center, Sponsor Matthew Miller; the VP Store Operations; Me, the Co-Project Manager of North-eastern; Business Lead Darnell Pruitt Contact Center Director, SME Misty Gass, Contact Center Supervisor; SME Tonya Minton, Fleet Operations Manager; Writing SME Amber Huggins, Store Operations Manager; and Store Repair Support, Fleet Support, and Store Operations Support. In addition to the above mentioned stakeholders, there will be a Central Front Office Support that will be the second line of contact between Contact Center and vendor/customer. There will be an Accounts Support that will raise invoice against service and send it to the customer or vendor. There will also be a Quality Control Support that overlooks the quality of service and product before it is sent to the customer/vendor. The reason for including the above mentioned personnel is because they are the ones who are going to directly monitor and supervise the new operations. All these personnel will be involved in brainstorming meetings to find ways to enhance operations, and troubleshoot any possible contingency that might arise during the initial period of the new operations. Another support team that will be introduced will the Human Resource Support. This support team will have a very influential role to play in the success of the new initiative. The Human Resource will devise programs to motivate employees in the various Support teams, and will also ensure that all recruitment, training, and performance evaluations are carried forward in a professional manner. Key Sponsor, Jennifer Anderson, who is the VP Contact Center, will have a defining influence over the project, as she will be the only person in the team who can take independent decisions on the operations of Contact Center. Those who will be affected by the new operational changes will be those who were earlier providing the second-level support. Once the Contact Support Center is modified to handle more work independently, and then have the luxury of the Central Front Office Support to fall back on in case of difficulties in resolving an issue, the existing second-level support will become defunct. Those in the second-level support will challenge change. However, the stakeholders who will be immensely pleased with this change will be the other major stakeholders; the investors. By improving services and reducing operational costs, the Center will have greater profit, and with profits come higher returns. Therefore, investors will be happy to see the new model succeed.
Power/Interest Grid
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Stakeholder Register
