Question 1
The main disadvantage to Sprint using only a numbers-driven approach to improve customer service is that more emphasis and focus is placed on quantity than on quality. This can lead employees to complete their tasks – in this case, customer calls – in haste, for the sake of meeting their quotas, which might be at the expense of providing quality service to the customers.
With the instructions of Sprint’s managers to finish calls as quickly as possible, customers may feel they are not being accorded the time they deserve for them to air their issues and for their problems to be addressed. Their problems might not even get resolved, which can lead to their frustration and dissatisfaction.
On the part of the employees, they will be pressured to complete as many calls as they can without being mindful of the kind of service they provide. This may cause them to be less conscientious about the efforts they put into the job and feel more restricted, which may become less fulfilling for them. This can also cause more stress for them, which may further deteriorate the quality of service they provide.
Question 2
Sprint should employ a quality-driven approach to performance management, that is, they should focus more on improving the customer’s experience than on trying to service as many customers as they can. Some of the ways to accomplish this would be to evaluate employees based on the number of problems they solve on the first call regardless of how long the call takes and then rewarding the best performers based on this metric (“Sprint’s Wake-Up Call”). In the same manner, employees should be assigned to specific areas or domains, and tiers should be put in place where the easiest questions are addressed by the first tier and where questions move higher in the tier as the questions become more difficult.
The main advantage of this approach is that the right people – with the appropriate knowledge and expertise – are assigned to address a customer’s concern, which can lead not only to the faster turnaround of calls but also to customer satisfaction. In addition, allowing employees to develop expertise in certain areas of the organization or the job can lead to more fulfillment and satisfaction on the employees’ part.
The disadvantage of this approach, particularly on the part of the organization, is that they would have to invest on employee training to ensure that their employees develop the necessary expertise for their assigned domains. This may also mean that they’ll need to employ more staff as this approach eliminates the multi-tasking of employees across various domains.
Although the speed of completed calls does not need to be tracked, the company should ensure that all customer calls are quickly answered. In particular, customer service staff should return the calls of important clients. The company should also regularly track customer losses, analyze the reasons for them, and promptly address the issues. In addition, all pertinent communication should be well documented, with the client’s consent clearly indicated in all transactions. This will serve as reference for both the company and the client and will give the client a chance to review the said transaction, enabling them to either continue with or cancel the said transaction. All of these would require more technological investments from the company but would also result in the customers feeling more important and assured that their concerns are being addressed.
Works Cited
“Sprint’s Wake-Up Call.” Businessweek 21 Feb. 2008.Web. 26 Dec. 2011.
