49680 Value Chain Engineering Systems

Introduction

The report analyzes complaints recorded by the customers of an electronic company. The company has a 20000 square meter extended distribution center. The company has a client base consisting both global and local customers. The suppliers deliver products to the company both from local and international market. Customers of the company include whole sellers, retailers and end users. The company recently has observed an increasing trend in the number of complaints lodged. The complaints are of different types. In order to resolve the issue, the manager has been asked to identify the actual problem responsible for heading different type of complaints. Data are recorded regarding complains about the offered products or services and then analysis is done.

Problem definition 

The analysis of data on recorded complaints reveals that the three primary problems that should in top priority are Lost in transit, Delivery and Wrong quantity. Among these top three problem, the higher number of complaints have been recorded for Delivery. There are 233 complaints related to delivery of the products. The priority to problem related to delivery is followed by Wrong Quantity and Lost in Transit with number of complaints being 136 and 127 respectively. The next attribute for analyzing complaints is Product Family. In this category most of the times complaints are received from PF54, PF12 and PF10. Number of complaints is highest for PF12 with number of complaints being 60. In this regard, the second and third place is hold by PF10 and PF54 with respective number of complaints being 55 and 54 respectively.

So far as type of customers is concerned, C4, C3 and C31 are the top three categories of buyers lodging maximum number of complaints. The number of registered problem is highest for C4. This customer is found to register complaint in 19 times regarding various aspects. The respective number of complaints for C3 and C31 are 8 and 7.

Another important aspect to be considered is related to Customer Service Representative. This is assessed in terms of number of angry phone calls received by the responding agents. The number of angry calls received by the agent P4 is 96, which is highest in this category. The second highest number of angry phone calls is 8 received by P2. The third highest number of angry phone calls is 78 and is received by P6. P4, P2 and P6 are thus the top three most irritated CSR receiving maximum number of angry calls.

The analysis thus suggests that the company is receiving maximum complaints related to the product delivery. This points to the fact that the company might fail to deliver its product on time. Resentment might be created customer receiving their products late. Also, customer might register complaints in case of discrepancy between the product ordered and that actually received.  Significant number of complaints are also coming regarding quantity of the product and product lost in transit.  The loss of product results in delay delivery or non-delivery of the product.

Maximum number of complaints are coming from product family namely PF12, PF10 and PF2. This gives indication that products purchased by these families are moat problematic products.

Customers registering maximum number of complaints are C4, C3 and C31. Products purchased by these customers are the most problematic or unsatisfactory products. The CSR staffs are receiving angry phone calls from the customers registering various types of complaints. These phones calls irritate them.

Solution and suggestion 

Various aspects related to the registered complaints needs to be considered by the company and needs to be corrected. The three vital area of complaints are delivery, quantity of product and lost in transition. The highest number of complaints is relate to product delivery. The company should focus on making satisfactory delivery of the products (Dabholkar 2015, pp. 483-487). Firstly, the company should make customer received the original product that they order. Efficient personnel should be employed to match the ordered and actually delivered products. Secondly, the company needs to focus on improving the delivery system (Andersson 2018, pp. 133-146). Delivery vans should be prepared to timely deliver the product to different location. Also, the company should maintain sufficient stock to deliver the product on time. The separate department should be formed to evaluate the whole aspect of delivery. Regarding complaints for wrong quantity, the company needs to ensure products are delivered in appropriate quantity (Lawson, Krause & Potter 2015, pp.777-792). In order to prevent lost in transit, attendants should be more careful in times of delivery. Penalty should be imposed on responsible agents for delivery in case the customer is unsatisfied (Zhang & Qin 2016, pp.1-21).

In order to resolve the problem for different product families, the company needs to identify type of products purchases by families launching maximum number of complaints. Once the products are identified, experts should recheck the product and try to find out the problems related to these products (Jang & Chung 2015, pp.183-191). The faulty products should be replaced with newer efficient one. Products purchased by the customers C4, C3 and C31 needs to be examined separately according to complaints type (Heding, Knudtzen & Bjerre 2015). In case any defect is found for items purchased by these customers, experts should do the needful to resolve issue related to damaged products. For complaints relate to delivery or wrong quantity, the company should focus on the delivery of proper items on time (Kerzner & Kerzner 2017).

Finally, the CSR staff should be patient while receiving complaints calls. They should hear the complaint patiently and then provide assurance to customers about resolving the issue as soon as possible (Alvarez 2016). If the get irritated and behave badly to the customers then this again hamper reputation of the company.

Conclusion 

The analysis of recorded complaints shows the company is receiving most complaints relating to product delivery, wrong quantity and lost in transit. Among this the top priority should be given on delivery as most complaints are received for this. Product families having most number of complaints are PF10, PF12 and PF2. C4, C3 and C31 are the top three categories of customers having maximum complaints. CSR staffs holding the top three position in terms of received complaints calls are P2, P4 and P6.

References 

Alvarez, J.L. (ed.) 2016. The diffusion and consumption of business knowledge. Springer.

Andersson, R. 2018. Resilience in the Product-Delivery Supply Chain. In The Resilience Framework (pp. 133-146). Springer, Singapore.

Dabholkar, P.A. 2015. How to improve perceived service quality by increasing customer participation. In Proceedings of the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp. 483-487). Springer, Cham.

Heding, T., Knudtzen, C.F. & Bjerre, M. 2015. Brand management: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.

Jang, S. & Chung, J. 2015. How do interaction activities among customers and between customers and firms influence market performance and continuous product innovation? An empirical investigation of the mobile application market. Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 32, no. 2, pp.183-191.

Kerzner, H. & Kerzner, H.R. 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lawson, B., Krause, D. & Potter, A. 2015. Improving supplier new product development performance: the role of supplier development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 32, no. 5, pp.777-792.

Zhang, M. & Qin, J. 2016. Coordinate the express delivery supply chain with option contracts. International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management (IJISSCM), vol. 9, no. 4, pp.1-21.