BankUSA: Credit Card Division Case Study:

BankUSA operates in 20 states and provides a full range of financial services for individuals and business. The credit card division is a profit center that has experienced a 20 percent annual growth rate over the last five years. The credit card division processes two types of credit cards. One type is for traditional card issuers such as savings and loan banks, credit unions, small banks without credit card processing capability, selected private-label firms such as a retail chain, and BankUSA's own credit cards. This "individual customer" market segment involves about 15 million cardholders. These credit card services include producing and mailing the plastic credit cards to customers, preparing and distributing monthly statements to customers via the Internet or by mail, handling all customer requests such as billing information, address changes, stop payments, and so on, and preparing and distributing summary reports to all internal and external customers.

BankUSA's individual customer market segment involves about 15 million cardholders.

Recently, the bank has been receiving numerous complaints about excessive wait times in their customer support call center. In an executive staff meeting, Ms. Juanita Sutherland, the president of BankUSA's credit card division, was told point-blank by the firm's CEO: "Our customers are unhappy, and we're beginning to see account closures and transfers to other credit cards. So, what's going on here? I want a full report at our next meeting."

Ms. Sutherland was perplexed, as her call center manager, John Jackson, told her that he believed that wait times averaged less than two minutes. "Well, I believe in the motto 'In God we trust; all othersbring data,'" she told John. "Show me the data." Over the next two weeks, John sampled 500 customer calls during peak times (the call center runs seven days a week). The data were recorded in an Excel file shown inExhibit 3.9(also available in the OM5 Data Workbook in the worksheet "BankUSA Call Center Wait Times"). However, John knew little about what to do with the data...

CASE QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

• 1.You have been called in to assist Mr. Jackson in analyzing the data he collected. Using basic statistical analysis tools, what can you tell him about the wait times?
• 2.How should Mr. Jackson respond to Ms. Sutherland at their next meeting? What should he tell her, and what steps might you suggest he do next?