Question 2: Streamlining the Customer Service Department

Terry Smith managed the small group of employees in the Customer Service department at a growing business. Lately, the number of calls had increased, her staff was under tremendous pressure, and there were many complaints regarding the response time to calls. Terry was told that if her department's performance does not improve, the company might just outsource the function all together. She was given a very short time to turn things around; two or three months at best. She thought that streamlining the customer service process could improve the department's workflow and resolve issues with the customers as well as the employees.

Terry decided to construct a project plan for the streamlining project. She began with identifying all the steps she needed to take. First, she decided that she needed to identify the department's current level of service. This required (A) measuring the current service level (including knowing the volume of calls, the length of time until the call ticket was assigned to a customer service representative, and the time it took to close the ticket). She thought that she could accomplish all of this in one week (five working days) by doing all three steps. While she determined the current service level, Terry thought that she should informally (B) poll all company managers to see what improvements in customer service they would like to see and

(C) send a survey to the department's employees to get some input and ideas about what they thought needed improvement. She figured she would need two days to make all the phone calls to company managers to get input. As for the survey, she would give her employees five days to get back to her on why the process was not working well. After her review of the current service level was done and she understood how the process worked, she would then (D) document the current process. She needed help with this part, but luckily, she had a good friend in the Operations department who was a six-sigma green belt. She would meet with him and after the meeting they would work over email and get the process documentation done in threedays.

After having the input from her employees, other managers from the company, and a documented current state of workflow, she would hold a daylong meeting with her assistant and her colleague from Operations and (E) design a new workflow. Next, she would arrange for a meeting with some of the key employees in her department to (F) review the suggested changes, get their input, and make a revised workflow. She gave herself 5 days for this, as it might require many iterations. After the meeting (G) the new workflow would be communicated to all the employees, along with training, which should take about one week.

After 30 days, during which time employees would keep track of service level, Terry planned to review of the data - the review of data would take 5 days. She was hoping for a 25% reduction in waiting time. If that goal was not achieved, then she would have to think of something else or face having the function completely outsourced. But first she needed to ask for time to implement thestreamlining.

Help Terry by:

Filling the table.

Task	Precedence	Time (Days)
A - Current Service Level
B - Poll Company Managers
C - Survey the Employees
D - Current State Map
E - Design the New Workflow
F - Review the New Design with key Employees
G - Implementation and Training
H - Review the New Design

How many days will be needed for this project? Show how you derived this number.

Identify the critical activities.