Trans American Airlines is a large domestic airline servicing all major cities throughout the United States. It uses control systems for many of its activities, including airplane maintenance, baggage handling, customer check-in, and others. One such control system, described next, is for telephone reservation services. The control system’s objective is to increase the likelihood that customers will receive prompt, courteous, and efficient service when they phone in for reservations. The standards for performance are stated in terms of a list of quantitative and qualitative attributes regarding the telephone conversation.
(1) Answer the telephone call no later than the third ring.
(2) If a customer is placed on hold because of a backlog of calls, the hold period should be no longer than 1 minute.
(3) The reservation clerk should present a pleasant and helpful disposition to the customer.
(4) In cases where a requested flight is full, the reservation clerk should make an effort to place the customer on another Trans American flight before offering information on flights of other airlines.
(5) After the reservation clerk makes the flight reservations, the clerk should read the flight numbers and times back to the customer. The company uses two methods of monitoring the telephone reservation service. First, personnel in the controller’s department listen to the telephone conversations by way of telephone taps located in central corporate headquarters. They then prepare a written evaluation of the reservation clerk’s performance using the previously described standards. Because the clerks are unaware that the firm monitors their conversations, they act naturally. The second monitoring method involves a periodic call to customers to have them evaluate the conversation. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this control system as a basis for evaluating the performance of the reservation clerks.