T- Mobile Online Service and Live Support - Report Example

T- Mobile Online Service And Live Support Terms Of References After sales support and services play a very vital role in the market demand for a product today in the twenty first century. The term service can be interpreted in a number of different senses, however to put it very simply, it means performance of regular maintenance or repair work with the aim of providing maximum value to the customers (Lovelock, 2007). Delivering high quality service would mean providing services in line with the customers expectations who, of course, are the ultimate bosses. It is believed by many renowned management writers including Duchessi that in the current era, business value can be created by placing the maximum amount of emphasis on customers needs, realizing what they need and focusing the companys energy on it. Once the company successfully figures out what is it that the company needs then, according to Duchessi, the company would capatalize on it and start achieving its other objectives (i.e. growth in sales, profitability etc,) Since its efficient service and support that forms the epicenter of a company’s success, this report aims to look in to the operations of T-Mobile, one of the largest cellular companies in the UK, and gaining an insight into service and support network (ONG, 2010). This report further on aims to discover if the eventual customers are satisfied with the quality of service and support offered by T-Mobile. Company Background T-Mobile International AG is the parent or holding company of several mobile phone companies around the globe. The company operates its network on GSM and UTMS and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany. T-mobile holds very much of the market share for mobile phone service in US, Europe and Puerto Rico. The company it self is a very huge and significant one as can been seen from the following figures. On an overall basis, T-Mobile subsidiaries have a total of 150 million subscribers, a number which has helped the group to be ranked as the twelfth largest mobile phone service provider in the world. The company is also the worlds third largest multinational company, with Vodafone and Telefonica securing the first two slots (Khanpuri, 2006). T-Mobiles American operations are headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. The company offers a wide range of services in the US including texting services, data plans, voice and telephony plans. The company is a home to about 42.000 people spread throughout the country. The company is run by a board which has a lot of commercial and telecommunication based background. Mr Phillip Humm hold the post of both CEO and President of T-Mobile USA whereas Mr. Jim Alling looks at the overall operations of the company being the companys chief Operating Officer. Many ethical codes have at times called for a split between the post of the CEO and the company President (Brassington, 2003), but given the wast experience Mr Humm holds in the telecommunication sector, he is allowed to carry on both the posts at the same time. The companys financial side is managed by the well known Mr. Michael Morgan. Problem Identification There are several problems that can be pointed out in T-mobiles Online Support Page. The main problem however appears to be the amount of time thats taken by support agents to get back to customers queries. Event though no time is specified on the company website for the agents to get back to the customers queries, it is a general norm to reply back to the queries on live support as soon as possible and not customers time. One of managements most treasured writers Carl Sandburg has said very nicely “ The time for action is now. Its never to late to do something”. Accordingly, T-Mobile needs to work on this quote and take steps to stop wasting consumers time and the possibility of losing further orders from them. Research Objective As pointed out in the problem identification paragraph, the main issue faced by the companys online service and live support is the amount of time taken by it to get back to customers queries. With the problem clearly defined, the objectives of carrying on this research can now be clearly defined for us to be working on them. The main objectives therefore are: To figure out what causes delay in T-Mobiles online support To figure out how the delay caused by T-Mobiles online service and live support has effected consumer demand and expectation by the customers To make recommendations as to how to cut down on the time delay and work in a manner so as to live up to consumers expectations. Methodology Methodology is how we collect data and go on to work with it. There are many sources of data but they can simply be broken down into two categories, primary and secondary data. This research has used both primary and secondary data for analyzing the problem. Primary data refers to first hand information achieved by one carrying out the research his own self (Ling, 2004). In the given case a questionnaire was developed which was circulated amongst various customers of T-Mobile Telecom. The questionnaire asked various questions regarding the services of T-mobile and its online live support. The questions asked touched various parameters covered by the company life speed of service, quality of support, responsiveness and possible recommendations. The questionnaire has “00” questions and all of them are closed ended which need to be selected by the customers in a range mentioned. The performance of the companys online support system is measured on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 representing strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree / support. Other then that information was also collected by interviewing members of the T-Mobile online support team. The interview was conducted by myself and it asked the various questions regarding the current system, where it lacked, what were its strong points and what changes needed to be brought about to speed up the process and save customers time and thereby our own effort. In the final stage of research collection, I was able to conduct a telephonic interview with the head of customer relations in T-Mobile. I interviewed him regarding various the problems faced by the company and why the current online support system was slow and what could be done to beef up the process. Besides that my information came from various secondary sources including academic journals, newspapers, technology magazines and research papers. Customer Analysis Customer analysis is carried out to determine who are our customers and how our product holding is spread amongst them (Jobber, 1995). T-Mobiles customers are well spread out across all categories, be them corporate clients or individual users. The following are mainly in need of and are already using our services: General public / Individual users Corporations – They buy bulk connections for all their employees Various governmental agencies The army for its top brass – This information however remains confidential In order to conduct a thorough customer analysis we need to determine who are our core clients in terms of revenue generation. For that to happen, it is essential that we divide our products in to particular market segments. According to the interview with the head of customer relations, T-Mobile UK, the following facts were brought to my knowledge: There has been a persistent increase over the years in the number of connections purchased by teenagers. Text messaging trend has gone down and demand for data packages has gone up by a significant margin. Most revenue is generated from the calling business. And the most active group as far as calling is concerned is the corporate clientele. Most people prefer to get help by calling up the help desk from their cell phones rather then using the online services and live support forum. A growing number of complains have been obtained from people using the online services. The complains are usually regarding slow response and non friendly staff. Marketing Mix The marketing mix is a tool used by marketing professionals to market different type of products. All companies engage in planning, analysis and control to develop the best type of marketing strategy for their products and services, in order to market them more effectively (Chabtree, 2003). Marketing mix consists of 7 Ps. These seven Ps include: Product – The products that the company deals with are mobile phone, cellular connections, internet services and telephony services. The company is part of major development forums and therefore offers new services to its customers as soon as they come out in the market. 4G is the latest data technology and T-Mobile plans to launch it soon for its users to enjoy mind boggling data speeds. Price – The company prices its products with respect to its other competitors in the market, like Orange and 3. T-Mobile cant obviously play on price differentiation since it doesnt offer products which are different in nature from other companies. Product differentiation is also not possible since all cellular companies sell almost the same cell phones. Therefore, price is set determined by the competitors are charging and thereby it is set accordingly. Promotion – T-Mobile offers incredible deals to its customers throughout the year. It also spends a lot of money for promoting the companys products in the market. The company promotes its products advertising in news papers, magazines, setting up bill boards, running advertisements on television and by distributing flyers, setting up stalls and sponsoring different kind of events. Place – T-Mobile has stores all over the UK. It has it stores in major shopping malls and famous roads. The company has a total of 720 stores all across the United Kingdom. Process – How to get a T-Mobile cellular phone or connection is very easy, All one needs to do it go to a company operated stored with their ID card, carry out the formalities and get hooked up with a new connection. Physical evidence People – T-mobile employs a lot of people from all walks of life in its stores and service centers. The services provided by the company are available to all individuals coming from all walks of life. All one needs to do is simply walk up to a T-Mobile store and get a connection and go on. Operations Management Operations management refers to how the operations of a company are carried out so as to provide the maximum amount of benefit to the company. The key aim of operations management within a company is to effectively and efficiently deliver to the customers the goods and services that they require from us (Noble, 1998). Operations management isnt as simple as taking in the inputs, carrying out a process and delivering the goods. There are a lot of other factors which need to be considered to make sure the correct product is delivered which meets consumers demands (Feldmann, 2005). However often times it is seen that there is a mismatch between what the marketing department of a company requires and what the operational activity actually turns out to be. In the case of T-Mobile only, it was noticed that the marketing department wanted to spend heavily on marketing and cut down on its prices (Economist Intelligence Unit, 1989). It wanted to follow a policy of price penetration so as the maximum number of people could get its connection. The marketing company was of the view that this way even thought a loss might be incurred in the current year, profits would grow from the next year as people would use more and more of the service then. The operational activity of company however turned out to be very different from what the marketing department expected it to be. The operations management decided not to follow the price penetration policy as that was expected to put the company in a major loss in the current year. Therefore, it was decided not to carry on the price penetration policy and carry on with the current pricing policy to save the company from resulting in a loss in the current year. Research Findings As mentioned above, the main problems faced by T-Mobile UK is delayed customer support and failure to satisfy the customers queries on time. A total of 100 people were selected randomly to answer the questionnaire designed and the following responses were received: 83 percent of the people believed that the business conducted in T-Mobile stores in a a very professional and friendly manner. 47 percent of the people said they used to online customer support system to seek solution to their queries A staggering 85 percent of those using the online customer support system to seek solutions to their problems agreed that the online system was very slow and failed to solve problems. 65 percent of the people who use the online forum agreed that the online system is not a reliable enough. 20 percent of the people using the online customer support said their problems were solved on the first talk with the customer representative. 92 percent of the people agreed that the employees at the T-Mobile stores were willing to help the customers solve their issues. 75 percent of the people who visited the store for help and 35 percent of the people who seeked online help said that customer services representative who dealt with their case kept them updated on the status of their problem during the course of solving the query. It was interesting to notice that 89 percent of the people who visited T-Mobile stores said they believed the company maintains high level of transparency in their work whereas only 15 percent of the people who used the online customer support service said this. 74 percent of the people using the online service said they got annoyed while waiting to get their number to talk to a CSR online. Where to people go to seek support Reliability Of Online Support On an overall basis it was noticed that the results for online support were very poor. A lot of people can be seen to be complaining about the deplorable state of the online customer services. It also needs to be noticed that such a thing would also effect the image of the company alongside tainting its image in the cellular phone market. In response to the answers attained on this questionnaire, the head of customer solutions in T-Mobile UK mentioned the following points: Pay as you go customers were given second priority in the online support system. The preference was to solve the queries of billing customers first. The online support system does not operate 24/7. The online support forum is closed for 6 hours a day and thats when the bulk of the complains file up. The online forum since it is newly launched is currently understaffed. The software used by the online support system often crashed and in that case the customers waiting had to be assign random service numbers. This often resulted in huge delays. It was also noticed that in the current times people prefer to get more and more information online. They prefer to get their queries solved online rather then going to a store and seeing a customer services representative. In such a scenario, a messed up online service solution did cast a lot of damage to the companys image. Conclusion The purpose of this report was to determine the cause of slow response from the online services and support team of T-Mobile. This report also aimed to discover what effect does the slow response have on the customers and how they perceive the company to as a result of it. After carrying out a thorough research it can be concluded that the slow response could be attributed to the way problems in the way the new online support system was set up. The following recommendations should be followed if the company wants to correct its market image and offer better services to its customers. Recommentations The following recommendations need to be followed in order to rectify the currently super slow online customer support: Customers should not be divided on the basis of pay as you go and billing customers. All customers should be given equal priority and billing ones should be treated preferentially. This would boost up the response rate as there are more pay as you go customers as compared to billing ones. A dedicated online support department should set up which should work 24 hours a day and 365 days a week. This would mean there would be no piling up of complains as the office closes. The online services department should be be fully staffed. Hirings should be done on an urgent basis and staffed be hired to such a level that all customers needs are met at the earliest with the minimum amount of waiting. The software used by the online services team should be redesigned and thoroughly tested before it is brought in to use. Questionnaire This survey was designed by “your name” who is a student at “university name”. This survey seeks to obtain an understanding of how the customers perceive the services by T-Mobile to be. It aims to specifically see if their online support is efficient and provides adequate response to its customers Name: Address: Telephone: Email: Instructions: Kindly fill in this survey to help us with our research. 1 stands for a strong disagreement whereas you can select 5 if you strongly agree with a question. 1 --- 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 5 STRONGLY DISAGREE STRONGLY AGREE 1. T-mobile UK has operates in a friendly and considerate business surrounding. 1 2 3 4 5 2. T-mobile UK has up-to-date and a well informed work force. 1 2 3 4 5 3. T-mobile UK’s employees are highly professional and their appearance is complying with professional standards. 1 2 3 4 5 4. The reliability and quality standards of T-mobile UK’s online services are high enough to meet demand of customers 1 2 3 4 5 5. T-mobile UK delivers according to the deadline they have claimed to meet. 1 2 3 4 5 6. T-mobile UK provides accurate information whenever asked for it on its online support forum. 1 2 3 4 5 7. T-mobile UK’s employees are considerate towards customers and they handle customer’s complaints with care. 1 2 3 4 5 8. T-mobile UK’s employees provide correct feedback when ever order status is checked by customers. 1 2 3 4 5 9. T-mobile UK’s online help desk employees are very considerate towards customers and are always ready to help them. 1 2 3 4 5 10. T-mobile UKs online help desk ensures transparency while dealing with customers and providing them information. 1 2 3 4 5 11. T-mobile UK’s employees always update customers about any details related to their transactions. 1 2 3 4 5 12. T-mobile UK’s employees provide proper advice to customers which help in building customer confidence. 1 2 3 4 5 13. T-mobile UK’s online customer support team employees are very customer oriented and they deal customers with special care. 1 2 3 4 5 14. T-mobile UK’s employees are well trained and are highly experienced in the field of dealing with customers of all sorts. 1 2 3 4 5 15. T-mobile UK provides individual attention to individual customers, they handle all customers separately. 1 2 3 4 5 16. T-mobile UK responds to customer’s issues in the shortest possible time period. 1 2 3 4 5 17. T-mobile UK’s online support team employees are well aware of the special needs of each customer. 1 2 3 4 5 18. T-mobile UK provides after delivery online as well as store services to all its customers. 1 2 3 4 5 19. T-mobile UK gives great importance to the interest of customers and ensures that customer interest takes precedence over company’s self interest. 1 2 3 4 5 20. T-mobile UK supplies all equipments in compliance with the deadline they have agreed to deliver. 1 2 3 4 5 21. T-mobile UK ensures that correct and complete documention of the service is provided to the customers. 1 2 3 4 5 References LOVELOCK, C., & WIRTZ, J. (2007). Services marketing: people, technology, strategy. Upper Saddle River, N.Y., Pearson/Prentice-Hall. JOBBER, D. 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