CASE 16 Do-lt-Yourself Building Centres Do-It- Yourself Building Centres (DIY) i
ID: 357779 • Letter: C
Question
CASE 16 Do-lt-Yourself Building Centres Do-It- Yourself Building Centres (DIY) is a major regional home centre retailer stores, all located within two Canadian provinces. I t competes with the market leader, Home Depot. Although Home Depot has a larger product range and lower average prices, DIY has carved out a very lucrative niche by serving homeowners who undertake renovation or construction projects. Each DIY building centre has about 25,000 different products. A major part of its business is to provide advice to customers undertaking their own renovations and con- struction projects. The in-store sales associates devote a significant part of their time to providing free advice to customers. Among other forms of advice, this involved rec- ommending the type of paint to use on the outside of a house compared to what to use on the interior, the type of stone and patterns for an interlocking stone driveway for a suburban home, etc. The enthusiasm of DITY to provide assistance to customers has been so prevalent that the receptionists of individual stores have been obliged to provide advice or to pass the telephone calls on to the relevant associate on the sales floors. Although pro- viding advice had been believed to be very successful in developing a loyal customer base and contributing to profitability, the calls were frequently disruptive. Associates were often busy with in-store customers at the time of the calls. Often, the calls were put through to inappropriate associates: e.g, a paint question was given to the fence and deck associate. In addition, calls that were put on hold were frequently lost as the reception telephone systems were not designed for call centre purposes. To more effectively respond to customer requests for information, DIY established a dedicated call centre staffed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. The call centre is located in a small town in the southern part of the region. There is a 1-800 telephone number for callers holding a valid DIY credit card to access a variety of information services. The call centre associates are equipped with a telephone and Internet access to search for information on DIY products. These associates also have access to information on the Web pages of many suppliers. All calls are recorded. As well as getting information on store locations and opening hours, callers are able to gain free advice on products and projects. They are able to ask questions about the tools and materials for projects and to get assistance from experts with soly ing problems with projects they are undertaking without the need to travel to a store. re associates have extensive DIY store experience, with special training 75Explanation / Answer
Like all other business organization the basic objective of the call center also is to generate revenue for the organization, as the organization has set up this dedicated call center so that the service to the customers are of high quality which the organization was failing to provide recently because of high business pressure. I believe that in order to understand that the call center is actually contributing to profitability or not then I need to analyze the reports related to sales of the organization and that too pre call center reports and post call center reports which will provide the actual volume of sales and if there is any difference in the sales volume that has happened after the formation of the call center. This will give the measure of the profitability which may have increased or not, any change in the numbers and figures will give the information about the effect that the call center has on the business.
Customers are pleased which is very obvious because their concerns are being resolved at the right time but the organization also needs to be happy and that is possible only after the organization starts making profit.
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