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Listen-Up.com Background Mai Chen, fresh from business school, has been hired by Listen-Up.com, a small, start-up manufacturer of hearing aids, to resolve the difficulties within its customer service group. During its three years of existence the company has experienced rapid growth with the number of units produced more than doubling each year, but its market share is only about 3% and, more importantly, profits have failed to materialize. Start-up costs were greater than expected and although manufacturing costs have declined significantly, the costs associated with order taking and distribution have remained problematic Listen-Up.com does not provide its products through retail outlets. Orders for the company’s products are either taken over the Internet or phoned in using the company’s tollfree telephone lines. Its strategy is to provide a superior product, and quickly respond to specific needs of the patient. Because of the asynchronous nature of communication over the Internet, email orders are usually processed without any major difficulty. However, many customers have questions about the hearing aid products, so telephone orders is a major and growing sales channel. The rapid growth and stochastic nature of telephone orders has created challenges for the company in terms of scheduling its customer service staff and optimizing its toll free line capacity. Specifically, the average waiting time is over 80 seconds. During the peak period of 7:30 am to 2:00 pm the average waiting time is over 127 seconds. Approximately 76% of all callers have to wait. In addition to abandoned calls being in excess of 34%, the number of customers who hear only a busy signal is unknown. Customers have been telling the Listen-Up.com sales staff that it is next to impossible to get through to ask questions and place orders. It had been suggested that the company give a special bonus to the customer service representatives when they go out of their way to help a phone customer in an...