Eastern Medical Case Final

The Business Context

The call centre of the Eastern Medical Faculty Foundation, hereafter referred to as EMFF, provides a competitive advantage to the Internal Medicine Department of the Chicago School of Medicine through the delivery of efficient and high quality service to patients. Treating patients generates revenue for the Internal Medicine Department and contributes to investments in research in the highly competitive healthcare sector. Unfortunately, declining customer satisfaction, as evidenced in a growing number of customer complaints, suggests the quality of service is deteriorating and threatens the very competitive advantage of the EMFF.

Problem Description

Laura Jones, supervisor of the call centre, seeks to remedy operational deficiencies and suspects the call centre suffers from insufficient capacity and/or scheduling problems.

The call centre faces high employee turnover. While this is consistent with the industry average, it unfortunately means most customer care representatives (CCRs) have limited experience. Only two CCRs have over two years experience while the remaining seven have worked less than one year. While new CCRs are given standard training they lack incentives linked to key performance indicators.

Compounding the problem is the increasing number of duties assigned to CCRs, including; scheduling patients, translating, handling queries, providing advice on first aid, and various administrative duties. Time spent on translation and administrative activities comes at the expense of servicing call centre inquiries. The operation therefore suffers from a scheduling problem.

Assumptions & Data Collection

The following analysis makes the assumption that efficiency can be improved through increasing CCR pay. *Empirical?* Data was gathered by Laura.

Methodology

The ideal solution must strike a balance between operational efficiency and service quality. By examining current call centre process and each of the Laura’s four...