The Bat Case: Putting Tech Support on the Fast Track

The BAT Case: Putting Tech support on the Fast Track

1. What are the most critical problems BAT is facing?

               The most critical problems faced by BAT are listed as below:

•  BAT provides free technical support for all products. However, with the increase in volume of calls, most callers were place on hold before speaking to technician.
• The average wait during peak times across all teams was around eight minutes, and waits more than twice as long were not uncommon.
• 35% of tech support users abandoned calls two or more times before deciding to “tough it out” and wait to reach a technician.
• The other factor was proliferation of products. While BAT offer products in three markets, looking at that level masked the variety of products it had to support. Above all, BAT provided newer versions every twelve to eighteen months. To cope up these variety, volume of calls was also increased as the customer service was suffering.
• Getting a support technician up to speed for even a limited number of products took six months and $5,000. In order to attract and retain skilled workers, BAT paid its support technicians well above levels normally associated with call center work. Technicians started at $40,000 plus benefits, and some senior technicians earned more than $65,000.
  
  Details that remain undecided:
• Implementation: The consultants’ report had been rather vague about how to implement the proposal. Specifically, it did not say how BAT should deliver the promised Fast Track response time.
• Resources: unsure about the resources required to carry out the proposal.
• Impact on standard calls: One-minute promise would trump the competition, but it would benefit few customers only.
• Implementing the guarantee: The consultants had suggested a one-minute average speed for answering Fast Track calls. Even if BAT delivered an average wait of one minute, some callers would experience much longer waits.
• Pricing: BAT also offer service contracts, charging an annual fee to allow customers to make an unlimited number of Fast Track calls. Product managers for BOP! thought this would be attractive to businesses, but tech support managers wondered about its impact on the Fast Track program.
  

1. What is the capacity of BOP! Team 1? How does it compare to the arrival rate (throughput)?

Average Call duration: 18.2 minutes

Number of Technicians in BOP! Team1: 8

Each technician would have a call duration of 1/18.2 calls per minute. Therefore, 8 Technicians would have call duration of 8*(1/18.2) calls per minute. That means, in terms of hours, 8*(1/18.2)*60 calls her hours, which is equal to 26.37 calls per hour

The arrival rate of calls to the technical support is 22.5 calls per hour.

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