Greyhound Bank: Credit Card Division Greyhound Bank operates in the United States and provides a full range of financial services for individuals and businesses. The credit card division is a profit center that has experienced a 10 percent annual growth rate over the last few years. These credit card services include producing and mailing the plastic credit cards to customers, preparing online and mailing monthly statements to customers, handling all customer requests such as stop payments and customer complaints, and preparation and distribution of summary online reports to all individual and corporate customers. "Our internal operational measures seem to be good," Ms. Juanita Sutherland, the president of Greyhound's credit card division stated, "but the customer perceives our performance as poor based on marketing's recent customer survey. So, what's going on here? Can anyone at this meeting explain to me this mismatch between these two different sources of information? Is it an important problem or not?" Mr. Luke C. Morris, the vice president of operations quickly responded, "Juanita, one reason there's a mismatch is that operations doesn't have a say in the customer survey's design or performance criteria. We don't ask the same questions or use the same criteria!" "Wait a minute Luke. We often ask you operations folks for input into our customer survey design but the job usually gets shuttled to your newest MBA who doesn't have enough company knowledge to truly help us out." stated Mr. Bill Barlow, the corporate vice president of marketing, as he leaned forward on the conference room table. "O.K.” Ms. Sutherland interjected. "I want you two to work on this issue and tell me in one week what to do. I've got another appointment so I must leave now but you two have got to work together and figure this thing out. I'm worried that we are losing customers!" At a subsequent meeting between Mr. Morris and Mr. Barlow and their respective operations and marketing staffs, the following comments were made: “The trends in the marketing customer survey are helpful to everyone but the performance criteria simply do not match up well between marketing and operations." "Plastic card turnaround performance is very good based on the marketing survey data, but the wording of the customer survey questions on plastic card turnaround time is sage." "Operations people think they know what constitutes excellent service but how can they be sure?” "You'll never get marketing to let us help them design their customer survey," said an angry operations supervisor. “Their marketing questions and what really happens are two different things.” "We need a consistent numerical basis for knowing how well process performance snatches up with external performance. My sample of data (see Exhibit 2.11) is a place to start." "If your backroom operational performance measures really do the job, who cares about matching marketing and operations performance information. The backroom is a cost center, not a profit center!" The meeting ended with a lot of arguing but not much progress. Both functional areas were protecting their "turf." How would you address Ms. Sutherland's questions? Questions to answer: 1. What are the major problems facing the credit card division?
Greyhound Bank: Credit Card Division
Greyhound Bank operates in the United States and provides a full range of financial services for individuals and businesses. The credit card division is a profit center that has experienced a 10 percent annual growth rate over the last few years. These credit card services include producing and mailing the plastic credit cards to customers, preparing online and mailing monthly statements to customers, handling all customer requests such as stop payments and customer complaints, and preparation and distribution of summary online reports to all individual and corporate customers.
"Our internal operational measures seem to be good," Ms. Juanita Sutherland, the president of Greyhound's credit card division stated, "but the customer perceives our performance as poor based on marketing's recent customer survey. So, what's going on here? Can anyone at this meeting explain to me this mismatch between these two different sources of information? Is it an important problem or not?"
Mr. Luke C. Morris, the vice president of operations quickly responded, "Juanita, one reason there's a mismatch is that operations doesn't have a say in the customer survey's design or performance criteria. We don't ask the same questions or use the same criteria!"
"Wait a minute Luke. We often ask you operations folks for input into our customer survey design but the job usually gets shuttled to your newest MBA who doesn't have enough company knowledge to truly help us out." stated Mr. Bill Barlow, the corporate vice president of marketing, as he leaned forward on the conference room table.
"O.K.” Ms. Sutherland interjected. "I want you two to work on this issue and tell me in one week what to do. I've got another appointment so I must leave now but you two have got to work together and figure this thing out. I'm worried that we are losing customers!"
At a subsequent meeting between Mr. Morris and Mr. Barlow and their respective operations and marketing staffs, the following comments were made:
- “The trends in the marketing customer survey are helpful to everyone but the performance criteria simply do not match up well between marketing and operations."
- "Plastic card turnaround performance is very good based on the marketing survey data, but the wording of the customer survey questions on plastic card turnaround time is sage."
- "Operations people think they know what constitutes excellent service but how can they be sure?”
- "You'll never get marketing to let us help them design their customer survey," said an angry operations supervisor. “Their marketing questions and what really happens are two different things.”
- "We need a consistent numerical basis for knowing how well process performance snatches up with external performance. My sample of data (see Exhibit 2.11) is a place to start."
- "If your backroom operational performance measures really do the job, who cares about matching marketing and operations performance information. The backroom is a cost center, not a profit center!"
The meeting ended with a lot of arguing but not much progress. Both functional areas were protecting their "turf." How would you address Ms. Sutherland's questions?
Questions to answer:
1. What are the major problems facing the credit card division?
2. What steps are required to develop a good internal and external performance and information system?
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2. What steps are required to develop a good internal and external performance and information system?
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