Business Research Problem: Retention of Customers
The first 'problem' or challenge for any business organization is to bring customers through the door. Only then can the sales staff can encourage customers to purchase the customer's first taste of the product or service that the business is providing. However, bringing in new customers is only the first step in running a successful operation. One must also retain customers and create a loyal base of income for the organization.
The medical industry is a vital part of the nation's economy. But it is also an industry that often has customer satisfaction problems. Some of these are no fault of the individual office's, medical insurance companies are to blame. But a company must also look within itself and do some soul searching when there is an imbalance in the quality provided by one department and the other department. When two departments appear to be at odds, the company must realize it is not only the industry that is to blame.
The MRI company that I work has a sales department that consistently meets its benchmarks and quality control standards for drawing in new customers. However, the operations department's lack of organizational skills often results in the company losing accounts because of poor service and because of the operation's department's poor attitudes towards customers. The operations department puts the customer last rather than first, in contrast to the sales department.
The...
Three possible outcomes are as follows: both company departments can be held to equal levels of customer service, thus creating a higher rate of customer retention after the sales department has brought new customers in. Or, the operations department can continue to lose customers if it continues to behave in the same fashion, resulting in a steady stream of loss of eager new customers. An even more negative potential outcome is that the sales department will grow dispirited, begin to recruit fewer customers because of the failures of the operations department. This outcome could have the effect of covering up the incompetence of the operations people in an unintentional fashion -- the operations department will appear to be losing less business, simply because fewer customers are coming in through the door.
Key to achieving the first and most desirable outcome of increasing the retention of new customers and improving the behavior and efficiency of the operations department would be to hold the operations department to the same standards in its retention of customers as the sales department is required to recruit customers. The specifically defined research problem is how to institute proper quality control measures for the operations department. A useful business research management model to deploy to this operational problem is that…
