Contemporary Logistics

1. Is this a customer service problem? Why or why not?

A well designed customer service that is satisfactory is essential in business progress. Customers are driven by the satisfaction of their need from the market. In the scenario, indeed, there is a customer service problem. For the first reason that the customers are not supplied with homogenous products across the market of the Handy Andy company. Some customers are charged more for similar products sold at lesser prices in different states. This can bring customer-company mistrust which is not good for success of business.

The second issue is that the personnel handed the responsibility of installing the acquired compactor by the customers are very impolite and unprofessional in the manner that they conduct their duties. It is the realm of their role to satisfactorily make the customers aware of how to operate the compactor to avoid any misuse. They have failed to perform this duty.

Lastly, the retailers gave misleading information about the kind of compactor available for sale. This was meant to draw undue benefit from the customer. This is against business ethics and customer service norms. It is also against the Handy Andy way of conducting its business for the retailers to enter into unauthorized business dealing.

2. It appears that the factory distributors are exploiting the licensed retailers. Yet from what we can tell, Handy Andy in St. Louis has heard no complaints from the licensed retailers. Why wouldn’t they complain?

The failure of the licensed retailers to contact Handy Andy as regards issues of exploitation...
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This is occasioned by the misrepresentation of significant information by the distributors concerning their link with Handy Andy. At a point distributors indicated that they stood behind the one-year warranty and not Handy Andy. The second reason is that they could be having benefits dealing with the distributors than when dealing with Handy Andy.
3. What should Handy Andy’s marketing vice president do? Why

The vice president has options of solutions to remedy the situation. It is important to note that the situation is not out of control as any customers have not met the troubles by the retailers and distributors. A large number of customers are satisfied. However this should not exclude the vice president from doing an effective public relation designed to inform the market on the methods of operations of Handy Andy and provide easily accessible channels of reporting any suspected misconduct from its agents.

The vice president can also constitute a team to investigate and research on the allegation brought forward all over their market because this information was unexpected and more information should be collected to get the real image of what is happening. The team will make recommendation on how to align the company operations which include sacking culpable officials to restore the integrity of the business process.

4. In the case is the statement, “The factory distributors in these few cities indicated that they, not Handy Andy, Inc., stood behind the one-year warranty.” Is this a problem for Handy Andy? Why or why not?

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