MGT 602 Business Decision Analytics Assignment 3rd Solution

Introduction : Business Decision Analytics Case Study: Addressing Customer Satisfaction and Employee Retention Issues at Torrens University

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In this report, the issues, such as poor customer satisfaction and employee retention were highlighted. The primary reasons for such issues were determined in the meeting. These were poor IT infrastructure, IT training, high workload, etc. The report demonstrated the use of three widely used decision-making tools, namely GDSS, Decision tree analysis, and Leximancer tool. Data collection was crucial for implementing these tools and analysis was also done. This helped in making sound recommendations. The suggestions for implementing the best IT software for better communication and information flow across the organisation were provided. Also, training should be provided to employees regularly.

In the modern world, organisations are facing a plethora of issues and to deal with them, they are making use of a lot of approaches. The system thinking is one such approach and helping the business experts and leaders to resolve the issue quickly. It facilitates the sound decision making and quick solutions. In this report, business data analytics is done in context of an issue faced by the Torrens University. For that purpose, data collection and analysis are carried out. In addition to this, three decision-making tools are brought into use. Based on the data analysis, certain recommendations are provided for the university in the end.

Problem Statement

The manager realises that the University is not able to provide quality services to customers. The poor customer service is causing customer dispersion and students are moving to the rival universities. The issue started five years back but none of the executive addressed it. The issues are caused due to long waiting time for reaching the University executives to resolve admission related queries. Also, customer help department lacks staff to attend the customers. All these issues are amplifying the main issue of customer dispersion. The reputation of the University is at stake. Also, employees are not happy due to shortage of staff as they are overburdened with work. This has increased employee turnover.

To resolve the issue, a meeting has been called wherein all the heads of the department are invited to make decision on the following four aspects:

1. Ways to improve customer satisfaction
2. Type of training to staff
3. Latest Software for carrying out performances
4. Cost of total transformation in the University.

Research Question

The primary question is what tactics can be used by the University to improve customer retention and satisfaction?

Data Collection

I am very much clear with the fact that decision-making requires a heck of a lot of data. For example, one needs to gather all the information related to customer care department of the university that directly deals with the customers. The information was related to number of employees directly dealing with students who are seeking relevant information for their queries. Also, data related to training of employees and number of working hours each employee has in a day. I required the data related to the software and their version so as to know how effectively and efficiently the computer systems of the university facilitate a query. At last, I tried to prepare the cost of each element. Looking into the requirement of this research, I carried out both quantitative and qualitative research that helped me in understanding the seriousness of these issues. Here, the most valuable information source was the archives in the records office that aided in getting the data in regards to the variables causing expanding operational expense of the University. Additionally, some essential research was likewise led for better comprehension of the issues.

Majority of the data was collected by making use of survey questionnaire. In this survey, customers and employees along with team leaders were approached. The response gathered from them were recorded and fed into the computer with the help of MS Excel. The data process was semi-structured.

With the help of questionnaire, the opinion of the concerning stakeholders were recorded on ways to deal with the issues faced by the University. Likewise, they were solicited whether they know from any suggestion that can help in dealing with Torrens' customer service department. For the information assortment reason, 60 individuals were sent the survey form and out of which just 50 have responded well and presented the structures. The procedure is rehashed until an agreement is delivered.

Decision-Making Tool

As the decision-making process is quite complex, I would like to make use of certain decision-making tools for easing the process. For that purpose, a few tools or method are described below:-

• Group Decision Support System (GDSS): As it is a well-known fact that decision-making requires facts and figure. The questionnaire survey helped me in getting some relevant information about the primary issues the University is facing. GDSS can help in utilising the collected data and generating useful information. Nonetheless, before utilizing the GDSS as a basic decision-making tool, there are a few essentials to be dealt with. These are deciding the main problems and approaches to determine them (Holden, et.al, 2016). When this is done, the apparatus can be brought into utilization for choosing the best decision for the case. In the gathering, the careful discourse on the working expense and approaches to lessen it was done and in this manner, I can without much of a stretch utilize the GDSS device for the case.
• Decision-Tree Analysis: When there are numerous options available to resolve a problem, then nothing works best than the decision tree analysis. There are many ways to improve the customer satisfaction and the decision tree analysis can help in providing the most suitable option in the case. The method helps in comparing two or more options simultaneously. Since it depends on specific calculations, a non-parametric technique for parting the gathered information was brought into utilization and some significant results were recorded (Kou, et.al, 2015). The best piece of this procedure that it gave me a choice to determine both characterization and relapse issues (Shukla, 2014). The significant bit of leeway I got from this strategy is that the information didn't a lot of examination endeavours like standardization. Moreover, it didn't request scaling the information and furthermore any inclinations in the information or missing worth didn't hamper much in the basic leadership process.
• Leximancer Tool: The following tool is very much useful for Torrens University to resolve the issues related to poor customer satisfaction. With the help of the questionnaire, the data and information was collected from the experts. The main motive of using this tool is to create a transparent model that works on data. With the information collected from this model, one can easily understand or interpret. As there are large numbers of departments in the University, the data gathered from the survey was distinct and large. However, with the help if this tool, the information was pictorially represented. As the manager of the University, I am responsible to carry out all the operations effectively and make sure all the employees working at the University are happy (Singh &Singhal, 2015). The Leximancer tool was quite useful in the carrying out the data interpretation in an easy-to-understand way.
• Visualisation and Data Analysis : In the following case, there are many issues identified during the meeting with the head of the department. Lack of training to employees dealing with client is one such issue. They feel that university does not care about them at all. This is forcing them to join other institute in the region. IT experts say that university does not use advance technology and software to improve its efficiency and flow of information (Lee, et.al, 2016). This is delaying other processes as well. For that purpose, new software are required to installed along with other basic IT infrastructure. Marketing team suggests that the University should make use of the Internet-based marketing tools and services (Orpong & Wongleedee, 2019). The complete issue and recommendations from the Heads are presented in the figure 1 given below.

The key questions asked in the questionnaire that are actually relevant in this case are shown below with the responses recorded.

1. Do you think Customer service quality is not up to the mark?

2. What do you think is the main cause of issue with the customer service?

3. What could be the most suitable solution to resolve this issue?

4. Do you think improving IT infrastructure can resolve the issue?

5. Do you think providing training can improve employee retention rate?

Recommendations

From the data analysis, a lot of information has been gathered regarding resolving the issues hampering the normal functioning of the university. Based on this, certain organisational and personal recommendations are provided.

Organisational

Firstly, it is recommended to the university to organise for some training programme for employees directly involved in customer dealing. This would improve their skills and bring confidence in them. In addition to this, some investments are required to improvise the IT technology and infrastructure. This would improve the communication and flow of information across all the departments (Getele & Jean, 2018). Furthermore, in order to remove the additional burden from current employees, hiring should be done immediately. At last, for improving customer satisfaction, the University is required to make use of feedback system to record the positive as well as negative reviews of the customers (Kashif, et.al, 2015). This would help them in improving the customer services and resolving issues they face during their visit in the university.

Personal

As the manager, it is my prime duty to ensure that such things won’t repeat in the future. For that purpose, I would like to learn more and more decision-making tools and methods. I would recommend that senior employees should take care of their juniors’ training and learning. In case they need training programme, they can directly meet me or send a request via mail. Also, customer feedback system will be improved and I myself will make sure no request is left unattended from my side. Overall, this will help in improving the functionality of the university.

Conclusion

From the analysis, a lot of things were cleared regarding the decision-making in an organisation. The implementation of the decision-making tools was done and how they can be used in makings sound decisions for the University was determined. The use of data collection and analytics technique was demonstrated and its usefulness for the organisation was determined later. The issue of poor customer satisfaction and rising employee turnover was highlighted and based on the data analytics and visualisation, some recommendations were provided for the University.

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