This below illustrates how a bank applied some basic quality tools to improve customer service. An average of 500 customers call this office every day. Surveys indicated that callers tended to become irritated if the phone rang more than five times before it was answered, and often would not call the company again. In contrast, a prompt answer after just two rings reassured the customers and made them feel more comfortable doing business by phone.

Selection of a Theme

Telephone reception was chosen as a six-sigma project for the following reasons:

Telephone reception is the first impression a customer receives from the company

This theme coincided with the company’s telephone reception slogan “Don’t make customers wait, and avoid needless switching from extension to extension”, and

It also coincided with a companywide campaign being promoted at that time that advocated being friendly to everyone one met.

First, the staff discussed why the present method of answering calls made callers wait. The break down below illustrates a frequent situation in which a call from customer B comes in while the operator is talking with customer A. Let’s see why the customer has to wait.

At (a), the operator receives a call from the customer but, due to lack of experience, does not know where to connect the call. At (b), the receiving party cannot answer the phone quickly, perhaps because he or she is unavailable, and no one else can take the call. The result is that the operator must transfer the call to another extension while apologizing for the delay.

How would you go about solving this problem?