Customer Relationship at AV Book House

1. Introduction

The operational process for the organisation is necessary to develop effective strategic planning for making the business successfully (Heizer, Render, and Munson, 2017). AV Book house is one of the famous book houses in Karnataka, India which is licensed by the Indian government regulatory body. The book house provides the services to the customers with quality books and efficient care to the customers where it is a small and medium sized business in Karnataka, India. The services, provided by the AV Book house are such as appropriate books and magazines where the staff members are efficient to serve the customers proficiently by identifying the correct books for the customers. The integral focus of the company AV book house is on the maximisation of the customer’s values by improving customer relationship management strategy where the organisation tries to emphasise on the customer’s requirements and improve their operational activities efficiently to gain high competitive advantage in the market of India. The unit of AV book house expands their services across the place Davangere, Karnataka, which is situated in the southern part of India. The services includes efficient support to the customers, authentic books with correct writers, the availability of the books and magazines at the stores and efficient customer relationship management where the staff members are trying to build strong relationship with all the customers in the market through improving trust and loyalty. The customer’s complaints in the AV book house are also managed well in the company where the staff members try to enhance their service quality and cooperate with each customer for finding the authentic books at the store.

In order to create well functioning system of the organisation AV Book house, the managers and the staff members are skilled and knowledgeable to develop operational process and adopt the strategy of delivering quality products at affordable price. Product availability at the stores as well as the presence of variety of books are the main strategic planning of the AV Book house through which they try to satisfy the customers in the market and gain high competitive advantage. The employees are also in this regard plying a crucial role in cooperating with each other and sharing their views and experience to maximise the values of the customers (Islam, 2018). In this regard, the staff members at the store try to collaborate with each other and work as a group to deliver high quality service to each of the customers who visit the store of the AV book house. In this regard, the organisational structure is necessary in the AV book house through which the firm follows the hierarchical structure of the workplace where each of the staff members, managers and directors are working cooperatively to meet the ultimate aim of the AV Book house.

As per the above organisational structure, there is CEO or director of the AV book house who is taking care of the whole operatiosn in the store and leads all the staff members and managers towards achieving success. On the other hand, there are managers at the store, book keepers who handle the availability of the books at the store. Additionally, the staff members of supervision and monitoring the process through computerised system as well as the front line staff members are efficient to handle the customers and manage them efficiently by delivering quality books at affordable price. Proper cooperation and collaboration with each of the team members at the store is the major success factor for the AV Book house to achieve future gaol and enhance the performance of the organisation in the market.

2. Operational process

The organisation AV book house focuses on developing suitable operational process in order to making their customers happy and fulfilling the requirements of the consumers successfully in the market.

Input transformational and output model:

2.1 Process map for the AV Book house

The process map is the flow chart of the organisational operational activities through which it is possible to acknowledge the relationship between the steps under the operations in the organisation and understand the functions responsible for them (Gibson, and Parkman, 2018). As per the flow chart, the staff and managers at the AV book house are managing the customers well with handling them with their queries and help them to find the right books as per their requirements.

Moreover, the managers try to check the product availability at the store and provide the quality books to the customer with authentic writers according to the needs and preferences of the customers (Reid, and Sanders, 2015). The welcoming practice and cooperation and support to the customers make them feel comfortable at the store and maximise their values successfully in long run. Receiving the material and managing the financial transaction for purchasing the books are also very clear and concise at the store where the customers can make the payment easily without any hesitation.

2.1.1 Issues derived from receiving the operations

From the process map, it has been found that, the operations are well established and the staff members and the managers are well knowledgeable and skilled to handle the customers. However, there are certain risks at the store for which the quality of their service may be hampered as well (Mahadevan, 2015). There is some staff that is not skilled enough to serve better care and service to the customers. Moreover, lack of knowledge among the staff members regarding the books, authors and availability of the books at the store further deteriorates the service. There is lack of supervision and monitoring where some of the customers cannot get proper support from the end of the staff members regarding identifying the right books for them according to their needs and preferences. The internal departmental team who are mainly in back office are not skilled enough to serve the customers directly and handle them properly. This is one of the major issues, for which the customer’s service may be hampered in near future.

2.2 Process characteristics

2.2.1 Four V’s

As per the four v analysis, the factors are such as volume, variety, variation and visibility and in this regard, the key success factors of the organisation depends on these factors which are important to enhance the performance of the business and achieve future success. The four Vs are described further,

Volume:

As per the operational activities, volume of the services needs to be maintained by the organisation where the firms are have good customer base and there is huge numbers of customers, who can visit the place on a daily basis., this is helpful for the organisation to maintain the volume of the business and enhance their performance in the market. In this regard, the organisation AV book house has strong customers base in the Karnataka, India, where there is string base of loyal and long run customers who are willing to make effective purchase decision form the AV book house store. Hereby, the company has strong customer base to secure future sustainable development as well as retain more new customers for their quality service and effective products.

Variety:

The AV book house offers a huge variety of books and magazines as per the needs and preferences of the customers. In this regard, the AV book house focuses on managing the variety of books with different authors and publishers so that the customers can find the right book as per their requirements. Diverse books and different author further strengthen the base of the AV book house to gain high market share as the company has knowledge about the market demand and I this context, the AV book house is successful in managing the variety of stocks of the books at their store.

Visibility:

The operations of the AV book house have low visibility in the market through they have strong customer base in the area of India. It is necessary for the organisation AV book house to improve their visibility in the market to strengthen their customer’s base in near future so that they can attract more audiences at the market.

Variation:

As per the above discussion, there is high volume where the staff members and the managers can serve the customers efficiently, and in this context, the variation is medium in the operational process of the AV book house where the manager and staff can manage the market demand and fulfil the queries of the customers proficiently. The above mentioned four Vs are effective for the AV book house to develop appropriate operational activities to achieve future success and meet the aim of the organisation by delivering quality books to a vast range of customers. The four dimensions further influence the AV book house to improve their service quality and reduce the waiting time of the customers and serve better support and quality products to them within effective time.

2.3 Performance objectives

Performance objectives are necessary to develop in order to meet the competitive advantage in the market and gain high market share so that the organisation can establish the business sustainably. In this regard, the major performance objectives for the organisation AV book house can be evaluated through considering the factors such as quality, pricing, speed, cost of operations and flexibility.

Quality:

It is necessary for the organisations to manage the quality of the products and services to satisfy the customers and strengthen their customer’s base for future to secure future sustainable development (Kato et al., 2015). In this context, the organisation AV book house also focuses on quality of the books, where they try to protect the book and improve packaging style to deliver quality books to the customers safely. Accordingly, availability of the diverse books with different writers and publishers will be effective for the organisation to retain the customers in long run. Hereby, quality is necessary to control in order to enhance the performance of the AV book house in the market.

Cost:

By considering the cost, it is possible for the organisation to reduce the cost of the operations and set competitive pricing for retaining the customers for long run. In this regard, the cost minimisation strategic planning is beneficial for the AV book house to set affordable price for the books and retain more audiences at the market.

Flexibility:

Flexibility is necessary in the operational process in order to improve the efficiency of the operations of the organisation. In this context, flexibility to handle the customers needs to be improved for the AV book house in order to manage the customers in long run. It is also necessary for the organisation AV book house to adapt new technology to manage the work load at the store and improve their efficiency to perform in the market and provide better service to the customers.

Dependability:

Dependability means meeting the deadline of delivery and in this context, the organisation AV book house is efficient to handle the queries of the customers and record the expectation of the customers for improving future performance.

Speed:

In terms of speed to perform better and serve the customers efficiently, it is necessary for the AV book house to increase speed so that they can serve more customers at one time. In this regard, it needs to be improved in the AV book house in order to gain high market share and strengthen their customer’s base.

3. Operational analysis

3.1 Methodology

The data are gathered through secondary research on the organisation where the process map and other strategic management tools and techniques of operational management are effective to collect authentic information about the organisation and the operational process on the organisation AV book house. The above mentioned diagrams are indicting various steps of operations in the book house and the observations of the operations at the store are also effective to gather the information about the AV book house. the root cause analysis and seven wastes analysis are also effective to gather the information about the drawbacks of the organisation so that it would be effective to suggest further strategies to improve the operational process of the book house for meeting the customer’s requirements and enhance the performance in the market to grab new market opportunities and gain high competitive advantage.

3.2 Analysis

3.2.1 Seven waste analysis

There are seven types of wastes as per the operational management and lean principle, which are over production, motion, inventory, waiting, transportation, over processing and defects (Bromiley and Rau, 2016). Based on the process map, the major asset for the organisation AV book house are waiting time of the customers, lack of management of the customers and lack of innovation and creativity through technological advancement for which the customers become dissatisfied in the store in finding the right books as per their actual needs and preferences. It is necessary for the organisation AV book house to resolve the problem of the wastage and develop efficient strategic planning in order to improve their operational efficiency. Hereby, lack of skilled workforce, poor technological up-gradation, waiting time of the customers and lack of management of the customer’s service as well as high operational cost are the major wastes in the AV book house which need to be managed well and establish effective strategic planning for managing the operational activities to create values for the customers.

3.2.2 Root cause analysis: cause and effect analysis

Through fish bone analysis, it is possible to identify the cause and effects of the operational activities in the organisation (Haksever and Render, 2017). The fish bone analysis includes the factors such as method, people, measurement, environment, machine and materials in the organisation which are important to enhance the performance of the AV book house.

As per the fish bone analysis, people and method are necessary to serve the customers efficiently in the AV book house. In this regard, lack of skilled workforce ad poor management and lack of technological advancement at the store of AV book house are the causes where the effect is poor customer service. On the other hand, the factors such as environment, machinery and materials are also necessary and in this regard, the company AV book house has favourable environment and materials to manage the stock of the books, but there is lack of machinery at the store which could be helpful for the company to manage the customers in more creative way. High cost is another cause of which the price of the books becomes high and this context, in such as era of global competition, it would be beneficial for the book house to minimise cost of the operational activities at the store and set affordable price for the books so that the customers can afford it successfully.

3.2.3 Five Whys analysis

The five Whys analysis is important to examine the breakdown of the operational process in the organisation. Through this analysis, it is possible to develop preventive measures for improving the service quality of the AV book house successfully. The questions are generated further,

Question 1: Why the staff cannot provide efficient service to the customers at the first time?

Answer: Lack of knowledge and skill of the staff is the major reason to serve the customers at the first time.

Question 2: Why the customer is transferred to the manager?

Answer: The front line staffs are not skilled enough to have all the information about the availability of the books.

Question 3: Why the price of the book is high?

Answer: For high operational cost, the price of the books becomes high.

Question 4: Why the operator fails to resolves the query of the customers?

Answer: lack of management and poor skill to handle customer relationship.

Question 5: Why management team enhance technology to manage the customers?

Answer: Lack of financial resources and poor resource allocation are the major reason behind it.

4. Evaluation of the analysis

As per the above analysis, it has been found that, the organisation AV book house has the issue sin process and customer handling where the waiting time is greater and the staff couldn’t manage the customers well as per the recent trend of customer handling technique due to lack of technological advancement and poor knowledge among the staff. Though the organisation is successful in managing the book availability at the store where they focus on presenting the variety of books to the customers, they fail to crate values for the customers. Lack of management of the customers and poor customer handling technique are the major cause for which the company sometime fail to retain the long run customers or their products and services. It would be beneficial for the AV book house to set strategic priorities and develop appropriate planning to enhance their performance in the market and secure future sustainable development.

5. Recommendations

On the basis of the above analysis, it is necessary for the organisation AV book house to improve their operational process where the strategic priorities are such as,

Fulfilling the customer’s demand

Managing the customers

Improving customer relationship management

Managing stock of diverse books

Developing computerised system

Launching online services

Considering the above mentioned strategic priorities, the director of the book house needs to provide proper training and develop program to all the staff members for improving their abilities and knowledge to provide efficient customers service. Continuous service is necessary where the staff can handle customer’s queries and support the consumers to review the books and choose the best books according to the needs and preferences of the buyers. Additionally, it is necessary to open online services where in such an era of globalisation, technological advancement is necessary for customer relationship management. The managers and director of the book house needs to implement computerised system for managing the stock of the books through cloud computing so that the waiting time of the customers can be minimised and the customer can get instant service and resolve their queries about any particular book. On the other hand, it would be beneficial for the organisation Av book house to develop online service through creating company website where the customers can review the availability of the books and place their orders successfully. In this era of digitalisation, majority of the customers prefer online e-commerce service for purchasing the books and in this regard, this strategy of operations will improve the brand visibility and retain more customers for long run. The welcoming of the customers also needs to be improved where the customers will get free Wi-Fi at the store to check the required books on internet and resolve queries about the authors and publishers which are also important for Av book house to management the customers and resolve their quires successfully.

6. Conclusion

The operational process of the AV book house is effective to create values of the customers where the customers can purchase the books from the store situated in Davangere, Karnataka, India where the variety of books and stock of the book improve availability of the books at the store which in turn helps the book house to retain more long run customers. However, for gaining high competitive advantage, it would be beneficial for the book house to improve online activities and retain online buyers through developing attractive company website where the customers can purchase the books. Apart from that, minimising the cost of operations through computerises system of managing book stock and providing customers service online as well as welcoming the customers at the store will be effective to improve their operational efficiency and enhance their performance in the market contributing in gaining high market share and strengthening their customer’s base.

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