2 DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING Data-Driven Decision Making Marathon petroleum is a United States based petroleum company. Its former parent company was Marathon oil company before it split up to stand on its own in 2011(Alley, 2017). It acquired Andeavor company in October 1st2018 and this made it the controlling company in the petroleum industry. It boasts over three million casks per twenty-four hours of refining abilities and has sixteen refineries all over the United States of America. It has been positioned at number fourteen in the fortune five hundred list of the biggest corporations in the United States by total revenue. Marathon petroleum has seen its glory days but has also not lacked challenges along the way. In this case study I focus on some of its challenges and how to overcome them. Defining the outcome to be achieved Though Marathon petroleum has proved to be a giant over the years, it has focused more on doing more sales, getting more profits and maximize on revenue(Smith, 2019). But they have forgotten about the customer care service and thus they are losing potential customers for simply not serving them well.This number of unsatisfied, unattended customers should reduce and if possible, should be unheard of and this defines our expected outcome. We expect that the number of unattended customers reduces ad there be good customer care service.The number of unsatisfied customers to rise or fall will be determined by a poll that will be done online for customers to answer some few questions. This would enable us to measure if our intended outcome has been achieved. Identifying the obstacles If the company chooses to employ staff that have studied customer care service and even have experience on the same, there will be a huge cost incurred on the company which may
3 DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING translate into affecting negatively the revenues of the company. Hiring trainers from outside may also be a solution but trainers from outside would also cost the company large sums of money which means the salaries of the employees may be slashed to cater for the training. Lastly, even if the staff gets the training and they do not own the customer service care in their minds then the company would have lost all the money they would have spent. Thus, a better way has to be found that will not cost the company. Sorting the obstacles based on scope The obstacles are company-wide scope-based. These obstacles affect the whole company and thus may cost a lot more than expected. Employing new staff and hiring trainers from outside would all be a huge cost on the company and thus a more friendly strategy should be used. A low-cost strategy targeting one branch at a time should be designed and implemented. Redesign the incentives architecture Sometimes the only thing that brings about the customer not being served well is because an employee may not have been taught about it, others are simply not sensitive about it while others do not see the need. It has been shown that with the right customer care service a company can greatly increase its revenues(Cockburn, 2019). New ways should be devised so that the staff may attend to the customers as required. A number of things can be done which include: sending some of the staff back to school or employing a new group of staff that knows how to handle customers and have even gone to school for the same. But these two approaches will greatly cost the entire company.One redesign architecture that can be used is conducting a simple training of customer care service within the company and encouraging the customers to focus on the customer care service in order to
4 DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING achieve more sales. These trainings should be done as per refinery stations, since there are sixteen in total then sixteen trainings will be done. This is for easy training and low-cost transactions.There will be a lot of money spent and time wasted if the training is done once for the whole company, the company may end up losing a lot. Thus, different trainings should be held at different times and suiting the employees of every refinery station. To remind the staff of the importance of customer care service then short notices should be placed around the company especially in places that the staff are found most of the times. This can be done continuously until their minds registers it and thus becomes a part of them. This strategy is of low cost since no trainer from outside will be required. An executive member of every refinery board of directors will handle training for the refinery branch they belong to. This will ensure that no money is spent in the training while the objective gets accomplished. Short notices can also be used such as “serve the customer well and there will be more sales which adds up to good salaries” which do not cost the company a lot of money. Therefore, the strategies will be in work while the company spends less money on the same. These redesign solutions can be implemented in a randomized manner. A random control trial is an experiment where a person is picked at random and then he is allocated a different group from a group that will also be picked randomly for an alternative treatment (O'Cathain et al., 2013).A group of people may be chosen and made to act both as the staff and later on as the customers.This will help reduce any unforeseen risks that may emerge later in the future when the whole process is put in place.
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5 DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING Conclusion A customer care service is important for any particular company. Good customer care increases the revenues being sold by any company and in this case would increase for Marathon Petroleum. Increasing revenues means bringing Marathon petroleum back to its glory days.
6 DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING References Cockburn, S. (2019). Improve Customer Service, Increase Sales (Infographic). Retrieved from https://growingsocialbiz.com/improve-customer-service-increase-sales-infographic/ Alley, R. (2017). Who Owns Marathon Gas Stations? Retrieved fromhttps://bizfluent.com/info- 8098338-owns-marathon-gas-stations.html Smith, U. (2019). Marathon Petroleum Corporation [MPC] – Why is it on the decline. A Focus on Fundamental Analysis? | The Dwinnex. Retrieved from https://www.dwinnex.com/2019/05/20/marathon-petroleum-corporation-mpc-why-is-it- on-the-decline-a-focus-on-fundamental-analysis/ O'Cathain, A., Thomas, K. J., Drabble, S. J., Rudolph, A., & Hewison, J. (2013). What can qualitative research do for randomised controlled trials? A systematic mapping review.BMJ open,3(6), e002889.