Customer Support and Information Systems Management Report

This report examines information systems management within an e-commerce company, focusing on the challenges faced by customer support representatives. The author, drawing from personal experience, identifies high attrition rates and customer dissatisfaction as key problems stemming from strict company policies and a lack of communication regarding product quality and business processes. The analysis incorporates concepts of customer relationship management and strategic planning to understand the root causes of these issues. Recommendations include implementing specialized training for customer service representatives, introducing psychological evaluation processes, improving information sharing with customers, and offering additional quality assurance options. The report concludes that strategic adjustments are needed to support both customers and employees, emphasizing the crucial role of customer service representatives as a vital link between the company and its customers. The report highlights the importance of aligning business strategies with customer and employee needs.

Running head: INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
Information Systems Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Problem Description....................................................................................................................2
Problem Analysis.........................................................................................................................3
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference List..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
I used to work in an organization as a customer support representative. The company was
involved in e-commerce of products and services. The company has a worldwide presence and
its services are available in all major countries of the world. It has expanded into many major
sectors like drone manufacturing, cloud computing and many more. The organization thrives on
customer satisfaction and has one of the highest customer bases among other multinational
companies. The company markets and advertises all of its products. However, as time progressed
there were some products that received popularity than the others and the market shifted
accordingly.
Discussion
Problem Description
Every organization have their own set of policies that governs their work culture (Van
Muijen, 2013). The complexity of the policies depends on the size of the organization. Some
organization have lean policies while some have very strict ones (Barzani, 2014). The company I
used to work for had strict company policies regarding customer handling. The work culture of
this company is based on customer satisfaction and therefore the employees have to be polite
with a customer despite the situation. This has in turn led to very high attrition rates as most of
the employees are unable to take such pressure of work every day (Bagga, 2013). The customer
base of the company is consisted of different kinds of people. Some of the customers state their
problems politely and then provide ample time to the representatives for solving their problem.
However, there are times when the customer must have suffered some losses and is unwilling to
cooperate with us and is instead very rude to the person who took his or her call. This is the
primary problem in being a customer support representative (Gurajala et al., 2016). The company

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due to their customer friendly policies does not support call disconnection under any
circumstances. This creates a huge amount of stress on the employees working in the customer
support department.
Problem Analysis
The increased number of customer complaints can be analyzed by using various
concepts related to customer relationship management (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014). The
strategic planning concepts can be applied here. The frustrations of the customers can be due to
several reasons that might or might not be the fault of the company (Alam, Danieli & Riccardi,
2017). The model suggests that it is the responsibility of the company’s policy makers to
understand the needful areas and make the respective policies accordingly. Therefore, the
policies must not only cover the interests of the company by serving its customer base, it must
also serve the employees by guiding them in different situations (Hammer, 2015). The problem
can also be categorized as a communication problem as it arises from a lack of communication
between the company and its customers. The company has a very complex business process and
there are a huge number of outside parties involved in the process that compromises the integrity
of the process (Dumas et al., 2013). The company is fundamentally a platform where the sellers
can connect with the customers under one brand name. However, the quality of the product or
service depends on the seller. The business model of the company does not include extensive
quality assurance to its customers. The primary marketing strategy is based on its product
delivery speed and has a customer friendly item return policy to compensate for any problem
caused to them due to their product. Upon receiving a faulty product, the customer blames the
company for the problem. This is very natural and is expected as they have bought the item from
the company and not the seller. However, the customer representative of the company might not

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have all the information about the problem and it is upon the customer to provide an account of
the situation. This will aid the customer service representatives to assist the customers in
effectively solving their problem. However, that is not the case every time. As the policies of the
do not undertake the responsibility to inform the customers that they do not intentionally deliver
defective products to their customers (Rugman & Verbeke, 2017). The lack of communication
has thus provided an impact on the policies of the company as they lack information sharing
between the customers. The strategy of the company must include every aspect of its operation
as focusing on one and ignoring the others often lead to failure. The company had risen above
every competition in the market by being able to focus on the customers as they are directly
related to their business growth. This has led to an unsatisfied employee base who despite being
well compensated find little meaning to the job role of a customer service where the primary
responsibility is to make the raging customer understand that sometimes it is not the fault of the
company that they have received faulty products (Swamy, Nanjundeswaraswamy & Rashmi,
2015). The strategy also does not include any extensive background verification on the sellers
and therefore any seller can easily become a part of the company and participate in selling
activities. Therefore, summarizing the faults in the strategy of the company, it is seen that the
company does not communicate its actual business process to its customers and therefore die to
this lack of information, the customers blame the company for any problem. The representatives
responsible for caring for the customers instead have to endure the rage of the customers on
behalf of the company that sometimes negatively impacts the mental health of the employees
who are directly communicating with the company. Some solutions have implemented where the
most popular products are brought in a procurement center managed by the company where the

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products are checked through sampling for quality determination. However, this is only true for
the popular products and not for those which are less popular.
Recommendation
The recommendation plan to provide a solution to the above problem would include
some specific points and their implementation plan. A separate training module must be
introduced, which will train the customer care representatives to mitigate the anger of the
customer as fast and as diplomatically as possible. This kind if training must be given to the
employees when they join to give them a working base. A separate psychological evaluation
process must be implemented. The senior representatives would be incorporated in the process
and they would be analyzed for signs for depression after working. More policies can be
implemented that would include better information sharing among the customers. Many tactics
like the live package tracking have developed transparency in the system. However, the present
scenario shows that it is still not enough. A separate option can be provided to the customers
where they can opt for an additional quality check provided by the company although they would
have to provide more time for the delivery in that scenario. Another company has implemented a
strategy for its clothes section, where the customer can try the product upon arrival and if
unsatisfied can return immediately and not paying a single dollar for that. Such policies are going
to shape the future of the business that the company will be having.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that the strategy of the company needs some minor changes
that would not only support its customer base but also provide ample sustenance to its employee
base. The company must understand the customer service representatives serve as a mediator to
the company and therefore they are the company’s strongest link to their customers.

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Reference List
Alam, F., Danieli, M., & Riccardi, G. (2017). Annotating and modeling empathy in spoken
conversations. Computer Speech & Language.
Bagga, G. (2013). How to keep the talent you have got. Human resource management
international digest, 21(1), 3-4.
Barzani, R. S. (2014). Studying the Effects of Business Strategies on the Organization's
Performance in Regards to Human Resources' Policies at the Social Security Insurance
Companies Based. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social
Sciences, 4(5), 549.
Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., & Reijers, H. A. (2013). Fundamentals of business
process management (Vol. 1, p. 2). Heidelberg: Springer.
Gurajala, R. B., Lott, R. W., Huber, K. D., Flynn, J. J., Mansfield, W. G., Seymour, J. T., ... &
Davis, J. P. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,246,759. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
Hammer, M. (2015). What is business process management?. In Handbook on Business Process
Management 1 (pp. 3-16). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Khodakarami, F., & Chan, Y. E. (2014). Exploring the role of customer relationship management
(CRM) systems in customer knowledge creation. Information & Management, 51(1), 27-
42
Rugman, A., & Verbeke, A. (2017). Global corporate strategy and trade policy. Routledge.

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Swamy, D. R., Nanjundeswaraswamy, T. S., & Rashmi, S. (2015). Quality of work life: scale
development and validation. International Journal of Caring Sciences, 8(2), 281.
Van Muijen, J. J. (2013). Organizational culture. Drenth P] D, Thierry H (Eds): Handbook of
Work and Organizational Psychology, 4, 113-131.