Exercise 2

Sketch a process flow for the following scenario:

The Customer Service Center operates from 7 AM to 7 PM Monday through Friday.  Each hour (starting at 7 AM) approximately 8 calls come into the Center from existing customers or from prospective customers (about a 50-50 split).  The calls are taken by a group of customer service representatives called Worker-Bees, consisting of:

Matt -     A Premium Employee who earns $25/hour and works 9 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday.  He takes a 15 minute tootsie-pop break at 10 AM, a 60 minute lunch break at 12  noon, and a tootsie-pop and/or chewing gum break for 20 minutes at 2 PM.

Gary -     A Regular Employee who earns $10/hour and works 7 AM to 7 PM Monday through Friday.  He takes a 30 minute lunch break at 11:30 AM.  He is permitted no breaks.

Phil -     Also a  Regular Employee.

The Worker-Bees are supervised by the Head-Honcho:

AJ -     Also a Premium Employee.

The Customer Service Center utilizes a computer system known as ACHES (A Customer High Energy System).

Phone calls come into the service center directly to a Worker-Bee desk, where he/she has immediate access to ACHES.  When a phone call comes in, the Worker-Bee who answers usually chats for about 10 minutes with the customer to get pertinent information and to establish rapport, then accesses ACHES to see whether or not the customer is already in the system; this takes about 5 minutes.

If the customer is already in ACHES, then the Worker-Bee continues to talk for another 5 minutes to process the customer's request.  During this time the Worker-Bee is entering pertinent information into ACHES.  At the conclusion of this activity, the Head-Honcho checks the Worker-Bee’s work in ACHES and makes any necessary corrections.  If Head-Honcho gets too busy, Matt will perform this task (since he's very experienced and also a Premium Employee).

If the customer who called is not already in ACHES (i.e., is a prospective customer), then the Worker-Bee takes about 10 minutes to chat and to establish the new customer in ACHES.  Once the customer is in ACHES and the need is understood, the Worker-Bee terminates the phone call and meets with Head-Honcho as soon as possible to discuss the new customer.  Typically, a Worker-Bee must wait about 10 minutes before Head-Honcho is available, then spends about 12 minutes in discussion.

Following the meeting,  Head-Honcho checks ACHES for accuracy and corrects any errors; this takes about 15 minutes on the average.  Following this activity, Head Honcho directs a Worker-Bee to send out  a "Welcome Package" to the new customer, a task which takes about 5 minutes.  Afterward, the Worker-Bee must re-enter ACHES to make a notation that the Welcome Package has been sent; this takes 4 minutes.

Additionally, there are maintenance items that must be performed in customer files (e.g.,

allocation changes, interfund transfers, etc.).  The triggers are paper documents contained in

customer paper files.  Ultimately, the Head Honcho carries a stack of such files (usually about 30

to a pile) to a random Worker Bee's desk at 10 AM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  It takes

a Worker Bee approximately 4 minutes per file to make ACHES entries based on a paper file.  The Worker Bee usually does this data entry work in a batch, but (obviously) an entire batch is not necessarily completed all at once because of the phone calls and other activities taking place.