Quality Problems at the

Tech Bookstore

Case 2.3

Toni Claerhout

Background

• Tech Services is an incorporated university that operates one on-campus bookstore and one

off-campus bookstore

• The bookstores sell textbooks at low markups, but as a result all merchandise is higher

priced

• Sales and profits have been satisfactory in the past few years

• A long standing policy of hiring Tech students exists in the bookstores

• List of problems have occurred at off campus bookstore regarding the student employees

Problems at the Tech

• Student employee arrested on drug possession

• Shouting match between employee and customer over locating a book

• Student employee rude to alum after not knowing the return policy

• Customer complaint about unmanned registers and social employees

• Board suggests to Mr. Watson (executive director) to assess quality at the bookstore

The Survey

Question 1: Why did Mr. Watson organize the survey the way he did? What else

could he have done?

Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

Were employees courteous and friendly? 572 93 286 147 341 114 172 156

Were employees knowledgable and helpful? 522 143 231 212 350 105 135 193

Was the overall service good? 569 96 278 165 322 133 180 148

Did you have to wait long for service? 74 591 200 243 51 404 150 178

Did you have to wait long to checkout? 81 584 203 240 72 383 147 181

Was the item you wanted available? 602 63 371 72 407 48 296 32

Was the cost of your purchase(s) reasonable? 385 280 398 45 275 180 301 27

Have you visted the store's website? 335 330 52 391 262 193 17 311

Campus Store

Student NonStudent

Noncampus Store

Student NonStudent

On Campus Results

Off Campus Results

Survey OverviewQuestion: Discuss the quality problems the

bookstore has?

Overall, the bookstore in both locations are

having problems with people not visiting the

website, their staff not being helpful and

generally poor service.

Questions

• How would you define quality at the bookstore?

• I would define quality at the bookstore by having quick response times, courtesy of employees, credibility in the community and consistency of good service in order to satisfy the needs of all customers.

• What are the bookstore’s costs of poor quality?

• Internal failure costs: cost of investigating the problems, delay in providing service to customers, loss of sales due to lack of knowledge

• External failure costs: cost of handling customer complaints, cost of replacing returned products, loss of reputation

Questions

• What actions or programs would you propose to improve quality at the

bookstore?

• Add more training programs for employees, incentives for visiting website, implement

security or camera systems, appoint a quality leader

• What obstacles might exist to hinder quality improvement?

• The bookstore uses all profits to fund student activities, always hiring student

employees, lack of motivation with employees and managers,

Benefits from Quality Improvement

• Improve morale of employees/customers

• Improve relationships between management and student employees

• Enhance efficiency and productivity

• Improving awareness of employees

• Include employees in decision making

• Higher quality service

• Increased customer satisfaction