Namuna Khadka

BU 436 001

Operations and Project Management

Dr Salvatore Ferraro

12 September 2021

Greyhound Bank: Credit Card Division

Case Questions 1 - 5

1.What are the major problems facing the credit card division?

The major problems that the credit card division is facing are:

Lack of proper communication: This seems to be a major problem between the operations and

marketing departments within the credit card division. And that is a huge problem considering

that their miscommunication is hampering the whole credit card division’s customer base.

Lack of collaboration: Another major problem would be the lack of collaboration between the

operations department and the marketing department. As mentioned in the case, the customers

are providing poor ratings to the operation department’s performance. And according to the

operations department, the reason is that the rating questions are marketing focused and are not

properly worded to reflect the operation’s activities as the operations department are not

involved while making those survey questions. Whereas according to the marketing department,

the operations department is asked for their input while making the survey questions, but the job

usually goes to the new employee which is why the questions do not seem to reflect the

department’s activities.

 
2. What steps are required to develop a good internal and external performance and

information system?

In order to develop a good internal and external performance and information system, 

the company could adopt the Service-Profit chain model. This model is based on the fact that the

external and internal performance and information systems are linked together and affect each

other. This model explains how a company’s growth and profitability are directly related to

customer loyalty and customer satisfaction, and customer satisfaction is influenced by the

services provided by employees, employee satisfaction leads to employee retention and

productivity which in turn leads to better services, more customer satisfaction, and ultimately

growth and revenue. Hence, this model is really important to understand the internal and external

performance in a company and the cause and effect of those activities.

3. How should internal and external performance data be related? Are these data related?

What do charts and/or statistical data analysis tell you, if anything? (Use the data in

Exhibit 2.11 to help answer these questions.)

The internal and external performance data are related in a way that each can tell us about one-

another. For example, the external data about bad customer ratings can tell about customer

satisfaction as well as how the employees are providing their services and the quality of their

services. When employee satisfaction might not be very good, it shows up on the employee

productivity, and the quality of their serves, and ultimately to the customer satisfaction and their

feedback. Charts and/or statistical data analysis can definitely tell us a lot about the trend in the

internal and external performances. And by analyzing the trend we could point out the areas of

weaknesses and work on those areas to improve the overall performance in the company.
4. Is the real service level what is measured internally or externally? Explain your

reasoning.

The real service level can be measured externally by measuring the level of customer satisfaction

and customer base. Some of the ways to measure it could by analyzing the customer activities

like the feedback they provide on the products or services, customer calls to know about the

products or services, the wait time for customers, customer return rate etc. 

5. What are your final recommendations?

My final recommendation would be that the marketing and operations department should

collaborate with each other to work on a well written and inclusive survey questionnaire that

reflects both operational and marketing department’s services and needs for the rating. Also, the

questionnaire should be specific to the target customer population and their needs and wants.

Apart from that, the credit card division should look into the numbers since the numbers seems

good according to the president, “Our internal operational measures seem to be good,”.

However, there seems to be a conflict in the numbers and the customer ratings. Hence, there

might have been misunderstanding in interpreting those numbers.