I.

Summary of the Case

Walter Sullivan had purchased a small Ford dealership in 1981, renaming it Sullivans Auto World and had built it up to become one of the best known in the Metropolitan area. In 1996, he had borrowed heavily to purchase the current site at a major sub urban highway intersection, in an area of town with many new housing developments. Carol Sullivan- Diaz, aged 28, A young health care manager unexpectedly finds herself running a family-owned car dealership that is in trouble. She is very concerned about the poor performance of the service department and wonders whether a turnaround is possible. By national standards, Sullivan Ford Auto World stood toward the lower end of mediumsized dealerships, selling around 1100 cars a year, equally divided between new and used vehicles. In the most recent year, its revenues totaled $26.6 million from new-and used-car sales and $2.9 million from service parts, down from $30.5 million and $3.6 million, respectively, in the previous year. Although the unit value of car sales was high, the margins were quite low, with margins for new cars being substantially lower than for used ones. Sullivan-Diaz had studied carefully were the results of the customer satisfaction surveys that were mailed to the dealership monthly by the research firm retained by the Ford Motor Company. Purchasers of all new Ford cars were sent a questionnaire by mail within 30 days of making the purchase and asked to use a five-point scale to rate their satisfaction with the dealership sales department, vehicle preparation, and the characteristics of the vehicle itself. The nine-month survey findings disturbed her. Although vehicle ratings were in line with national averages, the overall level of satisfaction with service at Auto World was consistently low, placing it in the bottom 25 percent of all Ford dealerships. The worst ratings for service concerned promptness of writing up orders, convenience of service hours, and appearance of the service department. II. Statement of the Problem

This study aims to identify the possible solutions that could keep the Sullivan Ford Auto World stable from all the existing internal and external barrier that challenges the companys stability thru improving its costumer service. III. Objectives a. To identify the possible causes of poor customer service of the company

b. To provide recommendations on to increase the companys revenue the company thru improving their customer service. IV. Areas of Consideration STRENGTHS S 1. Modern and well-maintained equipment 2. Well-known dealership 3. Favorable locationcommercial local area 4. Attractive showroom 5. Business operation experience 6. Enough knowledge about the industry OPPORTUNITIES O 1. completely penetrate its current market 2. Change of management 3. Continuous customer feedback WEAKNESSES W 1. Poor customer complaint handling 2. Inappropriate attitude of service staffs 3. Low sales that causes financial difficulties 4. Low work force 5. Problems with service writers 6. Poor service work order process (Traditional way of serving customers) WO-Strategy 1. Train employees regarding rendering effective and efficient customer service that could satisfy every customer they interact with (W1,W2,W5,O3) 2. Use customers feedbacks as a basis on implementing a better service operations for the companys service department (W6,W3) WT-Strategy 1. Benchmark with strong competitors(W3,W6,T5) 2. Improve customer service thru initiating trainings and seminars (W2,W5, W1, T3)

SO-Strategy 1. Make use of the companys ample knowledge about the industry as a competitive advantage thru continuously addressing the needs of the customers and following the trends in the market. (S6,S5,O3)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

THREATS T Poor industry forecast Decline of regional economy Switch of customers preferences High business operation costs Strong competitors with wide-range product lines compared to the companys

ST-Strategy 1. Hire a general manager that has enough knowledge about the market. (S6.S5,T5) 2. Compete in the market thru improving the companys customer service (S1,T3)

V.

Alternative Courses of Action 1. Use customers feedbacks as a basis on implementing better service operations for the companys service department. a. Customers feedback enables a company to gain critical insight about customers needs and requirements. Critical inputs and responses can help a company to develop better customer-retention programs and might as well see if the company needs necessary improvements or changes to keep up with customer preferences and requirements. Sullivan Ford auto World could make use of the companys survey regarding customer satisfaction to look into the flaws of their product and service department and quickly address these flaws to improve the whole business operations.

2. Improve customer service thru initiating employee trainings and seminars a. Sullivan Ford auto World should initiate customer trainings and seminars to help employees improve their knowledge and skills regarding customer orientation in order for them to address their need to improve their customer service based from the low customer satisfaction rating they got from their survey. These training activities could help employees to address customerrelated grievances more competently and resolve queries and complaints more quickly. These trainings and seminars could also help the company to increasing the quality of work and productivity of every employee in the service department.

3. Benchmark with strong competitors a. Sullivan Ford auto World should make an effort to know how their strong competitors satisfy its customers. The company could also analyse the process of how their competitors obtain such output and compare it with their own operational process to enhance the competitiveness of their organization. According to the survey, the company lacks efficiency in repairing cars; they may use benchmarking to see how their competitors operate on this part of the operational process and improve their own operations.

VI.

Decision

After analysing the current situation of Sullivan Ford auto World, the best course of action they could consider doing is to initiate employee trainings and seminars. This is due to the fact that the companys customer service rates low on the survey they have conducted and thus there is a clear need that the companys employees specifically those on the customer service department needs to improve their customer interaction skills and knowledge. VII. Recommendation

To support such course of action, the company has to save some of their budget to provide such trainings and seminars. They should also consider changing their traditional way of operating on their service work-order process because this greatly affects the promptness on simple business operation such as scheduling, and writing up orders. The company should also see to it that the companys production and operational process are as efficient as it can be in order to shorten the length of time on operations (repairing of cars). They should also train the employees in maintenance department to be as knowledgeable and skilled as they can be to set as a competitive advantage in terms of having a quality work. Employees who frequently interact with customers should be trained to improve their interpersonal skills in order to be more accommodating, polite and to be more knowledgeable on how to solve and address customer inquiries and complains.

CASE 1: SULLIVAN FORD AUTO WORLD

Prepared by: Calderon, Ma. Dinah Desphy, Mark Anthony Doloso, Angelica Mae Isidro, Dan Limsiaco, Ban Ban Espinosa Mesina, Marigold

Submitted to: Ms. Liza P. Nismal

Date: December 11, 2012