Introduction
The contemporary business world values the incorporation of information systems to facilitate the realization of efficiency in the various business processes. Particularly, information systems integrate technology to improve the management of organizations in various aspects, including the racking of transactions and the facilitation of decision-making processes (Rainer, Cegielski, Splettstoesser-Hogeterp, & Sanchez-Rodriguez, 2013). Home Depot is one of the retail industry players that have shown a considerable integration of information systems in their processes. The information systems incorporated into the various aspects of the organization’s processes have accounted for its competitiveness in the North American region. However, the need for improving the efficiency of the organization prompts the integration of new information systems. In this respect, this paper provides the background of Home Depot and information systems integrated into the company before recommending an information technology system that can foster the competitiveness of the retailer. Moreover, the paper addresses the potential security threats posed by the recommended information system.
Company Background and Information Systems
Established in 1978, Home Depot is a US-based corporation that deals in paraphernalia, building materials, and services. It represents the modern hardware business. The nature of the business undertaken by Home Depot revolves in the areas of home improvement and retail service provision. Currently, Home Depot is considered the largest player in the home enhancement retail sector. The products offered by the company also include household equipment. The home improvement retailer has at least 2,200 stores in the North American region, stamping its authority on the share of the market (The Home Depot, 2017). The organization focuses on fulfilling the needs of customers, communities, associates, and stakeholders.
Important to note, Home Depot focuses on providing products that incorporate value and innovation to meet the expectations of its customers. Kitchen products account for the largest contributor to the company’s gross sales as the category realized at least 27% of the revenues gained in the 2014 fiscal year. Home Depot maintains a close relationship with its suppliers since it does not manufacture the products it offers to customers. The notable suppliers for Home Depot include Masco, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Cree, Samsung, General Electric, and Whirlpool (The Home Depot, 2017). Besides offering a wide array of home improvement products, Home Depot also offers installation services as one of its customer strategies. Until 2007, Home Depot applied a direct-to-store distribution model to reach its customers who are mostly situated in North America. However, the need to centralize the distribution network prompted the creation of 18 rapid deployment centers (RDCs) in North America to streamline the company’s supply chain management (McMurrian & Matulich, 2016). The RDCs use real-time demand to allocate products to the various stores operated by Home Depot.
Information systems play a major role in streamlining the management of data, knowledge, and information in an organization that wishes to realize its set goals and objectives. Particularly, the information systems deployed at Home Depot seek to guarantee the efficiency of the various business processes that aim at fulfilling the requirements of customers in the home improvement retail sector. Thus, the systems foster the competitiveness of the player in the industry. Home Depot has shown considerable investments in information systems that facilitate the management of items, orders, transactions, and installation services.
In recent years, the company has been focusing on the integration of software applications to connect over 2,000 stores it operates in the Northern American region. Additionally, the need to record every transaction in the different stores prompted Home Depot to establish regional databases to facilitate the real-time tracking of transactions recorded by the databases in the various individual stores it operates. Furthermore, Home Depot also incorporates management information systems (MIS) and decision support systems (DSS) to foster the monitoring of transactions, as well as facilitating the critical decision-making processes (The Home Depot, 2017). Moreover, the home improvement retail player also runs information bases in its regional call centers to attend to customers’ inquiries, especially regarding the availability of specified products. The regional call centers relieve the sales personnel at the regional stores of phone call interruptions that usually disrupt their concentration in other sales promotion strategies. Importantly, the regional call centers facilitate timely responses to the inquiries placed by customers through various channels, including e-mail and phone.
Amid the incorporation of information systems at Home Depot’s regional call centers, concerns over the efficiency of customer service continue to emerge. In several cases, customers have complained about the lack of concern shown by the staff at the organization’s call centers. For this reason, Home Depot is regarded as one of the companies with poor customer satisfaction. The witnessed dropping points at the American Customer Satisfaction Index managed by the Michigan University implies that Home Depot is on the brink of losing its position as the largest retailer of home improvement products and services in the world. In this concern, there is a need for the company to consider the adoption of information systems that foster customer satisfaction.
Information Technology Recommendation
A call center is a crucial aspect of business operations since it offers an interface for interaction between the company and its customers. Through the call center, an organization can receive orders from customers and, in turn, inform them about the availability of products in different stores. Besides streamlining communication between customers and the business, the call center provides an opportunity for building beneficial relationships with customers, thus fostering the aspect of customer loyalty (Rainer et al., 2013). Given that Home Depot has experienced cases of unsatisfactory customer experiences, there is a need for the improvement of its information systems at the call centers.
A customer service information system would be integral for Home Depot since it will facilitate the tracking of interactions at the call centers (McMurrian & Matulich, 2016). By so doing, the company will be in a better position to identify cases of poor interactions with customers. Besides tracking the interaction between clients and the staff at the contact center, the customer service information system will facilitate the recording of consumer information in a way that bolsters the provision of products and services (Lucas, Agarwal, Clemons, El Sawy, & Weber, 2013). In this light, the information needs of the company might also realize satisfaction since the information technology integrated at the call centers will obtain data and information from website registrations, purchase lead lists, and staff-customer interactions.
Home Depot’s Information Needs
Importantly, the information needs of Home Depot necessitate the integration of a customer service information system at the various regional call centers situated in North America, as well as in the various customer service departments. Importantly, Home Depot needs to foster its collection of customer information from the sales lists to identify the fast-moving products in the market. The information is useful since it goes a long way in ensuring the improvement of such products and services in line with the changing needs of customers. Furthermore, the information gained from sales lists is crucial since it facilitates the identification of opportunities that can drive upwards the sales of the home improvement retailer. As a result, the company will widen its market share beyond the North American region.
The need to acquire streamlined information about client registrations through on Home Depot’s online portal is also relevant since it facilitates the tracking of its customer base. The customer service information system is critical in facilitating the management of consumer information by maintaining a database of the new registrations made on the company’s website. The approach will also be pivotal towards fostering the management of the company’s strategic marketing plans by analyzing customers’ behavior in the industry.
Moreover, the customer service information system will assist Home Depot to monitor the interaction between staff members and customers. Important to note, the quality of service at the call center relies on human attributes, as well as the components of the information technology. In this respect, since the components of a customer service system seek to foster the management of information as one of its key elements, Home Depot will benefit considerably by integrating an information technology that streamlines the management of information gained from its interactions with customers.
Decisions Required by Users to Access the Customer Service Information System
The users of the customer service need to make key decisions that can foster the integration of human characters and technology components to facilitate their satisfaction. In this light, employees who are mandated with promoting customer service, especially those at the regional call centers, need to make decisions and engage in actions that facilitate the effective integration of the technology (Chen & Tsou, 2012). Importantly, staff members at Home Depot need to make decisions regarding their willingness to improve the delivery of services to customers through the acceptance of change, maintenance of consistency, and upholding agent productivity.
The issue of resistance to change undermines the implementation of technology systems in organizations (Rainer et al., 2013). In this concern, staff members at the different Home Depot regional call centers will need to embrace the incorporation of a customer service information system to foster the attainment of customer satisfaction. Important to note, users’ willingness to accept the technology is critical since it determines the extent to which the advancements realize success.
The need to embrace consistency is also an important decision that users need to make since it fosters the functionality of the customer service system (Setia, Venkatesh, & Joglekar, 2013). Since the customer service information system functions in a way that controls the answers offered to clients, the need for consistency is crucial since it is key in fostering service quality. Therefore, regardless of the interaction channel, there is a need for users to employ consistency in the responses delivered to customers.
Moreover, users need to decide that they are going to uphold the significance of productivity in their interactions with customers (Rainer et al., 2013). Agents at Home Depot regional call centers should sort out the problems encountered by customers. However, the need for enhancing their productivity is supported by the information technology that assists in the identification of remedies to the concerns raised by customers. In this view, such agents should abandon the traditional ways of solving the problems faced by customers by accepting the incorporation of automated systems.
Information Groups
As mentioned earlier, the various customer service information systems capture information from different groups, including sales, market share growth, and customer-staff interactions. Notably, the customer service software usually incorporates various features that facilitate the management of different information groups. In particular, call center information systems have three groups of functions that bolster the management of different information groups.
The first group of functions captures information in the categories of e-mail, web chat systems, ACD, and PBX. The second function manages information through a one-sided interaction where customers do not see the information delivered to the call center communication systems (Chen & Tsou, 2012). In this light, the complaint management systems offered by such technologies will assist Home Depot in understanding the issues triggering the customers’ dissatisfaction (McMurrian & Matulich, 2016). Moreover, the third function of the customer service software incorporates a workforce management system that applies a screen/video record feature. The features are pivotal in monitoring the interaction of staff with customers.
The Need for System Automation
Undoubtedly, the integration of the customer information system will automate the various processes at the call center. In this respect, Home Depot’s regional call centers need to automate their systems to streamline the integration of the new technology that seeks to improve customers’ satisfaction. The automation of the ACD system at the various call centers will allow handling a large volume of call types, thus fostering the productivity aspect of operations.
The customer service software also integrates the functions of the PBX in a call center. The automation of the PBX allows the automation of the switch station to easily manage telephone calls placed by customers (Chen & Tsou, 2012). Furthermore, automatic dialer and callback mechanisms encompass the notable features of the customer service software. Therefore, Home Depot should be ready to automate its processes to meet its customers’ needs.
The Benefits of the Customer Service Information System
The customer service information system offers an array of benefits to organizations, especially in fostering the efficiency of call centers. Thus, Home Depot will reap the various benefits offered by the proposed customer service software. Such benefits will go a long way in fostering the company’s competitive edge. For instance, customer service information systems will facilitate the tracking of the entire messages delivered by customers through channels such as phone calls, e-mail, and live chats. Additionally, the technology will facilitate the automation, measurement, and assessment of the customer service efforts made by the organization (Fitzgerald, Kruschwitz, Bonnet, & Welch, 2014). Besides, customer service software will be critical towards the acknowledgment of every request placed by customers before providing an automated response. Furthermore, the system will allow a prompt response to customers’ inquiries. The system will also provide room for the management of the entire customer support, besides offering the service 24/7 (Setia et al., 2013). Moreover, the customer service information system will allow the prioritization of customers’ requests.
Types of Database Data Elements
The customer service information system will facilitate the maintenance of a database comprising of data, sound, image, and video. Notably, Home Depot will capture the data of customers who will be registering in its various websites and store it in the database (Rainer et al., 2013). Furthermore, the recorded screen/video will also capture staff-customer interactions at the call centers. For the purposes of assessing the quality of interactions, recording the sound during calls will also facilitate its management in the database.
Networking and Interactive Processing
The aspects of networking and interactive processing affect the efficiency of an information system. The customer service information system will facilitate the networks at the various regional call centers by maintaining one database that will support the management of information from the individual Home Depot stores situated in North America.
Notably, Home Depot identifies the regional call centers as centralized customer service points. In this regard, the centralization of the customer service information system will be appropriate. The centralization of such an information technology system will guarantee the effective evaluation of efforts geared towards enhancing customer satisfaction. Conversely, a decentralized approach to integrating the innovation will undermine Home Depot’s efforts to manage its customer service systems at the regional level. Furthermore, the decentralized implementation will hinder the company’s identification of customer service issues from a wider angle.
End-user Computing Needs
End users (customer service agents) require basic computer literacy skills to navigate a software interface. Most developers of customer service software prioritize the instructiveness of the system with the end-users, thus optimizing its efficiency (Rainer et al., 2013). The customer service information system has an interactive interface that allows end-users to make commands that enhance customers’ satisfaction. I recommend Home Depot to consider developing the customer service software instead of acquiring the system from vendors. The development process will pave the way for customization to meet the unique needs of the organization’s customers besides aligning them with its marketing objectives.
Potential Security Threats
Data breach is the major security issue that can destabilize the security element of customer service technology. The intentional or unintentional revelation of customer information can occur, thereby undermining the privacy and security of customers (Setia et al., 2013). Thus, there is a need for the incorporation of tight security components in the information system.
The mitigation of data breaches requires the management to institute end-user awareness regarding the essence of security (Kude et al., 2017). The designing and enforcement of an encryption policy will also be relevant towards reducing the risks of data breaches on the customer service system. The execution of regular vulnerability assessments will be crucial when it comes to fostering effective information management (Martin, Borah, & Palmatier, 2017). Backing up the sensitive information will also be a considerable safety measure.
The customer service information system raises various social, political, and diversity issues. Socially, the proposed information system will facilitate positive interactions between customer service agents and clients (Ifinedo, 2012). The security threats posed by the software can influence policymakers to establish regulations that seek to improve the safety aspect of information systems (Martin et al., 2017). Moreover, the customer service technology will allow call center agents to embrace the diversity brought by customers from different backgrounds.
Conclusion
Home Depot is one of the leading global retailers of home improvement products and services. The reported instances of customer complaints about the quality of service offered by the call center agents necessitate the integration of customer service software. The information system streamlines the interaction between the call center agents and customers to facilitate the realization of satisfaction, thus enhancing the organization’s brand image. Nonetheless, data breach is a considerable security threat posed by the information system. Besides, the technology will influence positively the aspects of social, political, and diversity since it seeks to promote positive interactions between parties.
References
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The Home Depot. (2017). About us.