Complaint Management System For Two Minds Technologies

Project brief

Background to domain

This report is prepared to present a plan for the development of a complaint management system for Two Minds technologies which is an IT company that runs an online book store for engineers and is currently planning to develop a complaint management system to help its customers resolve their technical and functional difficulties while making purchases or using the company applications. The report presents project background, requirement analysis, stakeholder analysis, project goals literature review, and suggests a development methodology.

Two Minds technologies is an IT organization from India that runs an online book store for engineers and aspirants. It also develops related applications that were downloaded by 4 million subscribers worldwide. The website has 7 million registered users and every year, it generates 90 million page views and 30 million sessions. While using the website or using specific engineering applications, some customers face technical issues while transacting and need to push a complaint to the management.

The organization needs to develop an Application Program Interface which would be integrated with all the Android applications to improve access to the complaint management system for customers.

Benefits of existing systems

They are easy to use and thus, the learning curve of the employees is fast. Customers and employees are used to the existing complaint management system and thus, no modification or training would be necessary to continue with the same.

The company does not have any organized system for managing such complaints and thus, this project proposes development of a complaint management system for customers which can be used by them for reporting any challenges faced by them while assessing the web platform or developed mobile applications of the organization.

The report proposes the development using specific methods or designing and development. These included BPMN and UML for designing, BPR procedural model for development of complaint management process, and presentation of the output and the process flow using diagrams like target process map and activity chain diagrams. A rapid implementation process is suggest with only the implementation  of  must haves on the project at start while remaining requirements are proposed to be handled in the stage of next release or update.

While performing some of the activities that are carried out on the online book store and related applications, customers face difficulties. The management requires developing a complaint management application for the Android platform such that customers can lodge complaints and the staff can manage the same online which is expected to enhance customer satisfaction.

 Functional requirements of the application development project include:

• Capturing and storage of the profile information about users
• Recording of the activities of users as and when needed
• Development of the complaint registration form which can be used by customers to post a complaint query
• Integration of an acknowledgement note in response to the complaint along with estimation of Turnaround Time (TAT) that would be communicated to the user
• The system needs to automatically assign a customer care office for resolving the query(BIS, 2010)
• The system must pick keywords entered by the complaining user and search similar complaints from past records
• The status of the complaints have to be updated which can be closed, work in progress, or under review.
• The administrator must be able to add the resolution details of a complaint in the knowledge database
• If a complaint is not closed after estimated resolution time, an automated email must be sent to a senior manager as an escalation(faed, 2013)

Non-Functional requirements of the application development project include:

• Ensure data protection and access only by the authorized person
• The response time for retrieval of an online document must be low
• Users should have access to portal features quickly
• Response to view any document online would not take longer.
• The system must be able to attend to customers at any time of the day
• Tracking and updating of the complaint records must be easy
• The application must be compatible with all the popular web browsers
• Critical Information entered must have a system for validation
• Only important information should get transferred over the network and unwanted data must be excluded(Bright Hub Media, 2015)
• The access to database must only be provided to the system administrator
• All users should be given access to application modules.
• Database back up facility must be provided
• Normal users should only be given view right such that they should not be allowed to download content or modify it in any way(cook, 2012).

A complaint management system would have some standard design components that include:

Incoming mail handling: This component would be used for receiving email Ids of users. This would also handle emails sent by customers for lodging complaint to the company

User verification: The email Ids received from the new user would be verified using this component

Registration: Upon receiving the details of the users, a registration process would run in which the data of the user would be stored in the database and a confirmation email would be sent to user for completing registration (PMI, 2015).

Company Background

Complaint creation: For creating complaint, user would be provided with a form to be filled and the data filled would be stored to the complaints database (Linder, Schmitt, & Schmitt, 2014)

Complaint assignment: Based on the type of complaint, it would be automatically assigned to a responsive customer care executive after checking his or her availability in the system

Outgoing mail handling: This would, handle the responses to complaint and the confirmation emails that would be sent by the company to the client (Lacaster University, 2006)

Complaint closure: Complaint status would be maintained in the application till it is closed

Complaint Tracking: The complaints submitted by clients would be tracked using complaint data that would include complaint number, respondents, complaint information, notes, and important dates. The tracker would allow filtering of complaints with respect to type, location, status and service. The status of the complaint in the system could b anything from Open, Closed, Cancelled, and In-progress.

Calendaring: The appointments for complaint management along with the detail of location, vision and resources would be managed in the calendaring system

Reporting: Complaint related management reports would be automatically prepared based on the queries posted by an administrative user such that a custom report can be generated for submitting to management.

Public Access: Normal users of the application would be provided information about the complaint management system along with the demo (Nasr & Alkhider, 2015)

BPR procedural model would be used for development of the complaint management system which would involve following steps:

Preliminary Study: The procedure would involve exploration of the business strategy and its processes in a preliminary study.

Development of Vision: Preliminary study would be followed by the analysis of the current practices that are used by the company for managing complaints from customers. Based on this understanding a vision would be developed and a process flow would be determined.  Development of the vision would help in identifying solutions and scope for innovation in the complaint management practice. At the end of this step, target processes for development would be identified with estimation of the output needs of the system.

Context Diagram: A context diagram would then be prepared for describing the output of various processes as well as identifying the flow between those processes. The processes can belong to any of the categories from complaint management, IT support and process deigning.

• Complaint management processes would involve resolution of customer complains, working on customer relationship management, learning from the complaint information, and building a good image for the organization.
• IT support processes would include introduction of the complaint management system, tracking of the complaint processes, and creation of a knowledge base containing information on cause and solutions of problems faced by customers.
• Process design would include development of communication channels, automatic complaint processing by the system, assignment of resolution responsibility to an employee, automatic confirmation email to the user who complained, and rendering of the solution for complaint resolution(Zellner, 2011).

Output Catalogue Preparation: An output catalogue which would describe the output verbally would also be prepared. The activities identified for development of the complaint management system be defined an arranged logically. All these diagrams and texts would be recorded in a design document.  

Flow Plan: A flow plan would be created using target process map and activity chain diagrams that would provide an overview of all the processes and activities involved in complaint management as well as would identify responsibilities of different employees of the organization in the complaint management. In the flow diagram activities would be arranged logically and activity chain would visualize the entire process (Stauss & Seidel, 2012).

Documentation: All the requirements of the project would be would be documented. The documentation would include information about internal complaint handling which gives predetermined supportive actions, complaint information structuring as per the complaint status, and the actual complaint information involving classification of complaint data.

Requirements

Implementation: The final stage would be the implementation of the complaint management development plan which would be completed using rapid implementation.  This would include identification and bifurcation of must have and should have requirements such that only must have requirements are implemented while should have would be postponed for development for the next release of the software (Johannsen & Zellner, 2015).

Stakeholder	Type	Influence	Interest	Responsibility	Expectations	Communication Plan
Project Manager	Internal	High	High	Define scope, develop project management plan, establish control over project, develop schedule , execute project and provide guidance to project team	Get all the requirements of the project clear from other stakeholders Receive approval for schedule and budget as per project requirement from project owner and project sponsor Receive support from top management in case of major problems on project as well as for leading project team	Project manager uses emails, calls, and meetings to connect with other stakeholders
Project team	Internal	High	Medium	Produce deliverables of the project	Get clarity on all the project requirements	Project participate in kick off meetings, project review meeting and change management meeting with project manager Team also shares documents and the project information to project manager for reporting over email. The team members commutate with each other over calls, SMSs and chats for connecting on project management
Project Analyst	Internal	Medium	Medium	Create, share and manage project related reports	Get all the project progress information	Email analysis to project manager and have meeting with him for detailed discussions
Application developer	Internal	High	Medium	Develop customer complaint management application as per requirement	Get all the functional and non-functional requirements cleared from project manager	Developer would keep most communication over email with the project manger unless in the cases of emergencies for clarification when the developer can make a call to the project manager
End User	External	High	High	Participate in the requirement gathering stage by sharing expectations from customer complaint management application Participate in application testing to approve developed features	Get all the requirements heard and incorporate the requirements discussed in the application	End user would be communicated over emails and in review meetings about the project progress and deliverables by the project manager. They would also e participating in the requirement gathering meeting
Media	External			Help communicate the launch of the product in media	Get all the necessary development and application information required for public relation posts including major features and development dates	Media would be connected by the project manager over meetings and over emails to communicate project information

Critical success factors

Critical success factors for a complaint management system would include:

• Training: Training programs can help develop skills to make best use of the software in employees. The solution would only remain useful for the organization if employees are able to use it efficiently.
• Trust: Complaint management system can be useful only when customers collaborate with internal employees of the organization which is possible only when customers have trust in the organization. Trust can be generated by the organization by bringing transparency, clarifying expectations, practicing accountability, and demonstrating respect.
• Commitment from top management: Commitment of the top management in the development of the complaint management system would ensure that the project does not face any major difficulties and all resources are sufficiently made available on time(Akhavan, Jafari, & Fathian, 2006)

Major outcomes of this project include:

• Development of a complaints management system to provide efficient customer service
• Assign complaint to customer care officer once received for resolution and closure
• Provide instant access to users of the system
• Improve the productivity of users with effective records managed, reduced processing time for information retrieval, and providing information in a user friendly manner
• Create database back up plans to ensure that data can be retrieved in case of data loss
• Respond to all user complains and feedback as well as provide fast resolution(Scott, Lundgren, & Thompson, 2011)

Proposed methodology 

There are some common methodologies that can be used for the development of any software that include waterfall method, spiral method, Agile methods, extreme programming, prototyping, and Rapid Application development. Waterfall is a sequential method of development which is suitable for projects where the requirements of the system are very clear from the beginning. Spiral method is iterative in which development is done in iterative phases that alternatively involve development, testing and then re-development. This can be a costly method for development and consumes much time. The organization has requirements specified about the complaint management system but at the same time it is the first time that the manual process is automated and thus, there could be need for iteration (CMS, 2008). However, considering the need for strict timeline and the limited budget, spiral method may not be appropriate. Agile is another methodology that is iterative which is fact, risk averse and satisfies needs of stakeholders which in the case of complaint management system is very important. Another benefit with this methodology is that it can take the changes even at a later stage of software development which can be very useful in the current scenario as initial requirements are known but there are high chances that new requirements can be generated at the later stages of software development (Farrell, 2007). Thus, this development project would make use of agile methodology by following agile manifesto that has following principles and values of Agile:

• A comprehensive document must be prepared and referred to while developing a software
• Customer collaboration should be there at the time of contract negotiation
• Individual as well as the interaction between them over processes must be considered
• Changes can be used as an opportunity for making improvements
• Early delivery of the software can enhance customer satisfaction
• Stakeholders and developers must collaborate not he project
• A face to face interaction must happen between team members
• If attention is paid to technical details, it can bring agility into the software
• Self-improvement and process improvement must be practiced by project team members
• Teams can be self-organizing such that they are both skilled and motivated to bring results.

For designing and visualization of the complaint management system, several approaches can be used such as even driven process chain method for developing an integrated architecture or use of process modelling languages such as BPMN and UML. In the current case, BPMN and UML diagrams would be used for describing the design of the complaint management system (Shaw, Holland, Snowdon, & Warboys, 2007). Further, the process of complaint management has to be defined which would be done using BPR procedural model.  BPR procedural model is flexible to adapt to the changing user requirements. Another benefit of this approach is that several steps of the procedure can be skipped without affecting the achievement of the project goal.

The software would make use of a SQL database that would be connected to the front end of the software which would be used to retrieve data as well as store data in the database for management of the information related to customer complaints.

Microsoft Application platform would be used that would support multiple applications run over desktops, mobile phones, tablets, and using on-premise or cloud server. Windows Azure would be used in this case as a cloud based server (Chappell, 2011)

Answer:

For making decisions, a software from ELECTRE family would be used which would involve a weighted sum technique based on multiple criteria for decision making.

Microsoft has recently made its business data analysis tool Power BI free for use and this project would make use of the same software to get 360 degree view of the complaint management system through personalized dashboards.

The vision and requirements would be developed using ideas from different sources including interviews with stakeholders, business strategies of the organization, customer surveys and employee interaction (Stein, Smith, & Lancioni, 2013).

1.0 Project planning

1.1 Requirement validation

1.1.1 Requirement gathering

1.1.2 Validation

1.2 Project plan

1.2.1 Project scope

1.2.2 Project Schedule

1.2.3 Budgeting

2.0 Designing and development

2.1 Designing

2.1.1 Design selection

2.1.1.1 Interface

2.1.1.2 Modules

2.1.1.2.1 Calendaring

2.1.1.2.2 Reporting

2.1.1.2.3 Public Access

2.1.1.2.4 Complaint Registration

2.1.1.2.5 Complaint Management

2.1.2 Design documentation

2.2 Development of solution

2.2.1 Modules

2.2.2 Interface

3.0 Data management and integration

3.1 Data mapping

3.2 Data Conversion

3.3 System integration

3.3.1 Mobile application

3.3.2 Web application

3.3.3 Other company applications

4.0 Testing & Backup

4.1 Testing plan

4.2 Testing

4.2.1 Functional Testing

4.2.2 User acceptance testing

4.2.3 System integration testing

4.3 Backup

5.0 Implementation

5.1 Implementation plan

5.2 Software implementation

5.2.1 Android application installation

5.2.2 Service module installation

6.0 Training

6.1 Developing training material

6.2 Developing manuals

6.2.1 User manual

6.2.2 Help Desk manual

7.0 Project closure

7.1 Deliveries

7.2 Client acceptance

7.3 Closure documentation

7.4 Project sign off

References

Akhavan, P., Jafari, M., & Fathian, M. (2006). Critical Success Factors of Knowledge Management Systems: a Multi-Case Analysis . Tehran, Iran: Iran University of Science and Technology.

BIS. (2010). How to organise, plan and control Projects. BIS.

Bright Hub Media. (2015). Constructing Powerful Scope Statements. Retrieved from Bright Hub Project Management: https://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/57950-example-and-evaluation-of-project-scope-statements/

Chappell, D. (2011). WHAT IS AN APPLICATION PLATFORM? Microsoft Corporation.

CMS. (2008). SELECTING A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH . CMS.

cook, s. (2012). complaint management excellence. kogan page.

faed, A. (2013). An intelligent complaint management system. australia: springer .

Farrell, A. (2007). Selecting a Software Development Methodology based on Organizational Characteristics . ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY .

Johannsen, F., & Zellner, G. (2015). INTRODUCING A PROFESSIONAL COMPLAINT MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF A FLEET MANAGEMENT COMPANY. ibi research GmbH.

Lacaster University. (2006). Case Study of Successful Complex IT Projects. THE BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY .

Linder, A., Schmitt, S., & Schmitt, R. (2014). Technical complaint management from a quality perspective.”. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence , 1-11.

Nasr, O., & Alkhider, E. (2015). Online Complaint Management System. JISET – International Journal of Innovative Science, Engineering & Technology , 305-307.

PMI. (2015). Capturing the Value of PROJECT MANAGEMENT. PMI.

Scott, C., Lundgren, H., & Thompson, P. (2011). “Guide to Customer Service in Supply Chain Management. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer.

Shaw, D., Holland, C. K., Snowdon, B., & Warboys, B. (2007). Elements of a business process management system: theory and practice. Business Process Management Journal , 91-107.

Stauss, B., & Seidel, W. (2012). Complaint Management in Retailing. Springer.

Stein, A. D., Smith, M. F., & Lancioni, R. A. (2013). The development and diffusion of customer relationship management (CRM) intelligence in business-to-business environments.”. Industrial Marketing Management , 855-861.

Zellner, G. (2011). A Structured Evaluation of Business Process Improvement Approaches. Business Process Management Journal , 203-237.