A Correlation Analysis Concerning Customer Satisfaction and Business SystemKazue MORI
Waseda University, Kate.Mori@gmail.com
ABSTRACTThis research attempts to identify a specific feature of the company with a strong competitive
advantage by analyzing the cause of escalation rate at the call center.
As the premise on this research, it would be assumed that the level of business system isdetermined by that of business structure and that of business operation. In addition to this, we
believe that customer satisfaction plays an important role to sustain strong competitive
advantage.
With the above premise, we chose the call center as a research object and analyzed somefactors to lead variance of escalation rate that is a substitute parameter of customer
satisfaction among call centers in terms of the concept of Business System.
Along with this idea, we conducted quantitative analysis at the call center as an object for thisresearch to examine the next three themes below.
① Identify some possible factors that lead difference of the escalation rate among call centersin terms of the concept of Business System.
② Identify what would most affect the escalation rate at the call center?
What kind of business activity has a strong relation with the call center activity?
③ Suggest some propositions about features of companies with a strong competitive
advantage throughout the result of ②＆③．

Finally, this research suggests some argument that customer satisfaction might be interrelatedwith the level of business system.
Key word: Business system, Customer satisfaction, Call Center

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Introduction
The core theme on this paper attempts to identify a specific feature of the company with astrong competitive advantage.
On this research, we chose the call center as a research object and analyzed some factors tolead variance of escalation rate that is a substitute parameter of customer satisfaction amongcall centers in terms of the concept of Business System.
Along with this idea, we conducted quantitative analysis at the call center as an object for thisresearch to examine the next three themes below.
① Identify some possible factors that lead difference of the escalation rate among call centersin terms of the concept of Business System.
② Identify what would most affect the escalation rate at the call center?
What kind of business activity has a strong relation with the call center activity?
③ Suggest some propositions about features of companies with a strong competitive
advantage throughout the result of ②＆③．
Before we present our detailed research highlight, we would like to present our research frame
including prior research about customer satisfaction and the concept of Business System.

What does Customer Satisfaction contribute to the Company?
Previous research indication
It has bee a long time that the customer satisfaction has been argued both in academic field andbusiness circle. There are many arguments about the importance of customer satisfaction.
Therefore, we present one previous work, which is quite noteworthy to introduce.
According to the previous research by Christian Homburg, Nicole Koschate, and Wayne
D.HoyerZ, the degree of customer satisfaction is positively related with the willingness to payof customers. The definitions of willing to pay is average purchase price per customer. They
also emphasize that the relation between customer satisfaction and WTP becomes stronger ascustomer satisfaction judgement moves from transaction-specific to cumulative (Homburg,Koschate, and HoyerZ, 2005).
From their suggestions, we realized that customer satisfaction has a strong influence on thecompany’s economic returns that should support company’s strong competitive advantage.

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Because of this, the company has to have some structure and have operational ability tomaintain a high customer satisfaction.
In summary, customer satisfaction is one of important elements to make the company
competitive. Therefore, it is very important for the company to have some organizational
capability to maintain high customer satisfaction that is one of important aspects to becompetitive in their markets.
Customer Satisfaction and Call CenterIn addition to the information from a previous work, we focused on the customer satisfaction
at the call centre. In details, we tried to make clear what is a customer satisfaction at callcenters?
Before we explain about the customer satisfaction call centre, we briefly introduce the reason
why we chose a call center as a research object.
According to ‘Call Center white paper’ published in Japan, 2006, we found out that the mostused communication tool between customer and company is a telephone. From this fact, weassumed that most opinions or expectations from customers might be aggregated at the callcenter and the customer service provided by call center might have a strong influence on
customer’s perception toward the company. For this reason, we chose the call center as a
research subject and analyzed customer satisfaction at the call center to lead some potential
propositions about the customer satisfaction of the company as a whole.
What Do Customers Expect Call Centeres?
To use the call center satisfaction as a substitute parameter, we had to define, ‘What is the callcenter satisfaction?’ We examined some research papers published in Japan. Throughout thisresearch, we found out what customers most dislike was that their inquires are transferredwithout being given any answers on the first contact and customers have tendency to rate thekind of call center as the call center with low satisfaction.
‘Escalation’ means the issue that fast line could not solve and was transferred to Second lineor related external parties that play as third line. Therefore, all actors would be possible to beresponsible for the issue that customer inquired.
Moreover, the factor of escalation occurrence is various. At least, there are three factors thatare related to the escalation at the call center.
One of those is caused by customer’s disagreement with the corporative policy. For example,
a customer would like to pay the bill on internet banking, but the company doesn’t have sucha system and the customer might be frustrated by the situation.

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Second case is that escalation is caused by the discrepancy in the corporate customer handling.
As the example in this case, the company presented a delivery guarantee in 5 days whencustomer purchased, but actual delivery were executed in more than 5 days.
As a final case, escalation was caused by service failure that a customer could not agree withthe first encounter. With typical example, the person who handled the issue first could not
behave along with a customer’s expectation and the customers were negatively impressed orirritated by the behaviour.
From this fact, we see that escalation has not been caused by not only call center but also otherparties that are related to call center operation.
To avoid causing escalation, we believe that the company has to analyze from various aspects
and try to solve fundamental issues.
The Concept of Business System
As we explained earlier, escalation is caused by not only call center but also some parties thatare related to call center operation. Behind of this, there is the concept of Business System.
Business System is the mechanism to support all activities of the company as a whole. All
activities at the company should be united and interdependent in some way. Depend on how allactivities are related effectively, the level of business system would be changed.
Generally, the call center is one of the organizational structures and should be incorporated
into Business System and all activities should be interdependent under the concept of Business
System. So call center activity would be constrained by other activities that are related to callcenter activity.
For example, customer’s first impression when he or she contacted with a call center would bevaried depend on the way of training operators at the call center. However, the flexibility ofservice recovery may be dependent on the organizational structure.
The level of business system depends on each company. The better business system thecompany has, the stronger the organizational capability is. If the company could create theirown business system and enhance the level of that such as TOYOTA, they would be able tohave a strong competitive advantage against other competitors.

4Research Frame
Our Concept of Call Center Satisfaction from the View Point of Business Systems
Before we proceed to present our quantitative findings, we would like to organize ourresearch frame and explain the relationship between customer satisfaction and BusinessSystem.
First, telephone is a primary tool for customers to contact with the company and the call center
is a primary channel.
From this fact, it is possible to assume that most of customer’s opinion or needs might bemostly handled at the call center.
Therefore, the customer would be strongly influenced by the way of customer handling at thecall center. However, the part of customer handling at the call center would be constrained by
the company as a whole because all activities in the company should be interdependent under
the concept called as Business System.
As we mentioned earlier, we assume that the level of business system is determined by the levelof business architecture and that of business operation. Therefore, call center satisfaction
would be varied by the level of company’s business system.
From the reason above, by comparing the escalation rate and detailed factors to cause
escalation among call centres, it might lead some propositions about a specific feature of thecompany with a strong competitive advantage.

Quantitative Analysis
Preparation for Survey
Before we actually conducted survey, we had done some preparation for survey to make ourquestionnaires valid.
First, we interviewed some employees who work for one outsourcing agency. We selectedstaffs that are responsible for managing call center operation. Total number is 17 people. From
this interview, we realized the core issue as for call center satisfaction, organized our concept
again and made questionnaires for survey.
As the next step followed by the preparation above, with questionnaires that we planned, we
asked call center staff to answer those questions and asked them to suggest some points thatthey are confused to answer. We reorganized our questionnaires along with their suggestion.
So we launched the survey through the above-mentioned process.

5Survey Outline
Research subjects are Call center staff who are employed by one outsourcing agency and areengaged in management work. We also carefully selected the call center not to place adisproportionate emphasis on one particular industry.
We distributed research questionnaires the below and collected five samples per call center. As
a result, we collected 125samples, but deleted some samples that have wrong answers orinvalid answer under our standard.
List of Questions
The name of subjects

01

The name of company

2

Type of call center

3

Type of contract

6

Job description

7

Size of call center

8Q1

10
11

Average escalation rate per month① The ratio of external party's responsibility for escalation

Q2② The ratio of internal division's responsibility for escalation

12③ The ratio of call center's responsibility for escalation

13① Degree of role setting

14② Degree of operation along with role setting

Q4

15
16

③

Relation1
Relation1

Please mention the reason why the degree of operating
along with the role setting is performed well.

Details① Degree of information usageRelation217② Range of information sharingDetails

18③ Degree of using shared information

19

Q5Explanatory
Variable

Q6Ralation2① Degree of target goal

Relation320② Range of sharing target goal

Details21③ Degree of setting the rule to mange target goal

Details22④ Degree of usage the numerical result to improve performance

Figure １. List of Questions

6Relation3

Method
As a basic method of this analysis, Escalation Rate is an independent variable and we nailed
down the factor that affects Escalation Rate. Along with this idea, ‘Escalation Rate’ as 100％,
we asked subjects to classify each assumed operation factor, which should compose
Escalation rate, with ratio. By using the result, we did multiple regression analysis.
The structure of this survey is the below;
Possible Operation Factor
12％
100％=12％＋70％＋10％＋8％
70％

Escalation Rate
10％

Third Parties
related to callcenter
Corporate
Divisions related
to call center

Call Center itself

Multiple
Regression
Analysis

8％Others

Figure2. Multiple Regression Analysis Structure①
From the result of this regression analysis, we figured out that corporate division activity is
positively correlated with call center operation. We again subjects to classify assumed detailfactor of corporate division operation as the rate of that as 100%.

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Assumed Detailed Factors①The person incharge
5%

100％=5%＋25％＋25％＋30％＋5％＋10％②Branch25%

Compare the call centergroup that have highescalation ration withthe call center groupthat doesn t high ration
with t-test③Shop or Sales
Person25%

Corporate division
factor rate

④ＩＴ Channel
30%⑤Product or Service
5%⑥Others
10%

Figure3. Multiple Regression Analysis Structure②
We also compared with the call center with a high escalation rate and the call center with a lowescalation rate. We examined with both t-test and Mann-Whitney U test because we were notsure that collected samples were normally-distributed or not. From this test, we could findsome differences of Call Center Activities.
Research Question was five scale (1=very unlikely to 5=very likely) and asked subjects tomark depend on his opinion. Part of question list is the below;
Ｑ４：Which of the following best describes the role setting at your call center?
① Does your call center clearly set the role and the responsibility with other divisions or eternal companies?
Very unlikely
1-

2

Depend on the situation
3-

4-

Very likely
5② If you chose 4 or 5 at the question ①，
Do you think that your call center has been managed along with the setting role or responsibility?
Very unlikely
1-

2

Depend on the situation
3-

4-

Figure４. Part of Question List

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Very likely
5Results
Overall result is the below. In the next chapter, we would discuss about this result.
Red＝Multiple regression analysis
Blue＝Mann-Whitney U test
Green＝t-test
Gray=Multiple regression analysis.

Escalation
Rate＊：p<0.05，＊＊：p＜0.01663.7422

70.0446

Primaryfactors①Third party
Related tocall center

0.7518

Detailed
Factors①The division
In charge

0.27740.06390.40394.3121③Call Center
itself②Corporate
Division related to callcenter

0.413

0.094947.4867＊0.03480.2248＊0.0168

0.08900.1656＊＊0.0044

0.74380.8501②Branch③Shop orSales Person④Others④IT Channel

0.9578⑤ProductOrService

Figure5. Overall Result＊：p<0.05，＊＊：p＜0.01

Choiceｔ-test figure

Mann-Whitney U testfigure

Degree of execution along withrole-sharing

0.0149＊0.0065＊＊

Degree of information sharing

0.09210.1417

Degree of usage the shared
information

0.0449＊0.0346＊

Setting objective performancetarget0.0358＊0.1689Degree of activity to improve
performance

0.26540.4725Figure６．The Result of Comparison

9Discussion
Proposition 1
Having described in the beginning of this paper, the premise on this research is that the level ofbusiness system is determined by the level of business architecture and that of business
operation. In addition to this premise, escalation rate was used as a substitute parameter forthe customer satisfaction.
With the quantitative analysis, we found out that escalation rate at the call center has been
positively correlated with the factor that is transferred to internal division such as a complaint
about the attitude problem of sales staff or bringing some confusion to customers because of
insufficient information on the web site.
From our finding on this research, it can be said that the level of business system would havea strong influence on the customer satisfaction of the company as a whole.
Proposition 2
Of corporate divisions related to call center operation, IT Channel strongly influences CallCenter performance. From this finding, we assume that call center and IT channel complement
each other as Non-appearance channel for customer.
However, this supplemental model would be varied depend on business model and targetingcustomer group that are surely determined by the business model.
On this research, we didn’t consider the customer needs and expectation model depend on
business model. So we fully acknowledge that the supplemental model between call center andIT channel would be varied.
Proposition 3
After we compared the call center with a high escalation rate with the call center with a low
escalation rate, we found out three specific differences.
One feature is linked to the degree of role-sharing. The call center with a low escalation rate
was more organized about the role sharing with other internal divisions as well as theirrole-sharing at the call center. In addition to this, the degree of actual execution along withrole-sharing was carried out higher than the call center with a high escalation rate. Another
difference is the degree of information usage. The call center with a low escalation rate had atendency to share information with other parties and use the information to improve theiroperation.

10SummaryThis research attempts to identify the specific feature of the company with strong competitive
advantage by analyzing factors of escalation from their call centers to other parties. As thepremise of this research, the company with competitive advantage has a higher customer
satisfaction. We set this premise from the previous literature. We also assumed that higher
level of customer satisfaction is determined by the level of Business System.
On this research, we chose a call center as a research object and an escalation rate as a
substitute parameter of customer satisfaction. We actually confirmed that the escalation rate at
the call center has been positively correlated with internal division’s activities.
From these findings, we could lead some important indications that the level of Business
System may have strong influence on the performance of the company as a whole.
As our research limitation, we have to conceptualize more clearly about a morecomprehensive model of the determinations of customer satisfaction and have to expand ourresearch object in a wider field.

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