1. Case Study Analysis of
Tech Book Stores

2. ABSTRACT
The case study we analyzed is based on the Tech Bookstores which operates two book stores
situated inside Tech University and outside the University. In the Tech Bookstores case, the
bookstore manager has received several complaints about service quality from faculty and
non-student customers.
The case includes data from a customer quality survey. The data is classified by bookstore
location and type of customer. We developed a Pareto analysis of the survey data to prioritize
the quality problems, we identified costs of poor quality, and the obstacles which are
inevitable in implementing the change at the bookstores and made recommendations for
improve service quality.

3. INTRODUCTION
Tech is a major state university located in a rural collage town & operates two bookstores one
on campus & one off campus at a nearby mall. The on campus store sells school supplies,
text books, school licensed apparels, gifts and has large computer department. The off
campus store sells text books, school supplies, licensed apparels, gifts & has trade book
department.
Significance of the Bookstore
 Operating in a competitive market.
 Charge reasonable prices for text books & premium price for other products.
 Profits are used to fund student related projects.
Past period there were some of problems occurred at the off campus store like:
A student employee was arrested for drug possession.
There is a shouting match between faculty customer & student employee due to not
locate the book on right place on the bookstore computer system.
Argument between one of student employee & alumnus for the return policy.
Difficulty of purchasing due to unmanned register
Employees talking together in the store.
To identify the reasons for above problems Mr. Watson, the executive director of Tech
services initially conduct a customer survey during a two weeks period, and secondly he
hired several graduate students to pose as customers, make purchases, ask specific questions
of sales clerks & report their experience.

4. QUESTION 01.
REASONS FOR ORGANIZING THE CUSTOMER SURVEY
To identify the issues in tech stores Mr. Watson organized a customer survey during a two
week period in the middle of the semester by appointing some of employees to ask brief
questionnaire from the customers as they left the store. Due to following advantages of
customer survey he may feel to arrange a customer survey like this.
Low cost
- Surveys are less expensive than many other data collection techniques.
Easy to conduct
- Surveys can be created quickly and administered easily.
Easy to gather the data
- Through preparing sample of questionnaires can gather necessary information
on a wide range of things, including personal facts, attitudes, past behaviors
and opinions.
More sample size
- According to our requirements we can select the sample size.
Little or no observer subjectivity
- Surveys are ideal for scientific research studies because they provide all the
participants with a standardized stimulus. With such high reliability obtained,
the researcher’s own biases are eliminated.
Because of the above reasons Mr.Watson thought this is the most suitable analytical
tool than the others for identify major problems.
Tools That Can Use to Analyze the Book Store’s Quality Issues
Due to the disadvantages regarding to the selecting Sample size, Rigidity and Possible
Inappropriateness of Questions survey methods can get failure. Therefore to get better
information they can use this survey method through in this normal way, through their online
web site and observing their customer behavior. After that they can use the tools like
Fishbone Diagrams, Pareto chart and Scatter diagram for analyzing this quality issues.
Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram: identifies many possible causes for an effect or
problem, identify bottlenecks in the process and sorts ideas into useful categories.
Pareto chart: The Pareto Principle states that only a "vital few" factors are
responsible for producing most of the problems. This principle can be applied to
quality improvement to the extent that a great majority of problems (80%) are
produced by a few key causes (20%).
Scatter diagram: graphs pairs of numerical data, with one variable on each axis, to
help you look for a relationship.

5. QUESTION 02.
ANALYZING THE SURVEY RESULTS
When we analyzing quality issues in campus book store in terms of students, non students
and ultimately combined results of both students and non students can be drawn following
conclusions.
As per the Pareto chart 1, around 65% of dissatisfaction level of students in on
campus comprises visiting to the book store website, purchase price of the item and
employees’ knowledge and there is no significant dissatisfaction on overall service,
Campus store -Student Campus Store – Non Student
CAMPUS STORE

6. employees’ courteous, waiting time for service and check out and the availability of
the item.
As per the Pareto chart 2, around 72% of dissatisfaction level of non students in off
campus book store comprises visiting to the website, waiting for service and checkout
and employees’ knowledge and there is no material issues on overall service quality,
employees’ courteous, availability of the items required by the customers and the
prices of the items.
The major problem we could have identified in the campus store are the lack of
visiting to the book store’s website, lack of knowledge of employees, a higher
purchase price of the items and the long waiting time for service and checkout which
comprises 75% of overall dissatisfaction level.
It is noted that the prices of the items available in the campus book store is a big issue
among students but not among non students which comprises 24% and 3% of total
dissatisfaction level respectively. And also there are no material issues on waiting for
service and checkout among students but among non students.
OFF CAMPUS
Off campus store -Student Off campus store –Non student
OFF CAMPUS

7. Analysis of survey results of off campus book store in terms of students and non students, the
following conclusions can be drawn.
As per Pareto chart 1, the results of survey in off campus store among students reveal that
there is around 81% of dissatisfaction level comprises visiting to the book store’s
website, the purchase price of the items, overall service and employees’ knowledge and
courteous. But there are no significant issues in availability of the items required and the
waiting time for the service and check out.
As per Pareto chart 2, the survey results among non students in off campus reveal that
there is around 82% of dissatisfaction level comprises visiting to the book store’s website,
the employees’ knowledge and courteous, waiting time for service and overall service.
But there are no material undesirable impacts on availability of the items required, the
purchase price of the items available and the waiting time for checkout.
As per the Pareto chart 3, the major problems identified in the off campus book store are
lack of visiting to the book stores website, lack of employees’ knowledge and courteous,
dissatisfaction with overall service and long waiting time for service.
Also noted that there is a big issue on prices of items available among students surveyed
in off campus store, but not among non students which comprises around 20% and 2.3%
of total dissatisfaction level of on and off campus store respectively. This is more than
17% of dissatisfaction level of the non students.
Pareto chart for overall survey result
As per the analysis of overall results of the survey, the following conclusions can be drawn.
The major problems faced by both on and off campus book store as per the above
Pareto chart are lack of visiting to the book store’s website, lack of employees’
knowledge and courteous, dissatisfaction with overall service and the purchase price
of the items which comprises around 74% of total dissatisfaction level. So from the

8. survey results it is concluded that the both books stores hold the items required by the
customers.
QUESTION 03.
QUALITY OF A BOOK STORES
“The creation of customer satisfaction by providing a good basis for the purchase of
books and other items on the right time at right quantity at right price with perceived
condition and re-creation of customer loyalty”
Quality dimensions of the Book Store
• Time and Timeliness
– Reduction of waiting time to search and purchase a book
– Quick response of service personnel to customer requests
• Completeness
– Maintaining a satisfactory level of stocks to meet customer requirements
– Update the Bookstore’s website regularly
• Courtesy
– Treat the customers in a friendly manner
– Politeness to the customer
• Consistency
– Equally treat all the customers
• Accessibility& Convenience
– Appoint knowledgeable employees
– Locate the book store in an accessible place to customers
– Maintain a proper layout that makes convenience
e.g. Arrange the store’s very pleasant manner using proper
lightening and light music system to the book store, allocate special
reading area for buyers for read books before purchase, use any
alphabetical method to arrange the book shelves correctly.
– Convenience to access the website
• Accuracy
– Deliver the exact product that customer requires
– Ensure the accuracy of billing
– Ensure the correct information available in the website at anytime
• Responsiveness
– Should maintain a decent return policy and handling customer complaints.

9. QUESTION 04.
QUALITY ISSUES IN THE TECH BOOKSTORES
 Poor coordination system –
Not enough that relationship between management levels and an operational level
employees. Thus the student employees not work in responsible. Not only that, but
also, some student employees have referred for unmannerly activities.
Very limited parking facility in the on campus book store.
Higher turnover and absenteeism among student employees.
Customer’s disfavor about the prices.
One of a student employee was arrested on drug possession.
Lack of knowledge regarding to Book store computerized system.
Student employees do not threat their customers well.
Keep registers in Un-manner way.
Several employees talking together in the store.
Student employees not familiar in store policy.
Employees do not have a proper idea about what products available in the store and
where it is located
Sometimes employees got defensive with their customers.
Some student employees are lackadaisical and bored
Less induction and training program
The student employees lack knowledge regarding
Store policies of bookstores
Operating system of the store computer system
Available products types
Separate located places for each product.

10. QUESTION 05.
COST OF POOR QUALITY
INTERNAL FAILURE COST
Cost associated with defects found before the customer receives the product or service.
E.g. scrap, rework, process failure, downtime & price reduction
Cost incurred for investigation of poor quality activities of organization.
Cost of resale and changing of the returned books.(downgrading)
Down time due to the problems related to the bookstore computer system.
Not properly recording the required information in the bookstore computer system.
Loss the cost due to keeping wrong or unnecessary items within book store inventory.
Delay in providing service on time to the customer.
Cost of re-entering data in to the organization data base.
Loss sales due to the lack of knowledge of the employees about organizational
system.
EXTERNAL FAILURE COST
External failure costs are the costs that occur after the poor quality products reach to the
customer.
Cost of handling customer complaint about the quality of the product as well as the
service of the bookstore.
Cost of handling & replacing the returned products.
Cost of loss sales.
Loss of reputation.

11. QUESTION 06.
HOW TO IMPROVE QUALITY AT THE BOOK STORE
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT;
Is the actions taken throughout the organization to increase the effectiveness of activities and
processes to provide added benefits to both the organization and its customers. There are two
basic ways of bringing about improvement in quality performance. One is by better control
and the other by raising standards.
 Apply 5S practices to the bookstore
Sort - the first step in making things cleaned up and organized
Set In Order - organize, identify and arrange everything in a work area
Sweep or Shine - regular cleaning and maintenance
Standardize - make it easy to maintain - simplify and standardize
Sustain -maintaining what has been accomplished
 Conduct training programs aimed at student employees
 Incentive schemes to staff on attracting customers
 Maintain a suggestion box
 Design proper service level agreements
 Develop a proper return policy and communicate it clearly
 Implement a camera system to detect and control employee misbehavior
 Appoint a leader, responsible for quality issues, from employees in the book
store on daily basis

12. QUESTION 07.
BARRIERS AFFECTING TO THE CHANGES AT THE BOOKSTORE
Have long –standing policy of selling textbooks with a very small markup.
Use all profit to fund student related projects like new athletic fields, student center
enhancement. Therefore there is no improving in the stores due to lack of
investments.
Lack of knowledge regarding to organizational policy.
Lack of training and motivation programs to enhance employee training skills.
Failure to adopt the change.
Resistance emerges in the books store culture.
Lack of control over Part time student employees
Negative attitude towards system upgrades
Employee redundancy and grievances due to technology usage

13. QUESTION 08.
BENEFITS OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS
To the Book Store:
Facilitates re-engineering
Improves morale and Stimulates creativity of employees.
Improves relationships among managerial non managerial staff and customers.
Improves problem solving ability and decision making.
Reduces cycle times, both development and process.
Clarification of what services a client expects the practice to provide
Reduction in loss of time due to re-work or ineffective and/or inefficient practices;
Better communications structure.
Higher repeat business/referrals from a satisfied client base;
Enhanced reputation in the business and its market share.
Enhance efficiency and productivity.
Facing to the competition very well.
Detection of a problem before it reaches the customer
To the employees
Improved awareness amongst locations of book store
Increased consistency amongst locations
Documenting and sharing of employee’s knowledge
Improved understanding of internal business processes
Training facility.
Improved morale of employees
Having opportunity to participate in decision making.
To the customers:
Higher quality service.
Increased reliability of the end product.
Increase the customer own satisfaction.
Ensure that the bookstores are able to fulfill customer requirements before making the
sale.
Ability to buy products at relevant price ranges on the required time.