Page 167 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

pedal, the outside agencies were able to transfer a call to the TMS
call center immediately, so that the more experienced Toyota
CSRs could work with the customer.
Each of the Toyota CSRs is also empowered to make deci-
sions on the spot to help resolve customer issues. In addition to
being directly connected to dealer service centers, a CSR could
also immediately approve such expenses as having a car towed to
the dealer, reimbursing a customer for renting a car or arranging
a loaner vehicle from a dealer, or extending a warranty to cover
other issues that a customer might be having. Once a customer
talks to a CSR, an attempt is made to connect that customer to the
same CSR on any follow-up phone calls. For every five CSRs, there
is a supervisor who monitors selected calls, coaches the CSRs,
and can authorize more expensive solutions.
Another somewhat unique feature of the TMS call center
was the use of quality circles, even during the height of the crisis.
Every call center supervisor led a quality circle of 8 to 10 CSRs,
meeting once a week to talk about problems, solutions, and best
practices. The quality circles were even extended to the call center
personnel agencies. These quality circles were led by senior CSRs
as a way of giving them experience in leading quality circles and
of continuing to ramp up the skills and training of the outside
personnel.
The successful rapid reactions by dealers and the TMS call
center were possible only because of the Toyota Way culture. Toy-
ota’s dealer network had been trained for years in the philosophy
of putting customers first, and that’s exactly what the dealers did.
The TMS call center had, in many senses, implemented the Toyota
Production System (TPS) in a nonmanufacturing environment,
which allowed it to scale quickly to meet demand while main-
taining quality. The investments that the company had made

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