Organizational Change and Development

The change I propose is to improve the levels of CUSTOMER SATISFACTION in AMAZON. The change of increasing customer satisfaction for Amazon based on the fact that they are a customer obsessed company is a transactional (evolutionary) change where they want to improve on something by changing a few things here and there, but not a total drastic change in procedure or plan or what they actually do.

The change proposed is driven by both external factors like competition, market share and internal problems like decreasing throughput, decreasing or steady profit and so on.

Increasing customer satisfaction is something is very important when it comes to a company like Amazon as they are in their words "customer obsessed". Threats such as increasing competition from similar companies, unstable market for online shopping, dissatisfied customers all contribute to the external environmental factors that propose such a change. When it comes to the internal problems, low throughput of the agents due to various factors, unable to help the customers due to restrictions in the Standard Operating Procedure, incomplete or incorrect knowledge of the solution to a problem may all lead to the customer being dissatisfied and not returning to Amazon for future purchases affect the company as a whole.

The changes proposed to increase customer satisfaction will improve performance metrics such as

-> increasing throughput of the agents by decreasing time spent on a task

-> increasing customer satisfaction as seen by customer review surveys

-> increasing market share

-> increasing profits

->reaching short term strategic/ financial goals which add to the big picture.

-> decreasing dead-weight and unnecessary expenses.

Now coming to the point of considering how to decide what to change. The first step I would suggest is letting the organization know that the change is going to happen. Explain to them what they should look forward to and how they can be a part of the change. They can do this by having a day long workshop or just send out a memo as part of the daily mail. The reason being that it makes the organization feel as a whole, as if they are all in the same boat and they all have equal importance. 

The easiest way to bring about the change is to take feedback from the people who the change is affecting the most- The Customers and the Agents dealing with the customers. So the change proposed would be referenced by the survey feedback at the end of every customer interaction.

This can be done in a number of ways but targeting the key areas of concern as pointed out by customers is the perfect way to go. It is understandable that an organization like Amazon cannot change everything at one time but maneuvering around the problems slowly to get the optimal result is key. As change cannot happen without resistance some of the major issues that Amazon may face are