MISAMIS UNIVERSITY
Ozamiz City
College of Business and Management

Compensation Administration
HRDM 6

Prelim Requirement

Case Study Analysis
The Customer-Service Agent

Submitted by:

Florelein G. Cane
Student

Submitted to:

Mrs. Ana Bonita Lamanilao
Professor

July 15, 2016
Case Study Analysis
Bill Ryan – a customer-service agent

Introduction

Bill Ryan often deals with difficult people. It’s what he gets paid for. He’s one of 30 customer-service agents at Half.com, an online marketplace owned by eBay Inc., the Internet auction company. Like eBay, Half.com attempts to match buyers and sellers in a vast flea market featuring millions of products ranging from trading cards to camcorders. But unlike eBay, there’s no bidding. Half.com lists items only at fixed price and it’s yours.

The other big difference with eBay is that for most of the products listed on Half.com, there’s no way for buyers and sellers to interact directly. Usually there’s no need to. To make a purchase, buyers use their credit cards or checking accounts to pay Half.com, which then automatically credits amount to the seller’s card or account- minus a transaction fee. Once the payment is made, the seller ships the product.

However, things can go wrong. A purchased item doesn’t arrive, or isn’t in the condition the buyer expected. Or maybe an interesting product is listed but its description isn’t clear.

And that’s where Mr. Ryan and his colleagues come in, handling the buckets of e-mail and intermittent phone calls from curious, addled, and upset users. They pass information between buyers and sellers, answer questions, and resolve the problems. Half.com says that fewer than 1 percent of the site’s transactions require customer service’s involvement. But with more than 15 million items for sale- well, you do the math.

In fact, the