AA case study

Company overview

The AA (Automobile Association) is by far the largest motoring organisation in the UK.  The professionalism and high standards valued by 12 million members in the event of a roadside breakdown is also a feature of more than 150 other AA products and services.  Today, the AA's support for its members stretches beyond its core range of breakdown services and even into Europe.  These include; personal financial services such as, motor and home insurance, loans, a credit card, warranties and parts and labour cover. Its website (www.theaa.com) is a motoring, travel and leisure portal.  The AA’s many publications include maps, accommodation and restaurant guides, and their Roadwatch system provides traffic and travel information.  There are AA products/services to help people choose, buy and run a car; including service centres providing MOTs, repair and servicing. The AA gives both private and fleet motorists access to more than 3,000 replacement tyre outlets across the UK.

In September 1999, the AA was purchased (for £1.1 billion) by Centrica, the leading supplier of energy and services to the home in Great Britain.

The Problem

In the early 80’s, the AA was in a position where the call-handling, recording and despatch systems were in a state of overload, unable to operate effectively.  Something was needed to reverse worsening response times and falling customer satisfaction as expectations rose in the light of increasing competition.  Due to new competition, greater call volumes, and the increasing number of patrols on the road, management felt they needed to examine their regionally networked scheduling system. It was decided that the company needed a nationally based system, separating call handling and dispatch. The AA previously ran eight regional call centres with mainframe systems, but the 1980s computer and communications technology meant these were largely isolated from each other, so regions could not easily share the load during peak periods. From 1986 a new computer based system (called ‘Command and Control’) started to replace paper-based operations.  This system cut the number of call centres from 27 to 7.  However this still did not solve the aforementioned problems, therefore (in 1990) the AA decided to go back to the drawing board and have a complete system overhaul.

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The Solution

In order for this complete system overhaul to be a success there needed to be the nurturing of a new organisational culture, with the core of this culture being increased communication between management and users.

A new radical system was put forward, in order to alleviate/combat the growing problems mentioned earlier, and also go beyond this and create a marked improvement in the service.  The project manager (Gary Meadows) and Nigel Brown (who provided the original system design) knew they would face numerous problems in implementing and making a success of such a radical new ...

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