| Course | MT221 Customer Service |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Service recovery plan |
| Length | About 890 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT221 Unit 5
Six Hundred Fifty-Five Late Arrivals and Only 138 Calls: A Unit 5 Service Recovery Plan
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT221: Customer Service
Unit 5 Service Recovery Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Northline Auto Glass, its visit and complaint counts and every amount are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where dispatch and payroll records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.
The Failure
In the last quarter, Northline Auto Glass completed about [5,550] visits. About [655] arrived after the four-hour window, roughly 12 percent. Only [138] of those customers received a call or text before the window ended. The company logged about [79] complaints about late arrivals, and [64] of them came from customers who had no warning. Customers who were warned rarely complained, even when the delay was longer.
Hart et al. (1990) argued that the best service recovery begins before the customer complains, by spotting failures as they happen and acting quickly. Northline's dispatch board already shows when a technician is falling behind; the company simply has no rule for using that information.
The Recovery Sequence
The plan sets five steps, each with a trigger, an owner, a permitted action and a time limit.
Step one is to acknowledge. The trigger is the dispatch board showing a visit running fifteen minutes behind its window. The owner is the scheduler on duty. The action is a call to the customer, or a text if the call is not answered, giving an honest new arrival time. The time limit is five minutes from the alert. Schedulers will use a short script that names the delay, gives the new time and offers a choice. A sample call runs: "This is Northline about your windshield appointment today. Your technician is running about forty minutes behind and should reach you by 2:40. Would you like to keep that time, move to the 3 to 7 window, or choose another day with priority?"
The second step is to own the problem. The scheduler apologizes in the company's name, without blaming the technician, traffic or the previous job.
The third step is to resolve it. The scheduler may offer the customer three choices: wait for the new time, move to the next available window that day, or rebook for another day with priority. If the arrival will be more than forty-five minutes late, the scheduler may waive the [$49] mobile service fee without approval. If the customer has already lost time waiting with no warning, the scheduler may add a [$25] credit.
The fourth step is to follow up. The day after a late visit, an automated text asks whether the job was completed and whether anything else went wrong. Replies are routed to the customer care lead within one business day. A customer who reports a leak, wind noise or a warning light on the dashboard after a late visit is scheduled for a return check within forty-eight hours, since a rushed install is more likely to have a problem.
The fifth step is to remove the cause. Every Friday, the service manager reviews the week's late visits by cause, such as overbooked routes, a previous job that ran long or wrong glass loaded on the van, and assigns one fix to the cause that produced the most delays.
Why These Choices
Bowen and Lawler (1992) argued that empowering frontline employees works best when the service depends on quick responses to unpredictable situations, and a late van is exactly that. Requiring a scheduler to ask a supervisor before waiving a [$49] fee would add the very delay the call is meant to prevent. The fixed amounts keep the empowerment bounded and fair across customers.
Tax et al. (1998) showed that how customers are treated during a failure shapes their judgment as much as the outcome. A call before the window ends changes the customer's experience from being forgotten to being kept informed, even if the van is just as late.
A van forty minutes late with a call ahead draws far fewer complaints than one ten minutes late with no word.
Cost
The plan's main cost is scheduler time and credits. At about four minutes a call, [655] late visits a quarter take about [44] hours of scheduler time, about [$900] at current wages. If about [300] visits a quarter run more than forty-five minutes late, fee waivers cost about [$14,700], and credits for customers left waiting without warning add perhaps [$2,000] in the first quarter, falling as calls become routine. The total is about [$17,600] a quarter at first.
Against that cost, each complaint takes about an hour of the care lead's time and a share of complainers do not return. If the plan halves complaints and holds on to roughly [40] extra customers a year, at an average future value of about [$450] each, the retained business alone is worth about [$18,000] a year. The larger benefit is the Friday review, which should reduce the number of late visits itself.
Measures
The plan will be judged on the share of late visits preceded by a call, which should rise from about 21 percent to at least 90 percent within two months; late-arrival complaints per quarter, which should fall below [35]; and the number of late visits, which the Friday reviews should reduce from [655] toward [450] within two quarters.
References
Bowen, D. E., & Lawler, E. E., III. (1992). The empowerment of service workers: What, why, how, and when. Sloan Management Review, 33(3), 31-39.
Hart, C. W. L., Heskett, J. L., & Sasser, W. E., Jr. (1990). The profitable art of service recovery. Harvard Business Review, 68(4), 148-156.
Tax, S. S., Brown, S. W., & Chandrashekaran, M. (1998). Customer evaluations of service complaint experiences: Implications for relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 60-76. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299806200205
MT221 Unit 5 instructions, in plain terms
The fifth unit generally asks for a plan to recover from one type of service failure. Most prompts expect the failure defined with figures, a sequence of recovery steps, who performs each, what they may offer, how quickly they must act, how the cause will be removed and what the plan costs. Choosing one failure lets the plan be precise about triggers and remedies; a plan for every failure tends to repeat generic steps. Set remedies at levels the frontline can offer without approval when speed matters. A cost estimate set against the value of retained customers shows the plan is worth doing. Measures with targets close the plan. The service recovery paradox can be mentioned, but the evidence on it is mixed, so a plan should not depend on it. Expect about five pages, citing recovery and empowerment research in APA 7.
How the MT 221 Unit 5 example is put together
The plan sets out the quarter's late arrivals, the few warning calls and the complaints, with Hart and colleagues on recovering before the customer complains. The five-step sequence follows. Step one names the dispatch alert, the scheduler, a five-minute limit and a sample call script offering three choices. Steps two and three cover owning the delay and resolving it, with fixed amounts the scheduler can give alone, which a margin note explains. Step four is a next-day text with a return check for leaks or warning lights, and step five is a Friday review of causes. A section on choices uses Bowen and Lawler on empowerment and Tax and colleagues on treatment during a failure, and the highlighted line compares a warned long delay with an unwarned short one. The cost section totals scheduler time, waivers and credits, sets them against retained customers with a second note, and measures close it.
Reading the MT221 Unit 5 grading rubric
Recovery plans are typically graded on precision, fit with the failure and practicality. Defining the failure with counts earns early credit. Each step should name a trigger, an owner, an action and a time limit, since vague steps cannot be carried out. Graders reward plans that let frontline staff act without approval when delay is itself the failure, as long as limits keep remedies fair. Including a step that removes the cause, not only one that soothes the customer, shows the plan aims to reduce failures over time. Costs should be estimated and set against benefits such as retained customers. Measures should include both how well recovery is done and how often the failure occurs. Hart and colleagues, Bowen and Lawler and Tax and colleagues should be cited.
MT221 Unit 5 help from the desk
Recovery plans often go wrong by listing generic steps, such as apologize and follow up, without triggers, owners or limits. Another frequent problem is a plan that requires a manager's approval for every remedy, adding delay to a failure that is already about delay. Some plans offer remedies with no cost estimate. Others focus entirely on soothing customers and never address the cause. Measures may be missing or count only complaints. Be careful with the recovery paradox, which some writers treat as a reason to fail and recover. If your failure type is rare, say how the plan will be tested. Describe the failure your business sees most often, with whatever counts exist, and our writers can help design the trigger, remedies and cost box.
Get an MT221 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
Which failure should the recovery plan handle? Take it from the prompt's case or from a business familiar to you; the Unit 5 instructions and rubric should come too. Built as a sequence with triggers, owners and limits, a first custom sample is returned in 24-48h at no charge, waiver and call-time costs estimated from whatever figures the case gives. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT221 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
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MT221 Unit 5 questions, answered
What is the service recovery paradox, and should the plan rely on it?
It is the claim that customers who suffer a failure followed by an excellent recovery can end up happier than customers whose service never failed at all. The evidence is mixed: a 2007 meta-analysis found the effect on satisfaction but not on repurchase intentions. A plan can mention it, but costing a recovery on the assumption that failures build loyalty is the error graders tend to mark.
How many failure types should one plan cover?
Usually one, unless the prompt asks otherwise. A plan built around a single category can name the trigger, the owner, the remedy and the cost precisely, while a plan for every failure tends to repeat generic steps. If your prompt lists several failures, the example's structure can be repeated for each, but depth on one normally scores better than breadth across many.
Where can I find a free MT221 Unit 5 sample paper?
A complete MT221 Unit 5 service recovery plan appears on this page. It targets late arrivals at a mobile auto glass company, sets five steps with triggers, owners, actions and limits, estimates the cost and includes margin notes.
Who should have authority to give remedies in the sample plan?
The scheduler who makes the warning call, up to fixed limits: waiving the $49 mobile fee for delays over forty-five minutes and adding a $25 credit. Asking a manager first would add delay to a failure that is already about delay.
How will the company know the plan is working?
By the share of late visits preceded by a call, which should rise from about 21 percent to at least 90, late-arrival complaints falling below 35 a quarter, and the Friday reviews reducing late visits toward 450.