Problem statement :

Justdial connects buyers with suppliers via Web, Mobile Web, Android App and iPhone App. There is a virtual number allocated for every supplier listed with Justdial which is used for tracking purposes.

For e.g. a supplier has an actual number 123 and we allocated a virtual number 456 to this merchant. On the Justdial portal, we show only 456 virtual number on the supplier details section and when the buyer calls up 456, we forward the call to 123 to connect with the supplier. By calling up on 456, we are able to keep a track on who has called the supplier and help us to provide a monthly report to the supplier on the number of calls generated via Justdial portal.

On 23-Mar-2024 (Saturday), there was a drop of VN calls by 20% compared to the preceding 3 Saturdays. Please define a detailed root-case analysis flowchart to identify the reason of drop.

Solution & Approach :

I have presented a high level framework to tackle similar problems. Then, I will present a list of all the data points required to come to the RCA and categorize them as per relevance.

Thought process & Flow chart -

  +------------------+
  |     Start        |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Gather & Analyze Data     |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Identify Potential Causes|
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Onboarding Issues|
  | Technical Issues |
  | Marketing Changes|
  | External Factors |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Prioritize Potential Causes |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Conduct Further Investigation|
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Changes in onboarding flow|
  | System Downtime   |
  | Phone Forwarding Issues |
  | Marketing Strategy Changes |
  | Competitor Actions |
  | External Events (Holidays, Weather, Economic Factors) |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Eliminate Non-Relevant Causes|
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  | Root Cause Identification  |
  +------------------+
            |
            V
  +------------------+
  |       End        |
  +------------------+

Some clarification questions will be required to narrow down choose the bucket that we can look into first -