The Management of Customer-Contact Service Employees: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

The authors develop and test a model of service employee management that examines constructs simultaneously across three interfaces of the service delivery process: manager-employee, employee-role, and employee-customer. The authors examine the attitudinal and behavioral responses of customer-contact employees that can influence customers’ perceptions of service quality, the relationships among these responses, and three formal managerial control mechanisms (empowerment, behavior-based employee evaluation, and management commitment to service quality). The findings indicate that managers who are committed to service quality are more likely to empower their employees and use behavior-based evaluation. However, the use of empowerment has both positive and negative consequences in the management of contact employees. Some of the negative consequences are mitigated by the positive effects of behavior-based employee evaluation. To increase customers’ perceptions of service quality, managers must increase employees’ self-efficacy and job satisfaction, and reduce employees’ role conflict and ambiguity. Implications for the management of customer-contact service employees and directions for further research are discussed.

Role Conflict, Mindfulness, and Organizational Ethics in an Education-Based Healthcare Institution

“…The human consequences of role stress are also negative, manifesting in burnout, low job satisfaction and work commitment, as well as increased interpersonal conflict (i.e., Perrewé et al, 2004;Rizzo et al, 1970;Singh et al, 1994Singh et al, , 1996. Faced with these discouraging findings, other research has attempted to mitigate the impact of role conflict by examining various interventions such as empowerment, task control, and relational support (i.e., Hartline and Ferrell, 1996;House, 1981;Schneider, 1980;Singh, 2000;Singh et al, 1996;Varca, 2002). However, practical results in these areas have been meager.…”

Employee Participation in Cause-Related Marketing Strategies: A Study of Management Perceptions from British Consumer Service Industries

“…Firms in the service sector, including those in the financial services and retail industries, rely on contact personnel to influence consumer perceptions of service quality. The effective management and control of communications of these intermediaries is of paramount importance for these firms who consequently spend a lot of time and effort developing HRM strategies that motivate employees to represent the firm in the best possible light (Hartline and Ferrell, 1996;Zeithaml et al, 1988). They, thus provide interesting examples of the type of employee-based engagement of interest to us.…”

The effect of pre-flight attendants’ emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and emotional exhaustion on commitment to customer service

“…Kim and Ra (2009) argued that CCS is determined by the degree of employees' attachment to their service. Lee (2013) proposed that CCS involves employees' pride in their customer service, accomplishment at work, and their attachment to customer service (Hartline and Ferrell 1996), as well as their efforts toward continuous improvement of customer service (Peccei and Rosenthal 1997).…”

“…This measurement has been widely used in recent years due to its high internal consistency and reliability (Basim et al 2013). The final construct, CCS, was measured using five items created by Hartline and Ferrell (1996). Recently, this scale was used by Ellinger et al (2013) and Lee (2013).…”