Trading Places: Employees as Customers, Customers as Employees

Abstract

Offers a fresh outlook for managing the delicate interaction between the customer and the contact employee in the service environment. Emphasizes that the quality of the customer‐employee interfacehas a great effect on customers′ perceptions of the quality and value of the service, as well as on their satisfaction. Suggests a model of how companies can improve this interface by treating employees ascustomers and customers as employees, thus developing lower cost and higher quality services and also higher levels of satisfaction on the part of both customers and employees. Recommends various steps for management to take.

If employees “go the extra mile,” do customers reciprocate with similar behavior?

“…For example, previous research has established that ECB increases the efficiency of an organization by enhancing coworker or managerial productivity (Podsakoff et al, 1990), while prior work on EDB has suggested that it has a tremendous negative impact on organizations in terms of lost productivity, as well as on people in terms of increased dissatisfaction (Spector et al, 2006). These employee behaviors might also influence customer behavior, because customers are under the direct influence of employees (Bowers, Martin, & Luker, 1990). Such an investigation could answer the calls for an effective management of customer citizenship behavior and customer dysfunctional behavior (Bettencourt, 1997;Fullerton & Punj, 2004;Groth, 2005;Yi & Gong, 2006).…”

Managing innovation through customer coproduced knowledge in electronic services: An exploratory study

“…Some literature on customer participation centers on its positive outcomes for companies, such as cost reductions (Bowers et al 1990), increased economic efficiency (Lovelock and Young 1979), and customer satisfaction (Bendapudi and Leone 2003;Meuter et al 2000). Whereas the first two outcomes focus on monetary gains, the latter examines the psychological effects of customer coproduction.…”

The relationship between internal and external service quality

“…Some researchers suggest it is appropriate to measure internal service quality by using techniques and instruments developed for measuring external service quality (Bowers et al, 1990;Gremler et al, 1994), albeit with modifications . A number of studies have actually employed SERVQUAL in order to measure internal service quality (Boshoff and Mels, 1995;Frost and Kumar, 2001;Kang et al, 2002;Sánchez-Rodríguez and Martínez-Lorente, 2004;White and Rudall, 1999).…”