When Conscientiousness Isn’t Enough: Emotional Exhaustion and Performance Among Call Center Customer Service Representatives

Abstract

The authors examined the relationship of the interaction between emotional exhaustion and conscientiousness with objectively-measured call volume performance and subjectively-measured service quality ratings among 92 call center customer service representatives (CSR’s) of a financial services institution. Results supported the interactive effects on call volume but not service quality. Specifically, the relationship between emotional exhaustion and call volume was stronger among high- than low-conscientiousness CSR’s. Among CSR’s reporting low levels of emotional exhaustion, those high in conscientiousness achieved higher call volumes than those low in conscientiousness. In contrast, among CSR’s reporting high levels of emotional exhaustion, those high in conscientiousness achieved lower call volumes than those low in conscientiousness. Implications for both the personality and stress literatures are discussed. Practical implications for human resources managers also are offered.

The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm

“…Leaders who are highly conscientious but low on agreeableness, may be abrasive and impersonal with followers when delivering negative feedback (Witt, Andrews, & Carlson, 2004), and although conscientious leaders may be mindful of the preferences of a work group, these leaders may hesitate to make strategic decisions that in anyway oppose consensus opinion. As such, conscientious leaders are unlikely to be perceived as charismatic or inspirational (Bono & Judge, 2004).…”

Burnout in Organizational Life

“…Other personality variables have also been studied as potential individual difference variables influencing the environment-burnout relationship (e.g., Semmer, 1996;Witt, Andrews & Carlson, 2004). Zellars, Perrewé and Hochwarter (2000) investigated the role of personality on burnout, after controlling for role stressors, among health care workers.…”

Does Internal Brand Management really drive Brand Commitment in Shared-Service Call Centers?

“…This is due to the fact that agents who work at ' brand touchpoints ' should be introduced to the brand right from the beginning of a project to identify themselves with the brand and to build up a sense of being a ' brand insider ' . In this context, recruitment of the ' right ' people could also facilitate this (for example, Witt et al , 2004 ;Haag, 2008 ) . It is not only the introduction into the world of a client ' s brand identity that is important, but also all involved processes.…”

“…Furthermore, agents often work for multiple brands, which can lead to confusion and low commitment. Other important reasons for the weak performance are little job training and burnout syndrome ( Witt et al , 2004 ;Walsh and Deery, 2006 ;Wegge et al , 2006 ). Call centers are sometimes compared with retailers and dealers, but the central differences between them are the specifi c working conditions (for example, Grebner et al , 2003 ;Lewig and Dollard, 2003 ;Zapf et al , 2003 ;Tuten et al , 2004 ;Rafaeli et al , 2007 ).…”