The relative influence of organisational commitment and job-satisfaction on service quality of customer-contact employees in banking call centres

An inter-disciplinary approach is adopted to provide a deeper understanding of the human resource-service quality relationship. The paper tests the relationships organisational commitment and job satisfaction have with service quality of customer-contact employees. Hypotheses are constructed by reviewing literature in the areas of human resource management and services marketing. A study comprising 342 employees was conducted in four telephone call centres of a major UK retail bank. Investigates how different forms of organisational commitment and job satisfaction influence the service quality delivered by contact employees. Findings indicate that job satisfaction and organisational commitment of employees have a significant impact on service quality delivered. The affective component of commitment was found to be more important than job satisfaction in determining service quality of customer-contact employees.

Impact of online channel use on customer revenues and costs to serve:considering product portfolios and self-selection

Developing a strategy for online channels requires knowledge of the effects of customers' online use on their revenue and cost to serve, which ultimately influence customer profitability. The authors theoretically discuss and empirically examine these effects. An empirical study of retail banking customers reveals that online use improves customer profitability by increasing customer revenue and decreasing cost to serve. Moreover, the revenue effects of online use are substantially larger than the cost-to-serve effects, although the effects of online use on customer revenue and cost to serve vary by product portfolio. Self-selection effects also emerge and can be even greater than online use effects. Ignoring self-selection effects thus can lead to poor managerial decision-making.

The impact of the introduction and use of an informational website on offline customer buying behavior

Do customers increase or decrease their spending in response to the introduction of an informational website? To answer this question, this study considers the effects of the introduction and use of an informational website by a large national retailer on offline customer buying behavior. More specifically, we study a website's effects on the number of shopping trips and the amount spent per category per shopping trip. The model is calibrated through the estimation of a Poisson model (shopping trips) and a type-II tobit model (the amount spent per category per shopping trip), with effect parameters that vary across customers. For the focal retailer, an informational website creates more bad than good news; most website visitors engage in fewer shopping trips and spend less in all product categories. The authors also compare the characteristics of shoppers who exhibit negative website effects with those few shoppers who show positive effects and thus derive key implications for research and practice.

Rewarding customer service? Using reward and recognition to deliver your customer service strategy

This report examines the role of reward and recognition in helping organisations deliver excellent customer service. It identifies the impact that reward and recognition practice has upon customer service and highlights which practices are more effective; shows the extent to which employees are satisfied with the rewards and recognition they receive; indicates those approaches to reward and recognition most associated with staff commitment; and looks at how other factors affect employee satisfaction with reward and recognition.

Understanding relationship marketing from the customer's perspective

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Managing customer relationship management projects:the case of a large French telecommunication company

Customer relationship management (CRM) implementation projects reflect a growing conceptual shift from the traditional engineering view of projects. Such projects are complex and risky because they call for both organisational and technological changes. This requires effective project management across various phases of the implementation process. However, few empirical researches have dealt with these project management issues. The aim of this research is to investigate how a “project team” manages CRM implementation projects successfully, across the different phases of the implementation process. We conducted an in-depth case study of the “Firm-Clients Branch” of a large telecommunications company in France. The findings show that, to manage CRM implementation projects successfully, an integrated and balanced approach is required. This involves appropriate system selection, effective process re-engineering and further development of organizational structures. We highlight the need for a “technochange approach” to achieve successful organisational transition and effective CRM implementation. The study reveals that the project team plays a central role throughout the implementation phases. Furthermore the effectiveness of technochange depends on project team performance, technology efficiency and close coordination with stakeholders.

Does the importance of value, brand and relationship equity for customer loyalty differ between Eastern and Western cultures?

The use of the customer equity framework as a focal marketing strategy to increase customer loyalty has emerged as an important topic. Despite a growing number of investigations, previous studies are limited by their strong U.S. and European orientations. Research into Western consumers cannot necessarily predict the behaviour of Eastern consumers though. Therefore, this study investigates whether the link between customer equity drivers (value equity, brand equity and relationship equity) and loyalty intentions is sensitive to the cultural environment. A sample of 1553 Chinese and 1085 Dutch consumers in the banking and supermarket industries reveals that all three customer equity drivers exert a greater impact in Western than in Eastern cultures. This study also shows that Eastern consumers in general have higher loyalty intentions than Western consumers. © 2013.

The impact of service characteristics on the switching costs-customer loyalty link

This research investigates the interrelationship between service characteristics and switching costs and makes two contributions to the service retailing literature: (1) As a means of better understanding the effectiveness of switching costs, the study suggests a two-dimensional typology of switching costs, including internal and external switching costs and (2) it reveals that the effect of these switching costs on customer loyalty is contingent upon four service characteristics (the IHIP characteristics of service). We carried out a meta-analytic review of the literature on the switching costs-customer loyalty link and created a hierarchical linear model using a sample of 1,694 customers from 51 service industries. Results reveal that external switching costs have a stronger average effect on customer loyalty than do internal switching costs. Moreover, we find that IHIP characteristics moderate the links between switching costs and customer loyalty. Thus, the link between external switching costs and customer loyalty is weaker in industries higher in the four service characteristics (as compared to industries lower in these characteristics), while the opposite moderating effect of service characteristics for the internal switching costs-loyalty link is noted. © 2014 New York University.

Customer loyalty among daily disposable contact lens wearers

Background: Optometric practices offer contact lenses as cash sale items or as part of monthly payment plans. With the contact lens market becoming increasingly competitive, patients are opting to purchase lenses from supermarkets and Internet suppliers. Monthly payment plans are often implemented to improve loyalty. This study aimed to compare behavioural loyalty between monthly payment plan members and non-members. Methods: BBR Optometry Ltd offers a monthly payment plan (Eyelife™) to their contact lens wearers. A retrospective audit of 38 Eyelife™ members (mean. ±. SD: 42.7. ±. 15.0 years) and 30 non-members (mean. ±. SD: 40.8. ±. 16.7 years) was conducted. Revenue and profits generated, service uptake and product sales between the two groups were compared over a fixed period of 18 months. Results: Eyelife™ members generated significantly higher professional fee revenue ( P<. 0.001), £153.96 compared to £83.50, and profits ( P<. 0.001). Eyelife™ members had a higher uptake of eye examinations ( P<. 0.001). The 2 groups demonstrated no significant difference in spectacle sales by volume ( P= 0.790) or value ( P= 0.369). There were also no significant differences in contact lens revenue ( P= 0.337), although Eyelife™ members did receive a discount. The Eyelife™ group incurred higher contact lens costs ( P= 0.037), due to a greater volume of contact lens purchases, 986 units compared to 582. Conclusions: Monthly payment plans improve loyalty among contact lens wearers, particularly service uptake and volume of lens purchases. Additionally the greater professional fees generated, render monthly payment plans an attractive business model and practice builder.

"Customer" knowledge management in healthcare

This paper reports on a work-in-progress project on the management of patient knowledge in a UK general hospital. Greater involvement of patients is generally seen as crucial to the effective provision of healthcare in the future. However, this presents many challenges, especially in the light of the ageing population in most developed countries and the consequent increasing demand for healthcare. In the UK, there have been many attempts to increase patient involvement by the systematisation of patient feedback, but typically they have not been open to academic scrutiny or formal evaluation, nor have they used any knowledge management principles. The theoretical foundations for this project come first from service management and thence from customer knowledge management. Service management stresses the importance of the customer perspective. Healthcare clearly meets the definitions of a service even though it may also include some tangible elements such as surgery and provision of medication. Although regarding hospital patients purely as "customers" is a viewpoint that needs to be used with care, application of the theory offers potential benefits in healthcare. The two main elements we propose to use from the theory are the type of customer knowledge and its relationship to attributes of the quality of the service provided. The project is concerned with investigating various knowledge management systems (KMS) that are currently in use (or proposed) to systematise patient feedback in an NHS Trust hospital, to manage knowledge from and to a lesser extent about patients. The study is a mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) action research investigation intended to answer the following three research questions: • How can a KMS be used as a mechanism to capture and evaluate patient experiences to provoke patient service change • How can the KMS assist in providing a mechanism for systematising patient engagement? • How can patient feedback be used to stimulate improvements in care, quality and safety?

Topographic visual analytics of multibeam dynamic SONAR data

This paper considers the problem of low-dimensional visualisation of very high dimensional information sources for the purpose of situation awareness in the maritime environment. In response to the requirement for human decision support aids to reduce information overload (and specifically, data amenable to inter-point relative similarity measures) appropriate to the below-water maritime domain, we are investigating a preliminary prototype topographic visualisation model. The focus of the current paper is on the mathematical problem of exploiting a relative dissimilarity representation of signals in a visual informatics mapping model, driven by real-world sonar systems. A realistic noise model is explored and incorporated into non-linear and topographic visualisation algorithms building on the approach of [9]. Concepts are illustrated using a real world dataset of 32 hydrophones monitoring a shallow-water environment in which targets are present and dynamic.

Benchmarking of distributed computing engines spark and GraphLab for big data analytics

In this paper we evaluate and compare two representativeand popular distributed processing engines for large scalebig data analytics, Spark and graph based engine GraphLab. Wedesign a benchmark suite including representative algorithmsand datasets to compare the performances of the computingengines, from performance aspects of running time, memory andCPU usage, network and I/O overhead. The benchmark suite istested on both local computer cluster and virtual machines oncloud. By varying the number of computers and memory weexamine the scalability of the computing engines with increasingcomputing resources (such as CPU and memory). We also runcross-evaluation of generic and graph based analytic algorithmsover graph processing and generic platforms to identify thepotential performance degradation if only one processing engineis available. It is observed that both computing engines showgood scalability with increase of computing resources. WhileGraphLab largely outperforms Spark for graph algorithms, ithas close running time performance as Spark for non-graphalgorithms. Additionally the running time with Spark for graphalgorithms over cloud virtual machines is observed to increaseby almost 100% compared to over local computer clusters.

A fogyasztói etnocentrizmus új koncepcionális modelljének kialakítása és verifikálása = Forming and verification of a new conceptual model of the customer ethnocentrism

A szerzők cikke az etnocentrikus érzelmek hatását mutatja be a hazai és a külföldi termékek megítélésére. Empirikus kutatásaikra és regressziós modelljeikre támaszkodva felvázolják azt a hatásmechanizmust, amely a szakirodalomba a fogyasztói etnocentrizmus néven vonult be. Megállapítják, hogy másképp hatnak a patrióta és a nacionalista érzelmek a hazai és a külföldi termékek iránti attitűdökre. Míg a hazai termékeknél egy karakterisztikus, többdimenziós kép tárul elénk, addig a cseh, kanadai és német termékek megítéléséből általánosított, külföldi termékek esetében csak a termékkel való azonosulást tudták kiemelni. A megkérdezettek demográfiai jellemzői közül egyedül a férfiak mutattak statisztikailag azonos irányú és erősségű kapcsolatot a hazai és a külföldi termékek megítélésénél. _______________________ The authors’ article presents effects of the ethnocentric emotion of the appreciation of the domestic and foreign goods. Based on their empirical and regressive models they feature that effectmechanism, which is named consumer ethnocentrism in the special literature. They set that the patriot and the nationalist emotions acting differently on attitudes of the domestic and the foreign goods.

A beosztás és a nemek hatása a változások érzékelésére egy lean projekt tapasztalatai egy magyar autóipari beszállítónál (Efficient possibilities of the customer complaints: compensation and apology)

Tanulmányukban a szerzők egy magyar tulajdonú autóipari beszállító lean (továbbiakban karcsú) átalakulását vizsgáljuk. Bár az új rendszer bevezetése alig több mint egy éve kezdődött el a vállalatnál, mégis a rövid idő ellenére komoly eredményekről számolhatnak be. Különösen látványos a pénzügyi mutatók és a vevői elégedettség területén elért javulás. Kutatásuk célja kettős volt: (1) megvizsgálni, hogyan érzékelik a vezetők és a beosztottak a változásokat, valamint (2) összehasonlítani a vállalat két üzemében dolgozó nők és férfiak átalakítással kapcsolatos reakcióit és érzeteit. Az eredmények alapján elmondható, hogy a vezetők és a beosztottak, csakúgy, mint a két nem képviselői, nagyon eltérően gondolkodnak a változásokról és az átalakítás sikerének hátteréről. Eredményeik tükrében megállapítható, hogy a vizsgált szervezetnél a női munkavállalóknál a hit, a férfiaknál az elkötelezettség az a tényező, amely leginkább hatással van a sikerérzetre. A kutatás tapasztalatait felhasználva tanácsokat fogalmaznak meg a karcsú menedzsment sikeres bevezetésével kapcsolatosan. ______________ Relatively little research attention has been given to what happens after service failure, how the organizations respond to the failure and how this response affects customers’ subsequent behaviours and attitudes. This article proposes to take an in-depth look at the different organizational responses to customer complaints. On the basis of the equity theory the concept of justice has been used that involves distributive, procedural and interactional justice. Using 2x2x2 factorial design experiment based on scenarios the main findings of the research is that interactional justice (explanation and apology) is as important as distributive justice (compensation). On the other hand the result is dependent on the failure type: different recovery effort is efficient in the case of outcome or process failure.

A hatékony panaszkezelés lehetőségei: kompenzáció és bocsánatkérés (Efficient possibilities of the customer complaints: compensation and apology)

A szerzők cikkükben a panaszkezelés hatékonyságát vizsgálják, kutatási módszerük a szcenáriókon alapuló kísérleti módszertan. Eredményeik alapján elmondható, hogy a panaszkezelés hatásaként vizsgált elégedettség és lojalitás – előzetes hipotéziseiknek megfelelően – nemcsak a kompenzáció nagyságától függ, hanem lényeges az is, hogy a folyamat során milyen hangnemben történik a hiba kiigazítása. Elemzéseik azt is alátámasztják, hogy a hiba típusától is függ, hogy a kompenzáció vagy az őszinte bocsánatkérés-e a célravezetőbb. ____________ Relatively little research attention has been given to what happens after service failure, how the organizations respond to the failure and how this response affects customers’ subsequent behaviours and attitudes. This article proposes to take an in-depth look at the different organizational responses to customer complaints. On the basis of the equity theory the concept of justice has been used that involves distributive, procedural and interactional justice. Using 2x2x2 factorial design experiment based on scenarios the main findings of the research is that interactional justice (explanation and apology) is as important as distributive justice (compensation). On the other hand the result is dependent on the failure type: different recovery effort is efficient in the case of outcome or process failure.