It takes two to tango: The role of customer empathy and resources to improve the efficacy of frontline employee empathy

This study investigates the link between employee empathy and customer satisfaction. Building on social exchange theory, we develop a model of employee-customer empathy. We focus on the central role of customer-oriented behaviour in explaining the empathy-satisfaction relationship, predicting that employee empathy positively influences customer-oriented behaviour, which in turn enhances customer-satisfaction. We also examine the moderating roles of customer empathy, as well as of customer resources. Results of a dyadic-survey study of 211 pairs of frontline employees and their customers support the proposed moderated -mediation model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Climate perceptions and the customer orientation of frontline service employees

Satisfaction of customers' needs is particularly dependent upon the customer orientation of frontline employees. Understanding the drivers of such orientation is, therefore, a key issue in current research. Research relating perceptions of organisational values with the customer orientation of employees is rather sparse. This topic is approached by investigating the role of selected dimensions of psychological climate in promoting the customer orientation of frontline service employees. A structural equations model is developed and empirically tested, indicating that perceptions of customer, ethical, and innovation climates exert an indirect effect on the adoption of customer-oriented behaviours by frontline employees.     

Organizational identification as a determinant of customer orientation in service organizations

The marketing literature suggests that frontline employees are the central determinant of how customer-oriented a service organization is perceived to be by its customers. However, little is known about the contingencies of employees’ customer orientation (CO) beyond personality traits and broadly construed work attitudes. Based on the social identity approach, the present article develops a multilevel model whereby CO is the result of identity-based management of frontline employees. Two empirical studies in the travel industry show that employees’ CO depends on employees’ organizational identification and their leaders’ acting as role models of CO.     

(Im)Balanced customer-oriented behaviors and AI chatbots' Efficiency–Flexibility performance: The moderating role of customers’ rational choices

Artificial intelligence (AI) based chatbots are increasingly deployed in frontline encounters, because they combine frontline service efficiency and flexibility. Using a large-scale data set with more than 130,000 man–machine dialogues from an e-bike sharing platform, Study 1 reveals a complex relationship between chatbots' customer-oriented behaviors and their efficiency–flexibility ambidexterity. Chatbots' level of efficiency–flexibility ambidexterity is higher when their functional and relational customer-oriented behaviors are balanced rather than imbalanced (i.e., a negative imbalance effect) and when they are balanced at a higher rather than a lower level (i.e., a positive balance effect). A follow-up experiment, Study 2, and online survey, Study 3, consistently show that the negative imbalance effect is stronger as customers' perceptions of non-personalization costs decrease and privacy concerns increase, while opportunity cost has no significant influence on the negative imbalance effect. However, consistent with rational choice theory, the positive balance effect is stronger as non-personalization costs increase, privacy concerns decrease, and opportunity cost decreases. In addition, Study 1 and 3 consistently show that in alignment with the stimulus–organism–response framework, efficiency–flexibility ambidexterity partially mediates the relationship between chatbots’ (im)balanced customer-oriented behaviors and customer patronage. This study contributes to the literature on frontline ambidexterity by introducing an AI application context and a more nuanced nonlinear view of the antecedents and consequences of frontline ambidexterity.     

Customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors: Test of a social exchange model of antecedents

Using a sample of 281 frontline service employees of a national retail bank, we test a social exchange model of antecedents of three dimensions of customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviors suggested by prior boundary-spanning and services marketing/management literatures: external representation, internal influence, and service delivery. In support of our hypotheses, we identify fully mediated relationships from procedural, interactional, and distributive justice to external representation and internal influence via job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Our results generally support our expectation that the indirect effects of procedural justice on external representation and internal influence are stronger than the indirect effects of distributive or interactional justice on these behaviors. Also, our results reveal no significant indirect effects of procedural and distributive justice on service delivery behaviors. However, we find an unexpected direct positive path from interactional justice to service delivery behaviors. We interpret this latter finding in light of the normative value of interactional justice as a source of role modeling or managerial legitimacy.     

Developing a multidimensional scale of customer-oriented deviance (COD)

Although frontline employees' bending of organizational rules and norms for customers is an important phenomenon, marketing scholars to date only broadly describe over-servicing behaviors and provide little distinction among deviant behavioral concepts. Drawing on research on pro-social and pro-customer behaviors and on studies of positive deviance, this paper develops and validates a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional construct term customer-oriented deviance. Results from two samples totaling 616 frontline employees (FLEs) in the retail and hospitality industries demonstrate that customer-oriented deviance is a four-dimensional construct with sound psychometric properties. Evidence from a test of a theoretical model of key antecedents establishes nomological validity with empathy/perspective-taking, risk-taking propensity, role conflict, and job autonomy as key predictors. Results show that the dimensions of customer-oriented deviance are distinct and have significant implications for theory and practice.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Can sales leaders with humility create adaptive retail salespersons?

Although humility in leadership has been recognized as vital in leading salespeople to cope with unpredictability and unknowability in customers, the role of sales leader humility in promoting sales behaviors has remained underexplored. Our research aims to unfold how and when sales managers’ leadership humility nurtures retail salespersons’ adaptive selling behavior. Grounded on the dataset from managers and employees working in retail shops of a large telecommunication and computer company in Vietnam, the results reveal the role of retail salespersons’ customer knowledge, adaptive self-efficacy, and customer-oriented harmonious passion as the mediation paths for the linkage between sales leader humility and retail salespeople's adaptive selling behavior. The findings further provide evidence for the role of sales managers’ adaptive selling as an enhancer for the impacts of sales leader humility on these mediators.     

Exploring the Role of Productivity Propensity in Frontline Employee Performance: Its Relationship with Customer Orientation and Important Outcomes

Numerous studies have investigated the performance of frontline employees (FLEs) and how these employees influence organizational success. Because customer‐perceived outcomes are important, much attention has been devoted to the customer orientation (CO) construct. The weak influence of CO on external measures, however, has led to numerous research questions. The current work addresses these questions by introducing a new construct, “productivity propensity,” while examining its relationship with CO and multiple outcome measures. Results from two distinct samples suggest that the construct is a valuable addition to the FLE literature.     

Factors affecting employee willingness to report customer feedback

Effectively capturing consumer feedback can help organizations swiftly react and improve the quality of their service processes and delivery systems. In most organizations, frontline employees are a vital source of customer feedback as they interact with customers frequently and intimately. Thus, the current paper seeks to understand the factors influencing employee willingness to report customer feedback up the organizational channels of communication. The conceptual model was tested empirically using data collected from major chain restaurants in Taiwan involving 332 frontline employees. A hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized model. The obtained results demonstrate the impact of service climate, perceived organizational support, and internal locus of control on frontline employees’ willingness to report customer feedback.     

Leveraging perceived HPWS to improve service encounter quality in high-contact service industries

This study utilizes social exchange theory to explicate how perceived high-performance work systems (perceived HPWS) improve service encounter quality through overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment processes. We amassed survey responses from focal employees and their respective customers in three waves. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the impact of perceived HPWS on service encounter quality via overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment. Results from structural equation modeling affirmed a positive and direct association between perceived HPWS and service encounter quality. Additionally, the positive relationship between perceived HPWS and service encounter quality was uniquely and serially mediated by overall justice and psychological contract fulfillment. The current study makes a novel contribution by revealing how high-contact service organizations can leverage frontline employees' (rather than managers') perception of HPWS to optimize service encounter quality.     

Customer orientation of frontline employees and organizational commitment

This study investigates the effect of alignment between employee and firm customer orientation (FCO) on the organizational commitment of frontline service employees. Furthermore, the study examines how the size and nature of the discrepancy between employee customer orientation (ECO) and FCO affects organizational commitment. The results suggest that organizational commitment is stronger when employee and FCO are matched than when they are not. Furthermore, organizational commitment is slightly stronger when ECO exceeds FCO than when the reverse is the case. The results suggest that efforts expended by firms in hiring and retaining customer-oriented service workers will be unlikely to yield optimal commitment benefits without simultaneous investments to improve firm-level customer orientation.     

Exploring the relationship between individual values and the customer orientation of front-line employees

Abstract

Because of the nature of services, namely the inseparability of production and consumption, employee behaviours influence customer perceptions of service quality and satisfaction with the service provider. In particular, customer-oriented employees seek to help customers by addressing their needs, and this contributes to the building of customer satisfaction and the development of a relationship. Not surprisingly, research has been investigating the drivers of employees’ customer orientation. This paper examines how individual values influence the customer orientation of front-line service employees, a topic that has been unexplored in extant literature, and this is useful for the selection of employees who match the firm’s service strategy. To accomplish this, the study relies on the Schwartz value theory, which is applied to front-line employees in banking. The findings indicate that both resultant conservation and resultant self-enhancement affect the customer orientation of employees, and that these effects are moderated by job satisfaction and autonomy.     

Customer orientation,engagement, and developing positive emotional labor

Frontline employees must deal on a daily basis with emotionally demanding customer interactions. Such interactions, when coupled with organizational directives to focus upon exemplary customer service, can prompt employees to express feelings and emotions that are not genuine. Such ‘surface acting' has been found to create stress in frontline personnel, but an understanding of how this negative aspect of emotional labor may be minimized is lacking in the services literature. How a frontline employee's individual attributes might interact with a service work context to build deep, as opposed to surface, acting is the current focus. Applying job demands–resources theory, this study investigates how a frontline employee's customer orientation helps to develop positive work engagement, even in the face of contextual demands. Engagement is then linked positively to the beneficial behavior of deep acting which, in contrast to surface acting, has been identified as a less stressful form of emotional labor.     

Daily relationships between customer incivility,organizational control,self-efficacy,and service performance

Despite increasing research regarding the buffering conditions of customer incivility, little attention has been paid regarding how firm-driven tactics can serve as buffers between customer incivility and work outcomes. To fill this gap in the literature, our research assessed the relationship between daily customer incivility, next-morning self-efficacy as it related to next-day service performance, and the cross-level moderating effect of perceived organizational control. Using the experience sampling method, we collected diary data from 135 South Korean service employees over five consecutive working days. The results of our multilevel analyses showed that customer incivility from one day had a significant indirect effect on next-day service performance through next-morning self-efficacy. Employees’ perceptions of behavior-based organizational control mitigated the negative relationship between daily customer incivility and next-morning self-efficacy. However, perceived outcome-based organizational control did not moderate the daily customer incivility-self-efficacy relationship. These findings suggest that managing service employees with behavior-based control is more effective than using outcome-based control when helping them cope with daily customer incivility.     

THE EMPOWERMENT OF FRONTLINE SERVICE STAFF IN 3PL COMPANIES

Research on third‐party logistics (3PL) service providers has focused more on managing customer relationships than on managing the frontline personnel who interact with customers on a daily basis. Thus, even though the overall need for 3PL's to be market‐oriented is well‐recognized, relatively little is known about how 3PL companies support and develop frontline service staff to provide better service. This study draws on 3PL company site managers' responses to a postal survey that examines the influences of internal communication, customer service training and managerial coaching for customer contact employees on the relationship between market orientation and frontline service recovery empowerment.     

Perceived conflict avoidance by managers and its consequences on subordinates' attitudes

Conflict handling by managers gives rise to significant emotional and cognitive experiences for affected employees and has far‐reaching effects on the effectiveness of a group and an organization. In this conceptual paper, we argue that despite many claims made by managers in their self‐reports that they engage in either dominant or compromising conflict‐handling strategies when managing conflict within a group, they may be perceived by employees as adopting neglect or avoidance behaviors. We examine how such perceived managers' avoidance styles could influence employees' perceptions with regard to justice, trust, and politics within an organization.     

Examining the casual relationship among service recovery,perceived justice,perceived risk,and customer value in the hotel industry

This study elucidates the causal relationships between service recovery, perceived justice, perceived risk, and customer value. Data were collected by questionnaires validated for reliability and validity. The findings were as follows: perceived justice is positively affected by service recovery, whereas perceived risk is negatively affected by perceived justice. Furthermore, perceived risk is directly and negatively affected by service recovery; perceived risk is also indirectly influenced by service recovery through perceived justice. Finally, customer value is affected by perceived risk. However, customer value is not directly related to perceived justice; customer value was found to be indirectly affected by perceived justice through perceived risk. Therefore, the path of this casual relationship is ‘service recovery, perceived justice, perceived risk then customer value’. Future studies may explore the influence of internal factors or dimensions of the forgoing variables on perceptions of customer value. In practice, hotel managers can refine the relevant service recovery approach and optimize financial investment to increase customer value.     

Matching the Personal Initiative Capabilities of FLEs to Their Self-Regulatory Processes and the Firm's Initiative Climate

Frontline employees (FLEs) — the people behind the counter, on the phone, or walking the shop floor — can profoundly affect the customer experience. Harnessing the capability of FLEs to positively shape customer experiences is critical for service firms.However, placing the right employee in the right frontline role is not an easy task. To deliver positive service experiences, FLEs must be customer-oriented, placing customers’ interests first. In addition, FLEs need to demonstrate personal initiative by going beyond prescribed job roles to find solutions to customer problems. We propose that personal initiative is an important mediating variable in the relationship between customer orientation and FLE performance. Further, we examine whether this relationship is strengthened or weakened when a firm’s climate encourages initiative-taking behavior and FLEs have a prove or avoid orientation, or engage in deep or surface acting. We test the model across two studies using a multi-respondent data collection procedure within the retail banking sector. Our findings demonstrate that personal initiative mediates the relationship between customer orientation and FLE performance. Notably, this effect is stronger when a firm’s climate encourages initiative-taking and when FLEs have a prove orientation or engage in deep acting, and that the effect is weaker when FLEs have an avoid orientation or engage in surface acting. Our findings underscore that it is only when the fit between FLEs, their roles, and the work climate is right that firms will get the best out of their employees (c.f., Arthur et al. 2006; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).