Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints: A cross‐national Kano study

Purpose – This paper seeks to use the Kano model to gain a deeper understanding of attributes of effective frontline employees dealing with customer complainants in personal interactions. Previous research revealed that excitement factors deteriorate to basic factors over time. This research aims to investigate whether the same phenomenon holds true for attributes of service employees.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using Kano questionnaires from 272 respondents with complaining experience in the UK and Saudi Arabia, these being two countries at different stages of service sector development.Findings – The analysis of the Kano questionnaires for the UK reveals that complaining customers take the contact employee's ability to listen carefully for granted. The Kano results for Saudi Arabia clearly indicate that complaining customers are (still) easier to delight than their UK counterparts.Research limitations/implications – Even though the study has a sample size similar to several existin...

[1]  Ko de Ruyter,et al.  The Impact of Perceived Listening Behavior in Voice-to-Voice Service Encounters , 2000 .

[2]  Kirk L. Wakefield,et al.  The effects of customer service on consumer complaining behavior , 1995 .

[3]  R. Oliver.  Satisfaction: A Behavioral Perspective On The Consumer , 1996 .

[4]  W. Sasser,et al.  The profitable art of service recovery. , 1990, Harvard business review.

[5]  Bernd Stauss,et al.  The dimensions of complaint satisfaction: process and outcome complaint satisfaction versus cold fact and warm act complaint satisfaction , 2002 .

[6]  R. Brislin.  The wording and translation of research instruments. , 1986 .

[7]  Alhassan G. Abdul-Muhmin.  Effects of suppliers’ marketing program variables on industrial buyers’ relationship satisfaction and commitment , 2002 .

[8]  D. T. Mcalister,et al.  A content analysis of outcomes and responsibilities for consumer complaints to third-party organizations☆ , 2003 .

[9]  Kay C. Tan,et al.  Tourist satisfaction in Singapore – a perspective from Indonesian tourists , 2003 .

[10]  Mark Colgate,et al.  Developing a comprehensive picture of service failure , 2001 .

[11]  Lars Nilsson-Witell,et al.  Dynamics of service attributes: a test of Kano's theory of attractive quality , 2005 .

[12]  John W. Berry,et al.  Imposed etics-emics-derived etics: The operationalization of a compelling idea. , 1989 .

[13]  Naresh K. Malhotra,et al.  Dimensions of service quality in developed and developing economies: multi‐country cross‐cultural comparisons , 2005 .

[14]  Kurt Matzler,et al.  Employee Satisfaction: Does Kano's Model Apply? , 2004 .

[15]  Lars Witell,et al.  Classification of quality attributes , 2007 .

[16]  K. Winsted,et al.  Service behaviors that lead to satisfied customers , 2000 .

[17]  C Berger,et al.  KANO’S METHODS FOR UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER-DEFINED QUALITY , 1993 .

[18]  Kurt Matzler,et al.  The asymmetric relationship between attribute-level performance and overall customer satisfaction: a reconsideration of the importance–performance analysis , 2004 .

[19]  Christian Homburg,et al.  See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: a study of defensive organizational behavior towards customer complaints , 2007 .

[20]  Christian Homburg,et al.  How Organizational Complaint Handling Drives Customer Loyalty: An Analysis of the Mechanistic and the Organic Approach , 2005 .

[21]  Bradley J. Alge,et al.  Measuring Customer Service Orientation Using a Measure of Interpersonal Skills: A Preliminary Test in a Public Service Organization , 2002 .

[22]  Jill S. Attaway,et al.  Exploring Salespersons' Customer Orientation as a Mediator of Organizational Culture's Influence on Buyer-Seller Relationships , 2013 .

[23]  Roland T. Rust,et al.  Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing , 2005 .

[24]  Jochen Wirtz,et al.  Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy , 2000 .

[25]  Kurt Matzler,et al.  The factor structure of customer satisfaction , 2002 .

[26]  Rik Pieters,et al.  Using means‐end structures for benefit segmentation: An application to services , 1999 .

[27]  Jochen Wirtz,et al.  Consumer complaining to firms: the determinants of channel choice , 2004 .

[28]  A. Lepage.  The quality of life as attribute of sustainability , 2009 .

[29]  A. Herrmann,et al.  The Evolution of Loyalty Intentions , 2006 .

[30]  Alexander Reppel,et al.  Internet community bonding:the case of macnews.de , 2004 .

[31]  Mary Ann Hocutt.  Relationship dissolution model: antecedents of relationship commitment and the likelihood of dissolving a relationship , 1998 .

[32]  N. Kano,et al.  Attractive Quality and Must-Be Quality , 1984 .

[33]  Isabelle Szmigin,et al.  The Desired Qualities of Customer Contact Employees in Complaint Handling Encounters , 2006 .

[34]  Dr. Noriaki Kano,et al.  Life Cycle and Creation of Attractive Quality , 2003 .

[35]  Lucette B. Comer,et al.  Active Empathetic Listening and Selling Success: A Conceptual Framework , 2013 .

[36]  Ernest R. Cadotte,et al.  Key Factors in Guest Satisfaction , 1988 .

[37]  Anders Fundin,et al.  Using Kano's theory of attractive quality to better understand customer experiences with e-services , 2003 .

[38]  George Huitema,et al.  How organisations can learn from complaints , 2008 .

[39]  Olivier Furrer,et al.  The Relationships between Culture and Service Quality Perceptions , 2000 .

[40]  Djoko Setijono.  DisPMO and DePMO as six sigma‐based forward‐looking quality performance measures , 2008 .

[41]  J. Berry,et al.  Field Methods in Cross-Cultural Research , 1986 .

[42]  Barry Berman,et al.  How to Delight Your Customers , 2005 .

[43]  Ko de Ruyter,et al.  An empirical assessment of the influence of customer emotions and contact employee performance on encounter and relationship satisfaction , 2004 .

[44]  R. Ramsey,et al.  Listening to your customers: The impact of perceived salesperson listening behavior on relationship outcomes , 1997 .

[45]  Christo Boshoff,et al.  The influence of selected antecedents on frontline staff’s perceptions of service recovery performance , 2000 .

[46]  Lars Witell,et al.  Two Decades of Using Kano's Theory of Attractive Quality: A Literature Review , 2008 .

[47]  Ravi Dhar,et al.  Hedging customers. , 2003, Harvard business review.

[48]  B. Lewis,et al.  Service failure and recovery: evidence from the hotel industry , 2004 .

[49]  James E. Stoddard,et al.  Salesperson characteristics affecting consumer complaint responses , 2001 .

[50]  Stephen S. Tax,et al.  Recovering and Learning from Service Failure , 1998 .

[51]  Benjamin Schneider,et al.  Winning the service game , 1995 .

[52]  Håkan Wiklund,et al.  Obstacles to the creation of attractive quality , 2006 .

[53]  Michael R. Bowers,et al.  The art of service recovery: fact or fiction? , 2006 .

[54]  Mary Jo Bitner,et al.  The Service Encounter: Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents: , 1990 .

[55]  Z. Rahman,et al.  Capturing the customer’s voice, the centerpiece of strategy making , 2004 .

[56]  O. Ferrell,et al.  The management of customer-contact service employees: An empirical investigation. , 1996 .

[57]  Gianfranco Walsh,et al.  Review and future directions of cross-cultural consumer services research , 2008 .

[58]  Gillian Rice,et al.  The challenge of creativity and culture: a framework for analysis with application to Arabian Gulf firms , 2003 .

[59]  N. Malhotra,et al.  A cross‐cultural comparison of behavioral intention models ‐ Theoretical consideration and an empirical investigation , 2001 .

[60]  J. Steenkamp.  The role of national culture in international marketing research , 2001 .

[61]  T. Andreassen,et al.  From Disgust to Delight , 2001 .

[62]  Abdullah H. Aldlaigan,et al.  Beyond satisfaction: customer attachment to retail banks , 2005 .

[63]  A. Pressey,et al.  Jumped, Pushed or Forgotten? Approaches to Dissolution , 2003 .

[64]  Kurt Matzler,et al.  How to delight your customers , 1996 .

[65]  Janelle Heineke,et al.  Exploring the Relationship between Perception and Performance: Priorities for Action , 1998 .

[66]  Riccardo Peccei,et al.  The antecedents of employee commitment to customer service: evidence from a UK , 1997 .

[67]  Tomohiko Sakao,et al.  Quality engineering for early stage of environmentally conscious design , 2008 .

[68]  J Hogan,et al.  How to measure service orientation. , 1984, The Journal of applied psychology.

[69]  Dawn Lerman,et al.  Consumer politeness and complaining behavior , 2006 .

[70]  E. Anderson,et al.  Strengthening the Satisfaction-Profit Chain , 2000 .

[71]  C. Craig,et al.  International Marketing Research , 1983 .