Customer Service Behavior

This chapter provides a contingency approach to the understanding, prediction, and influence of customer service behavior. Customer service behavior is defined as any activities of an employee specifically directed toward affecting service quality. Specific characteristics of services that influence how organizations promote customer service behavior are described: service intangibility, simultaneity of service production and consumption, coproduction or active customer participation, relationship vs. encounter nature of the service, role-prescribed vs. extra-role nature of the behavior, standard vs. customized nature of the service, and the nature and level of customer contact. These characteristics of services are then discussed in relation to research on customer service behavior in the areas of performance management, employee selection, organizational climate and employee attitudes, emotions, training, motivation, and job design. The manner by which the characteristics of services would alter how one approaches interventions in each of these areas are discussed, and questions for future research are raised. Keywords: customer service behavior; service providers; service quality

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