Service Personnel, Technology, and Their Interaction in Influencing Customer Satisfaction*

ABSTRACT

Managing the one and the other the technologies and the personnel wanted for providing high-quality, multichannel customer support creates a mixed and persistent operational challenge. Adding to this difficulty, it is still unclear by what means service personnel and these of recent origin communication technologies interact to influence the customer's perceptions of the service being provided. Motivated through both practical importance and inconsistent findings in the academic literature, this exploratory research examines the interaction of media richness, exhibited by three different technology connections (telephone, e-mail, and online chat), with six customer service representative (CSR) characteristics and their influences upon customer satisfaction. Using a large-sample customer scan data set, the article exhibits a multigroup structural equation pattern to analyze these interactions. follows suggest that CSR characteristics influence customer service satisfaction similarly across all three technology-mediated connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughtss Of the characteristics studied, service representatives contribute to customer satisfaction more when they exhibit the characteristics of thoroughness, knowledgeableness, and preparedness, regardless of the richness of the medium used. Surprisingly, while three other CSR characteristics studied (courtesy, professionalism, and attentiveness) are traditionally believed to be important in face-to-face rencounters they had no significant impact upon customer satisfaction in the technology-mediated adjoining matters studied. Implications for both practitioners and researchers are drawn from the flows and future research opportunities are discussed.

Subject Areas: Computer-Mediated Communication, Customer Service, Medium Richness, and Service Operations.

INTRODUCTION

Customer service operations are being subdueed to rapid, technology-driven change. The ubiquity and sophistication of fresh information technologies, such as the Internet, have fundamentally changed, and continue to change, in what manner organizations interact with their customers, at the same time it has become no les crucial to firm performance (El Sawy & Bowle 1997; Parasuraman & Colby 2001; Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Malhotra, 2002; suffocate 2002; Piccoli, Brohman, Watson, & Parasuraman, 2004) While telephone and fax have become for the use of all in the customer service character new communication media, like e-mail and instant messaging, are being extended at a frenetic pace and are in great demand (Burke 2002) As of 2005 it has been throw outed that 45% of all contact companies have with their customers appear over the telephone, 45% happen via online means (Web site, e-mail, etc) just 5% be met with face-to-face, and the remaining 5% via other means (Anton & Phelps, 2002) This change away from face-to-face contact toward online and technology-mediated courses has implications both for selecting technologies and for managing personnel who provide customer service in these high-tech environments (Delene & Lyth 1989; Parasuraman & Colby 2001; Ray, Muhanna, & Barney, 2005)

With the introduction of novel communication media and expanded customer touch-points, the characteristics of an effective customer service process/system are experiencing significant change (Boyer Hallowell, & Roth 2002; Hill et al., 2002) As this operational evolution progresse the characteristics of the greatest in quantity effective service employees become les obvious, with thus far little empirical investigation of the linkage between information technologies and customer service. As Ray et al. (2005) state, " . while a number of case studies do highlight the critical part of IT in customer service (Elam & Morrison, 1993; El Sawy & Bowle 1997) empirical research examining the link between IT and customer service performance has been lacking" (p 626)

While businesspeople have had centuries to learn in what manner to interact with customers face-to-face and decades to discover the best way to provide customer service above the telephone, Internet-based media have been in use for alone a short while. Despite evidence that different work environments may require different impressed signs of employees (Schneider, 2002), many managers with whom we have nuncupatory assume that providing Internet-based customer service requires similar personnel attributes as in a telephone environment. There is, as of nevertheless no empirical research evidence to support of that kind an assumption. In contrast, differences in features and channels (Griffith & Northcraft, 1994) among the various communication technologies, and findings from virtual team research (eg Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004) and related areas recommend that different customer service representative (CSR) characteristics may be desirable depending on the richness of the medium being used.

Per supplications for further research on moderating issues in technology-mediated environments (e.g., Rice, 1992) this exploratory research examines the interaction of media richness, as exhibited by three different technology words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] followings (communication media), with six CSR characteristics and their influence upon customer service satisfaction. Using a primary sample review data set, this study addresses the following research question: should managers attempt to match CSR based upon their customer-observable characteristics, to particular communication media depending upon its richness? Or, conversely, is it appropriate to hire and assign CSR based upon a unified set of employee characteristics important across a variety of technology-mediated environments?