Customer Representatives’ Competence of Call Center Employees: An Exploratory Study

Year 2020, Volume: 5 Issue: 1, 11 - 16, 30.07.2020

Murat Nazlı

https://doi.org/10.31822/jomat.671224

Abstract

The fundamental purpose of this exploratory study is to understand and analyze the leadership styles of customer representatives in call centers of online travel agencies (OTAs) through content analysis. The sample consists of 895 customer responses about the services of these online agencies. The theoretical background of the study focuses on the servant leadership styles of customer representatives to see how they can handle tough situations with the customers and how the customers respond to the level of services. The findings reveal valuable hints and important perspectives of customers for the leadership styles of customer representatives. The emphasized points are the reservation problems, lack of problem-solving, delivery of wrong information to the customers, focus on sales rather than customer satisfaction, low level of institutionalism perspective of customer representatives, and lack of interest after the sales. The study enlightens the leadership styles of customer representatives in call centers of online agencies for the use of researchers and practitioners.

Keywords

Customer representatives, leadership style, customer relations, servant leadership

References

• Agras, S., & Emre, G. E. N. C. (2018). The Relations of Organizational Commitment and Burnout: A Qualitative Research on a Call Center. International Journal of Western Black Sea Social and Humanities Sciences, 2(1), 35-55.
• Babakus, E., Yavas, U., & Ashill, N. J. (2010). Service worker burnout and turnover intentions: Roles of person-job fit, servant leadership, and customer orientation. Services Marketing Quarterly, 32(1), 17-31.
• Bartram, T., & Casimir, G. (2007). The relationship between leadership and follower in-role performance and satisfaction with the leader: The mediating effects of empowerment and trust in the leader. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 28(1), 4-19.
• Berry, L. L., Parasuraman, A., & Zeithaml, V. A. (1994). Improving service quality in America: lessons learned. Academy of Management Perspectives, 8(2), 32-45.
• Boukis, A., Koritos, C., Daunt, K. L., & Papastathopoulos, A. (2020). Effects of customer incivility on frontline employees and the moderating role of supervisor leadership style. Tourism Management, 77, 103997.
• Celik, S. (2017, October). An Assessment Method for Employees Performance Evaluation Using Cluster Analysis. In Proceedings of International Academic Conferences (No. 5908119). International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
• Chu, H. W. (2008). Employee perception of servant leadership and job satisfaction in a call center: A correlational study (Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix).
• De la Croix de Castries, J. (2017). Using artificial intelligence to enhance personalization of customer relationship management in the contact center space: Afiniti's technology case study (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
• Dutta, S., Kumar Chauhan, R., & Chauhan, K. (2017). Factors affecting customer satisfaction of online travel agencies in India. Tourism and Hospitality Management, 23(2), 267-277.
• Gurer, A., & Bozaci, I. (2019). The role of leader-member ınteraction in the effect of stress after a traumatic event in the workplace to customer orientation: a field study in the call center. Hitit University Journal of Social Sciences Institute, 12(2), 481-497.
• Isik, M., & Hamurcu, A. (2017). The role of job stress at emotional labor’s effect on the intention to leave: Evidence from call center employees. Business and Economic Horizons, 13(1232-2019-728), 652-665.
• Kisi, N. (2016). Prioritization of Call Center Agent Competences through Analytic Hierarchy Process Method. Cumhuriyet University Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 17(2), 145-160.
• Muthuveloo, R., Kathamuthu, K., & Ping, T. A. (2014). Impact of leadership styles on employee adaptability in the call center: A perspective of the telecommunication industry in Malaysia. Asian Social Science, 10(7), 96.
• Naor, M., & Coman, A. (2017). Offshore responsiveness: The theory of Constraints innovates customer services. The Service Industries Journal, 37(3-4), 155-166.
• Onat, O. (2014). Customer Satisfaction is the biggest plus of call centers, from http://www.itnetwork.com.tr/musteri-memnuniyeti-cagri-merkezlerinin-en-buyuk-artisidir/ accessed: 02.01.2020.
• Othman, Z., & Rahman, R. A. (2014). Attributes of ethical leadership in leading good governance. International Journal of Business and Society, 15(2), 359-372.
• Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(3), 377-393.
• Robinson, G. M. (2018). Leadership and social effectiveness in sport: conceptualizations and investigation of servant leadership and political skill (Doctoral dissertation).
• Ruggieri, S., & Abbate, C. S. (2013). Leadership style, self-sacrifice, and team identification. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 41(7), 1171-1178.
• Russell, R., & Stone, A. G. (2002). A review of servant leadership attributes: Developing a practical model. Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, 23(3), 145-157.
• Sirohi, S. (2018). Marketing Strategies Adopted By Makemytrip.Com (Doctoral Dissertation).
• Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The Journal of Virtues & Leadership, 1(1), 25-30.
• Subramanian, K. R. (2018). The connection between your employees and customers. Journal of Advanced Research in Business Management and Accounting, 4(8), 1-14.
• Sun, P. Y. (2013). The servant identity: Influences on the cognition and behavior of servant leaders. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(4), 544-557.
• Taylor, P., & Peter, B. (1999). An assembly line in the head: Work and employee relations in the call center. Industrial Relations Journal, 30(2), 101-117.
• Wallece, C., Eagleson, G., & Waldersee, R. (2000). The sacrificial hr strategy in call centers. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11(2), 174-184.
• Zhou, R., Wang, X., Shi, Y., Zhang, R., Zhang, L., & Guo, H. (2018). Measuring e-service quality and its importance to customer satisfaction and loyalty: an empirical study in a telecom setting. Electronic Commerce Research, 1-23.