CONSUMER-ORIENTED APPROACH TO CALL CENTER AND WAITING ON LINE APPLICATIONS IN SERVICE SECTOR

Yıl 2012, Cilt: 12 Sayı: 23, 81 - 102, 01.06.2012

Ercan Çiçek Kalender Özcan Atılgan

Öz

Around the world and in Turkey development of the service sector have progressing
rapidly and because of increasing consumer expectations and intensive competition,
businesses has needed to increase the servic level, effectiveness and sustainability.
Especially in the late 1970s, services sector started to grow and has become the dominant
element of the economy. As a result, studies have more focused on success factors and
elements of services in today’s competitive environment. Service managers refer to the literature to evaluate the effects of quality, value, and satisfaction of services on consumer
purchase intentions. Customer satisfaction is often used as an indicator of whether
customers will continue to buy service. The distinguishing characteristics of services
make it difficult to define and measure customer satisfaction. By their nature, services
require consumer-business interaction.
As an economic variable, time is one of the consumers’ most precious resources.
Because the demand cannot be always estimated for service businesses and services
cannot be stored, waiting is inevitable. Consumer experience of time is very subjective
and influenced by their immediate priorities and needs. Thus, the waiting time is
perceived as a psychological need to be managed by reducing the customer's waiting
experience. In this context, service manager should undertake important tasks. In many
services, waiting is becoming a focal factor in consumers’ evaluation of services. For the
service sector, time is considered as a major component of quality. Speed of service is a
very important service attribute. Thus, managers are seeking ways to speed up service in
order to decrease the negative service evaluations of consumers.
It is difficult to evaluate complex psychological issues with analytical models.Since
the use of queuing models as the basis for solving the waiting time problems is common
in call centers, human side of waiting is ignored. As a Customers do not want to be treated
like an object while waiting for service. From the consumers’ perspective, the most
important negative outcome of waiting is time lost. Because, consumers consider waiting
as an inactive and lost opportunity time. As the waiting time is perceptual, the longer a
consumer believes he or she waited, the more dissatisfied with the service. The current
debate about waiting time needs to be defined and analyzed from the consumer behaviour
perspective. Thus, the nature of the waiting is an important factor that determines
customers’ overall satisfaction with the firm.
In this study, importance of waiting line management in service businesses and
sensitivity of customers about waiting line will be mentioned. Recently there has been a
growth in the number of companies that provide services via call centers. A call center is
an effectively integrated system of different communication channels, people, processes,
technologies and strategies in order to add value for customers and businesses.
Companies believe that consumer access to the firm adds value by increasing
relationship. Call center applications are an important element of customer relationship
management. By the effective functioning of call centers, along with customer
satisfaction, more loyal customers can be created and long-term relationships can be
established. So, call centers have become a prominent weapon during this communication.
Some of the key success criterias of the call centers are service levels, the waiting times of
incoming calls, appropriate number of employees employed, the rate of abandoned calls
the average duration of the call being handled, customer satisfaction, etc.
The Goal of this study is to fill the gap between consumer’ perspective on waiting
lines and managerial applications. Based on the existing literature evaluating waiting lines
in terms of consumer behavior perspective, contextual inferences are discussed. Also,
methodological drawbacks of traditional techniques for evaluating the waiting line of call
centers are discussed in the paper. Within the scope of the study, some suggestions related
with waiting problems in the call centers and systematic deductions will be provided.
To what extent the difference between perceived and actual waiting times are reduced,
to that extent consumers are satisfied from the service. Researchers have developed
various strategies to reduce the negative effects of perceived waiting time. These strategies range from altering customers’ perceptions of a line’s length to providing
distractions that divert attention away from waiting. Some proposals of Maister can be
effective to overcome the problems of waiting in call centers. Especially waiting time
information is an important psychological factor affecting the perceived waiting time.
If the waiting time can be managed more effectively (even if they cannot be
shortened), customer satisfaction can be improved. Managers need to be aware of how
waiting time is stressful for customers and how it can affect the service quality. It is
neccessary to continuously provide feedback from customers to evaluate waiting times.
By increasing the perception of service quality, long-term customer satisfaction and trust
will be provided.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Service, Consumer, Waiting Line, Call Center

HİZMET İŞLETMELERİNDE ÇAĞRI MERKEZİ VE BEKLEME HATTI UYGULAMALARINA TÜKETİCİ ODAKLI BİR YAKLAŞIM

Öz

Dünyada ve Türkiye’de hizmet sektörünün gelişimi hızla sürmekte ve işletmeler, tüketici beklentilerinin artması ve yaşanan yoğun rekabet sonucu hizmet düzeyini, etkinliğini ve sürekliliğini arttırma ihtiyacını duymaktadırlar. Bu bağlamda, hizmet yöneticisine önemli görevler düşmektedir. Çoğu hizmet işletmesinde, bekleme konusu, tüketicilerin hizmeti değerlendirmesinde odak unsur olmaktadır. Tüketici bakış açısından değerlendirildiğinde beklemenin en olumsuz sonucu zaman kaybıdır. Bekleme zamanı algısal olup, tüketiciler bekleme sürelerini ne kadar uzun olarak algılarsa, o ölçüde hizmetten memnuniyetleri azalmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, hizmet işletmelerinde bekleme hattı yönetiminin önemi ve müşterilerin bekleme hattı konusundaki duyarlılıklarına değinilecektir. Çalışmanın kapsamında, çağrı merkezlerinin bekleme sorunlarını ele alabileceği bazı öneriler getirilerek, sistematik çıkarımlar sağlanmaya çalışılmıştır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Hizmet, Tüketici, Bekleme Hattı, Çağrı Merkezi