Introduction
2.5 Call Centres .1 Background
2.5.7 Service Recovery
Call centres often have a crucial role in customer service recovery. Reported studies on call centres emphasize efficiency and control, with possible implications for service priorities, customer orientation and service quality.
"Service recovery" refers to the actions taken by an organisation in response to a service failure. It is a thought-out, planned process for returning aggrieved customers to a state of satisfaction with the firm after a service or product has failed to live up to expectations. It can take place before the occurrence, on the spot, during the delivery of the service, or after a complaint has been lodged, and it can be related to a specific transaction or to the business relationship in general. Boshoff (1999), developed the (RECOVSTAT) instrument that captures eight dimensions of service recovery.
The eight plausible attributes of Boshoff s (1999), RECOVSTAT instrument are: Time, communication style, empathy, reliability, perceptions of commitment to service quality
and customer satisfaction, empowerment, staff attitude and explanation. Bearden et al (1998), Boshoff (1999), and Parasuraman (1985), provided three additional determinants of service quality that may be suitable to fit a true service orientated customer care representative (CSA) viz. competence, security and knowing/understanding the customer.
This requires the CSA to be in possession of the following qualities:
2.5.7.1 Self Efficacy: The employee's belief that s/he is competent enough to execute the required activities related to the job according to Beardon et al (1998). Hartline and Ferrel (1996), argued that employees that believe in their own job related abilities are better able to handle difficulties in these jobs. This is also an important determinant in the CSA's performance as CSAs work in highly technological environments. CSA's that feel comfortable with working with their telecommunications and computer technology will probably provide better voice to voice quality service than CSA's that are not comfortable with this technology.
2.5.7.2 Adaptability: This can also be referred to as flexibility. It reflects the CSA's ability to adjust behaviour and handle interpersonal situations according to Bearden et al (1998). Perceived adaptive employee behaviour to customer needs is an important determinant of customer satisfaction. It is important that the customer perceives that the CSA is doing something special for him/her even if the customer is performing a routine activity (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). In call centres scripts are often used to help CSA's in their conversations with the customer. If the scripts are rigid and if employees are not allowed to deviate from the scripts, adaptability may suffer and lead to a decrease in the level of service quality as perceived by the customer.
2.5.7.3 Empathy: The ability to provide the customer with caring and individualized service according to Parasuraman et al (1988), is the ability of the CSA to show the customer a level of the CSA's personal involvement. This involves treating the customer in a way that shows that the CSA cares about the customer. Communications of responsiveness and assurance create a more personal environment, which is expected to
be appreciated by customers, especially in longer, high level contact service encounters according to Bearden et al (1998).
2.5.7.4 Time: Boshoff (1999) referred to time as the speed with which the customer complaint or wish is resolved. Time is seen as an element of trust, which is an important variable of relationships between buyers and sellers according to Wilson (1995). It is important that customers do not feel pressured but they should also not be held up longer than they wish to be. Talk time, handle time, queue time, wrap-up time and hold time are all metrics that are used by call censer management to measure call centre representative performance i.e. satisfaction according to Anton (1996). Among others the objective for management is to minimize costs i.e. minimize talk time and wrap-up time.
2.5.7.5 Communication Style: According to Boshoff (1999), this referred to how the CSA handled the customer whilst addressing his/her service needs. He distinguished between two types of communication styles: convergence and maintenance.
Convergence refers to a voice to voice encounter as a communication style in which the CSA adapted his/her tone of voice in accordance with the CSA's schemas held by the customer. In a maintenance style the CSA displays no effort to adapt to the customer needs. Crosby et al (1990), found that the customer perceived similarity (appearance, lifestyle and socio-economic status) of sales persons played an important role in determining sales effectiveness. CSAs may sometimes have to adjust the language for different customers, e.g. increasing the level of sophistication for an experienced customer and speaking plainly or simply with a novice (Parasuraman et al (1995)).
2.5.7.6 Reliability: This refers to the service employee delivering on promises dependably and accurately. Reliable CSAs are expected to keep their promises and be trustworthy. Trust is an important building block of relationship quality. According to Zeithaml and Bitner (2000), in voice to voice encounters, trust is expected to be a critical component of customer expectations of the CSA's behaviour. As there is little other contact aside from verbal contact, customers have to take the CSA literally at his/her word. This is in contrast with service encounters like e-mail/ fax in which the customer
has something on paper, or face to face encounters in which the customer and the service employee have visual contact. The customer in a voice to voice service encounter is largely dependant on the reliability of the CSA as there is only verbal contact.
2.5.8 Perceptions of Commitment to Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction