The telephonist and the service quality gap

Owens, Jay; Loggenberg, Terese Article The telephonist and the service quality gap South African Journal of Business Management Provided in Cooperation with: University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB), Bellville, South Africa Suggested Citation: Owens, Jay; Loggenberg, Terese (1992) : The telephonist and the service quality gap, South African Journal of Business Management, ISSN 2078-5976, African Online Scientific Information Systems (AOSIS), Cape Town, Vol. 23, Iss. 3/4, pp. 82-89, https://doi.org/10.4102/sajbm.v23i3/4.890 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/218088 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 82 S.-Afr.Tydsla.Bedryfsl.1992,23(3/4) The telephonist and the service quality gap Jay Owens* and Terese Loggenberg Graduate School of Business Administration, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, P.O. Wits 2050, Republic of South Africa Received 2 April 1992, accepted 31 August 1992 With this research customer perceptions and expectations of the in-house telephone service were investigated in four service organizations. Service quality was measured by means of a multiple item scale for measuring customer percep tions. The findings were supported by inputs from the managers and telephonists of these firms. The resulL,; showed that overall the quality of the service, provided by the in-house telephone service in the companies investigated, lagged be hind customer expectations. The indicators for the gaps on the conceptual service quality model correlated well with the overall quality scores. Recommendations are made that the managements of service firms should include the telephonists in their overall service quality management, and provide more training on communications skills on service and customer orientation for the telephonists. Telephonists should also receive more support from management and staff since they feel left out of the organization. The regular measurement and monitoring of service quality should also include this very important function as first contact with any service company. Met hierdie navorsing word klii:!nte se persepsies en hul verwagtinge van die binneshuise telefoondiens in vier diensorga nisasies ondersoelc. Diensgehalte is deur middel van 'n veelvoudige item-vraeboog bepaal wat klii:!ntepersepsies meet. Die bevindinge is ondersteun deur insette vanaf die bestuurders en die telefoniste van die bogenoemde firmas. Die bevindinge dui daarop dat die algehele gehalte van die diens wat deur die binneshuise telefoondiens aangebied word, nie aan klii:!nteverwagtinge voldoen nie. Die gapings van die diensgehalte-model, korreleer goed met die algehele dienstellings. Aanbevelings word gemaak dat die bestuur van die firmas die telefoniste behoort in te sluit in hul algehele diensgehaltebestuur, en dat meer opleiding in kommunikasiekundigheid, in diens, en opleiding in klientegerigtheid vir telefoniste aangebied behoort te word. Telefoniste behoort meer ondersteuning van beide bestuur en personeel te ont vang, aangesien hulle voel dat hulle nie altyd deel van die organisasie is nie. Die gerei:!lde bepaling en waarneming van diensgehalte behoort ook hierdie baie belangrike funksie, as eerste kontak met enige diensmaatskappy, in te sluit. .,.o whom correspondence should be directed. Introduction and problem definition Despite the ubiquity and centrality of the telephone, very few service organizations appear to recognise the important marketing role played by this function, either in tenns of the training and employment practices provided for their telephonists or in monitoring their perfonnance. Although it is generally accepted that the telephonist is perceived as the 'communications bean' of the organization, very little a pears to be done to operationalize this concept. New patterns of commerce, trade and government have been built on the telephone network system. Indeed, innovative services such as tele-marketing have successfully positioned themselves in the market-place to capitalize on the extensiveness of the telephone network and the convenience of conducting business by telephone (De Sola Pool, 1977 and Keller, 1977). Counselling services, couriers, hotels and hospitals, are examples of services which are heavily dependent on the telephone system for operating their business. The increased use and reliance on the telephone implies an increased emphasis on the 'first contact' person for the business, namely the telephonist Intensifying competition and deregulation in the services sector have led many service businesses to seek profitable ways to differentiate them selves. One sttategy that has been related to success in their businesses is the delivery of high quality service (Thompson, De Souza & Gale, 1985). To compound the problem further, expectations of custom ers have increased over the past decade. This may be due to increased competition in the services sector, and/or the fact that the nonns and expectations for service quality excellence have become more stringent. 'There service encounter. Consequently, if money, time and attention are to be spent on improving the experience of service, then the largest payoff may well occur in the early stages of the service encounter' (Maister, 1985). This may well be at the first point of contact The objective of this research was to test if a gap exisaed between customer expectations and customer perceptions of the telephonist function in four service organizations. Survey of the theoretical literature Concept of service quality The quality of services, in contrast to that of goods, is an abstract and elusive construct Because services are perform ances rather than products, precise and uniform quality specifications cannot be established. In most services, quality occurs during service delivery, usually in an interaction between customer and contact personnel of the organization and the deliverer of the service cannot be separated from the service itself. Hence the quality of the service provided is dependent on the perfonnance of the service deliverer (the employees of a service company). The high degree of in volvement of personnel in the production of a service intro duces a degree of variability and inconsistency in the outcome that is not present in a mechanized process. Conceptualization of service quality Perceived quality refers to the consumer's judgement about