Chapter 6

Leveraging the
People Factor

Why Are Service Employees So Important?

What makes the personnel aspect of services so noteworthy is that the
behaviors and appearance of service workers are open to customer scrutiny.
This same concern isnt true for manufactured goods. Customers have no
reason to care about the appearance or behavior of the workers who
assemble their smart phones.
In contrast, the service workers with whom customers interact are
integral parts of the service and are significant to their evaluation of it.
Further, because the core of a service cant be seen and the service outcome
is sometimes indiscernible, customers often rely on service workers as
quality cues.

Are All Service Employees Equally Important?

From the customers point of view, it would be nave to suggest that all
service organization employees are equally important. Workers who interact
directly with the customer typically have the greatest influence on
perceptions of the service. However, service performances are also
dependent on the actions of those who labor behind the scenes out of the
customers sight.
Boundary Spanners are the frontstage employees who link an
organization with its customers. They represent the service in the
customers eyes.
Technical Skills are the proficiency with which service employees
perform the tasks associated with their position.
Social Skills are the manner in which service employees interact
with customers and fellow workers.

Which Are More Important: Technical Skills or Social Skills?

From the customers point of view, how a service is performed is often
as important as what its enactment entails. The perception of service
excellence is quite fragile and influenced by many elements. Some aspects
of service delivery, such as the workers skills, may seem insignificant at first
glance yet play a major role in a customers decision to patronize a service
provider again.
Customers cannot always evaluate the technical skills of service
personnel, because they lack an adequate understand of the services
technical complexities.

Ensuring Service Employee Excellence

To increase the likelihood that service employees will be excellent
performers, organizations should consider four key directives.
Hire Intelligently Personnel are the backbone of the most service
organizations success.
Train Intensively Service organizations should take the time to
prepare their workers for the roles they perform.
Monitor Incessantly Continual assessment of service workers
performance should be conducted using both formal and informal
means of gathering information regarding their behavior.
Reward Inspirationally It is important to provide positive feedback
to frontstage and backstage service employees who turn in excellent
performances.

Addressing Employee Poor Performances

It is also important to provide feedback to workers when their
performance has failed to live up to desired standards. To leverage the
people factor, many service organizations have empowered their employees
by giving them the authority to respond immediately to customer needs.

 Empowerment is the management practice of sharing information,

rewards, knowledge and power with frontline service employees so
that they can better respond to customers needs and expectations.

Benefits of Empowerment

Quicker Responses to Customer Needs During Service Delivery

Empowered service employees need not ask management for
permission to help customers.
Quicker Responses to Dissatisfied Customers During Service
Recovery When mistakes are made, empowered service employees
can take rapid action to remedy the problem.
Employees Are More Satisfied with their Jobs and Themselves
Granting service employees more control over their job performance
can improve their level of job satisfaction and enhance their selfesteem.
Employees Will Act More Warmly and Enthusiastically with
Customers Satisfied and empowered service employees are likely to
provide more attentive customer care.
Empowered Employees Are a Great Source of Ideas
Empowered service employees are often quick to suggest new ideas
for service improvement to management because they have a greater
sense of ownership in the organization.
Great Word-of-Mouth Communication and Retention
Empowering employees can also create superior customers word-ofmouth communication as well as increase the likelihood that customers
will remain loyal to the organization.

Cost of Empowerment

Greater Monetary Investment in Selection and Training The

demands placed on empowered service employees are significantly
greater than those placed on employees who follow a rigid script.

 Higher Labor Cost Organizations may need to recruit more full-time

employees who are paid more as well as provided with better benefit
packages.
Slower or Less Consistent Service Delivery Employees who have
empowerment are likely to spend more time with each customer
and/or may be inconsistent in the way they serve some patrons.
Possible Violations of Fair Play Customers who observe an
empowered employee giving other customers special treatment may
perceive such treatment as unfair if they are not accorded the same
attention.
Giveaways and Bad Decisions Empowered service employees may
make ill-advised decisions or go beyond reasonable standards to
satisfy customers.

Emotional Side of Services

Services often rely heavily on their workers to help fashion perception
of service quality. Often, it is an organizations frontline workers who are
responsible for creating a positive response for its service and ultimately, a
superior customer experience.
It is a significant role that service personnel play in service delivery
and requires that workers display a cheerful disposition, genuine concern,
and unrelenting care toward the customer even when their true feelings may
be quite the opposite. Essentially, service employee emotions, positive and
negative, have a contagion effect that influences customers emotional
responses.

Costuming Service Employees

Costumes, or rather uniforms, are the equivalent of packaging the

service employee. According to Solomon (1985), costuming employees offers
the following advantages:
Providing Evidence. The customers of service organizations have
fewer tangible cues of a products excellence to evaluate than do the
consumers of physical goods.
Sending a message. Uniforms can send a message to service
customers by projecting a desired image based on their design.

 Reducing risk. Uniform may also help the service delivery process for
an organization by making its employees more identifiable to
customers.
Ensuring consistency. Another function of uniforms is to make the
appearance of service employees more consistent.

Maximizing Service Employee Productivity

Among the critical decisions made about service employees,
none is more important than spurring them to perform their tasks
with excellence. This complex matter often occurs in many service
organizations where many employee positions can be unappealing,
poorly compensated, and mostly unappreciated. Against this
backdrop, employees can easily fall short of giving their tasks the
amount of attention that management would like. All workers have
opportunity to exercise discretionary effort in fulfilling any
assignment and they often fail to give it their all.
Discretionary Effort is the difference between the maximum effort
one can bring to a task and the minimum effort needed to simply get
by.

Figure 6.2 Discretionary Effort

Discretionary Effort

Maximu
m Effort

Minimu
m Effort

Figure 6.3 Service Worker Profile

High

Low

High

Ideal
Worker

Needs
Motivation

Low

Ability

Willingness

Needs
Training

Major
Problem

Internal Marketing is the policy of treating employees as internal

customers of the service organization, responding to employees needs or
wants, and promoting the organization and its policies to the employee.