1. People as Strategy: Managing Service Employees
Chapter 9
People as Strategy: Managing Service Employees

2. Chapter Objectives
Understand the importance of customer facing employees.
Understand the stresses and strains faced by typical service employees and how this is likely to influence their behavior.
Understand that creating a “climate for service” among employees is a key determinant of customer satisfaction.
Define the role that a service employee has to play based upon the service strategy.
Understand how that role definition can be used to recruit the most appropriate service team.
Understand how the role definition is at the center and drives all HR systems in the service business.
Understand the place of empowerment within that logic.
Understand the role of management in supporting the resultant “climate for service.
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

3. Opening Vignette: That’s It, I’m Done
After receiving abuse from a passenger, flight attendant Steven Slater declared over the loudspeaker at the end of the flight, “…that's it, I'm done," picked up his bag and two cans of beer from the beverage cart, walked to the door, pulled the emergency exit lever, inflated the emergency chute, and jumped
An hour later he was arrested, and within another hour he was a hero on Facebook and became the star of numerous supportive t-shirts, including “I Slide…. For Slater”
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

4. Figure 9.1: The Service-Profit Chain
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

5. Service Providers as Boundary- Spanners
Link the organization with the outside world
Primary purposes:
Information transfer
Representation
The service provider spectrum ranges from subordinate service roles to professional service roles
Professional service roles
Subordinate service roles
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

6. Sources of Conflict for Contact Service Personnel
Boundary-spanners are prone to conflicts
Person/role conflict
Organization/client conflicts
Inter-client conflicts
Leads to feelings of role stress
Dissatisfaction
Frustration
Turnover intention
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

7. Coping Strategies and Implications for Customers
Major customer complaints about service workers:
Apathy
Brush-off
Coldness
Condescension
Robotism
Rulebook
Runaround
These behaviors can be understood as a “fight for control”
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

8. Coping Strategies and Implications for Customers (cont’d)
Employees often adopt a number of responses:
Avoiding the customer
Moving into a “people-processing” mode
Adding physical symbols in their office to increase sense of control
Overacting their role
In extreme cases, the role conflict and ambiguity can lead to:
Acts of service sabotage
Siding completely with the customer
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

9. Creating a Climate for Service
Three core drivers in creating a climate for service:
Work facilitation
Interdepartmental support
Human resource practices
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

10. Figure 9.2: The Services HR Wheel
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

11. Layers of the Services HR Wheel
Recruiting the right people
Developing competent service employees
Controlling, rewarding, and evaluating service employees
Retaining service employees
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

12. Figure 9.3: Stereotypical “Customers from Hell” and Strategies to Deal with Them
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

13. Figure 9.3: Stereotypical “Customers from Hell” and Strategies to Deal with Them (cont’d)
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

14. Figure 9.3: Stereotypical “Customers from Hell” and Strategies to Deal with Them (cont’d)
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

15. Figure 9.3: Stereotypical “Customers from Hell” and Strategies to Deal with Them (cont’d)
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

16. Figure 9.3: Stereotypical “Customers from Hell” and Strategies to Deal with Them (cont’d)
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

17. Rewards that Encourage Service Excellence
Effective reward systems pass the following seven tests:
Availability
Flexibility
Reversibility
Contingent
Visibility
Timeliness
Durability
In many cases, pay alone does not pass these effectiveness tests
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

18. Empowerment and Enfranchisement
“Turning the front line loose”
Enfranchisement
Couples empowerment with a reward system that recognizes people for their performance
Both empowerment and enfranchisement build an increased sense of accountability in the employee
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

19. Figure 9.4: The Continuum of Empowerment
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

20. Levels of Empowerment Suggestion involvement
Empowers employees to recommend
Formal suggestion programs
Quality circles
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

21. Levels of Empowerment (cont’d)
Job involvement
Allows employees to:
Examine the content of their jobs
Define their jobs within the organization
Compared to suggestion involvement, employees engaged in job involvement use a variety of skills, have more freedom, and receive more feedback
Higher-level decisions and reward allocation decisions remain the responsibility of the firm’s upper management
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

22. Levels of Empowerment (cont’d)
High involvement
Train people to manage themselves
Extensive training is used to develop skills in teamwork, problem solving, and business operations
Employees control the majority of the reward allocation decisions through profit sharing and employee ownership of the firm
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

23. The Role of Management
Senior management has to ensure that the different functions and departments are aligned behind the service benefit concept and that they do not lose focus on the customer
Middle managers must manage crises and move roadblocks to good service out of the way; they must relieve pressure by doing some of the front- line work
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

24. Customer Relationship Management
Companies assemble huge databases for tracking the purchases and the individual behavior of customers and assessing customer profitability
The key is to use the data to improve the quality of service with recommendations
Firms can target different levels of service depending upon current or potential profitability to the firm
This leads to a disaggregation of customer contact roles
© 2017 Cengage Learning®. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.