Title: The impact of training on customer-oriented behaviour: a longitudinal analysis

Transcription

1 Title: The impact of training on customer-oriented behaviour: a longitudinal analysis within a case study service context This study examines the impact of customer service training on customer-oriented behaviour (Peccei and Rosenthal, 2000) within a case study service context. This study makes a particular contribution to knowledge as the analysis of the impact of training is undertaken utilising longitudinal panel data from a case study service context. In the UK, services are very important. The service sector contributes to over three quarters of the UK s gross domestic product output (Office for National Statistics, 2013a) with services accounting for 83.2% of the total UK workforce jobs (Office for National Statistics, 2013b). For many services organisations customer services is a key priority. In times of economic recession customer services may become even more important. Crush (2009), for example, quoted Causon the CEO of the Institute of Customer Services (ICS) that customer service was one of the key ways that companies could survive the recession due to improved customer service, citing support for this statement as the links between customer service and profit, engagement and productivity. That same year, however, Paternoster (2009) of the ICS reported that one in three organisations were, in fact, axing customer service training in order to survive the recession. Similarly, O Leonard (2010) reported that, in 2009, average UK training and development budgets were reduced by 4% as compared with 11% in the US. The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations study (WERS) will be drawn upon to bring the position up to date. While recession response was more likely to bring actions such as pay freezes, recruitment delayering, changing the organisation of work and the postponement of expansion plans, consistent with the picture of training expenditure reduction outlines above, van Wanrooy 1

2 et al. (2013), reporting from the 2011 WERS, found approximately one in six workplaces reduced training expenditure due to the recession. As may be expected, van Wanrooy et al. (2013) also found that those organisations reporting to be more affected by the recession were more likely to be those organisations that had reduced their training budget. In times of economic uncertainty, it would seem even more important to ensure that, where training investment is made, this investment is made wisely. Especially important in times of economic uncertainty, training can be important for customer service improvement and improving the fortunes of struggling businesses (Panagiotakopoulos, 2013). Despite the above WERS statistics, related to high training workplaces i, van Wanrooy et al. (2013) also found a rise in customer service training offered to the largest occupational group in the workplace of their survey organisations from 39% to 43% for the period 2004 to For customer service training, the benefit is generally expected to be enhanced customer service behaviour with the anticipated end outcome of enhanced customer satisfaction and profit. Thus, for some organisations improved customer service may be a way to weather difficult economic times. It may not be surprising, therefore, that in current literature there is an increasing interest in employees customer focused behaviour (e.g. An and Noh, 2012; Boxall et al. 2011; Fuchs, 2010; Huang, 2011; Kang and Hyun, 2012; Mechinda and Patterson, 2011; Pimpakorn and Patterson, 2010). Such employee behaviour, focused upon customers, is considered to be an aspect of individual performance (Peccei and Rosenthal, 1997). However, while there is evidence that some consensus is emerging about the nature of the customer-oriented behaviour concept itself, no agreement of the factors that positively influence it as yet exists. That said, customer service training is an often cited factor in literature, as will be explained. 2

3 There is no shortage of practitioner and academic research to support the inclusion of notions of training within models of performance. Such studies, incorporating training as an antecedent of more general job performance, include Bennis et al. (1969), Heskett et al. (1997), Guest (1987), Guest et al. (2003), Purcell et al. (2003) and Wright et al. (2003). More specifically, within the service sector, training is considered to play an important role (Bitner et al., 1990; Bowen and Schneider, 1985, 1988; Heskett et al., 1997; Lassk et al., 2012; Lewis and Entwistle,1990; Ro and Chen, 2011; Schneider and Bowen, 1984, 1985; Schneider et al., 1994). The literature demonstrates a wealth of support for the notion that, within the arena of customer service, training pays (Cook, 1992, p150). Indeed, customer service training is seen to be an important lever (Schneider and Bowen, 1993, p48) for creating a true customer service philosophy (Macaulay and Cook, 2008, p37). A relatively recent example of this is the hospital trust study of the role of a new training approach in developing a customer service culture as described by Eales-Reynolds and Clarke (2012). It will come as no surprise, therefore, that many service organisations invest in customer service training as a way to encourage the customer service behaviours of their employees, with training being stated as important to this customer-oriented behaviour (e.g. Mechinda and Patterson, 2011). Kamin (2006, p23) explains that training helps people identify the behaviours that are important for good customer service, so that those behaviours might be improved. The case study organisation that is the focus of this present study is one such organisation. As may be expected, aligned to customer training programmes being delivered, training evaluation methods have also been adopted by organisations. Indeed, training transfer is proposed to be a core issue for Human Resource Development Professionals (Burke and 3

4 Hutchins, 2007, p263). Furthermore, in the current climate of economic uncertainty, Lassk et al. (2012) sees evaluation of training investment as crucial. Despite keenness to measure results, it is also recognised (e.g. by Bersin, 2008; Phillips, 2011) that measurement of training remains a major challenge for organisations. Due to the difficulty of placing values on the payoff of the training on organisationally chosen measures, Phillips (2011, p211) advises that benefits are typically stated as intangible benefits. Phillips (2011) suggests such measures to include: customer satisfaction survey data, customer complaints, customer retention and loyalty, customer response time and other customer responses. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2010) suggest four levels of training evaluation: reaction, learning, behaviour and results. The focus of this article will be on the evaluation of behaviour change i.e. understanding the impact of the training on behaviour after it has been completed. Phillips (2011) recognises that although there may be many factors affecting employee behaviour change following a training programme, imprecise measurement of impact is preferable to no measurement at all. Due to this context of recognised measurement difficulties and typically imprecise measurement, despite this context of increasing interest in customer service training, there has been little systematic evaluation of the impact of customer service training specifically on customer-oriented behaviour. The aim of this present study is to specifically examine the impact the customer service training within a study service context by testing a theoretical model of training as an antecedent of customeroriented behaviour (COBEH) using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. This is where this study will make a key contribution. Within the case study organisation, there is a four-day organisational customer service training programme. This programme, the focus of this training evaluation, was the main 4

5 intervention delivered by the case study organisation to enhance the customer-oriented behaviour of its employees. A model of the proposed impact of training will be developed and this model will be tested utilising both empirical cross-sectional data and longitudinal panel data from the case study service organisation. Where models of the relationship between customer service training and customer-oriented behaviour have been tested in existing literature (e.g. Peccei and Rosenthal, 1997, 2000, 2001) the data typically drawn upon is cross-sectional. Although the study by Grönfeldt (2003) of the antecedents of customer-oriented behaviour included the evaluation of a customer service training programme and a longitudinal sample element, the longitudinal panel sample size was very limited. The use of longitudinal data within the present study, having achieved a relatively large sample size, affords stronger certainty with the drawing of causal conclusions. The research design for the study is mixed methods drawing upon both qualitative data (from interviews and focus groups) and quantitative data (from an employee questionnaire survey). The principal data used to examine the impact of the training is the data from the employee questionnaire survey. This study achieved a large data set with the total cross-sectional sample at Time 1 (T1) being 671 employees at and at Time 2 (T2) being 527 employees. Of key importance is that, from the T1 and T2 respondents a longitudinal panel was achieved of 314 service employees. Being able to examine a model of training impact on customeroriented behaviour with longitudinal data of this relatively large sample size is an important contribution to knowledge. It affords the causal relationships between training and COBEH to be more robustly examined than has been possible to date with COBEH research. The paper will present the findings of the cross-sectional and longitudinal examination of the impact of the customer service training on the employees customer-oriented behaviour 5

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