Mind, Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist

With the performance of service personnel often constituting a major element of a service per se, the customer orientation of service personnel is often regarded as a main determinant of service firms' success. Drawing on a deductively derived four‐dimensional conceptualization of the customer orientation of service personnel, consisting of employees' technical skills, social skills, motivation, and decision‐making power, a model of the impact employees' customer orientation has on key service marketing constructs is theoretically developed. The model is then empirically tested against a sample of 989 consumers for two service contexts (i.e. book/CD/DVD retailers and travel agencies), with the results providing support for most hypotheses. Implications of the findings for services and retail management are discussed.

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Customer orientation of service employees: Its impact on customer satisfaction, commitment, and retention

Purpose
The aim of this study is to test whether store-level transformational leadership influences service employees’ customer orientation via two different mechanisms—supervisor support and coworker support—and whether customer orientation leads to favorable customer-perceived employee service performance.

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Examining the Mechanisms Linking Transformational Leadership, Employee Customer Orientation, and Service Performance: The Mediating Roles of Perceived Supervisor and Coworker Support

Although customer orientation is a core element of the marketing concept and is especially crucial to the concept of relationship marketing, no widely accepted conceptualization of the construct exists. In the context of service organizations, the fulfillment of customer needs and wishes by customer-contact employeescan be seen as crucial for gaining a high degree of customer orientation. This paper develops a conceptualization of service employee customer orientation which is presented as a three-dimensional construct, the interrelated dimensions being the employee's motivation to serve customers, his or her customer-oriented skills, and his or her self-perceived decision-making authority. Implications are drawn out for relationship marketing of services organizations and relationship marketing theory.

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Customer Orientation of Service Employees—Toward a Conceptual Framework of a Key Relationship Marketing Construct

Although many studies have investigated the role of customer orientation and learning orientation on a firm's performance in small, medium, and large enterprises, the literature provides little empirical evidence about the role of customer orientation and learning orientation within the hotel industry. This current work investigates the influence of these variables on new service development and their subsequent effect on performance (financial and perceptual). Also, the impact of participating managers' positive attitude toward change on new service development has been examined. Using data from hotel managers and owners located in Switzerland, several hypotheses have been formulated and tested. The findings not only verify aspects of prior research but also provide a new insight by exploring customer orientation, learning orientation, and new service development simultaneously, revealing how these factors affect the performance of the Swiss hotel industry. Although support for some hypotheses was found, these results need to be evaluated in light of the limitations, which moderate the contribution and also provide areas for further research. (Less)

Customer Orientation, Learning Orientation, and New Service Development An Empirical Investigation of the Swiss Hotel Industry

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Claudia Thurau

Papers

Customer Orientation of Service Employees—Toward a Conceptual Framework of a Key Relationship Marketing Construct

Sozialkompetenz als vernachlässigter Untersuchungsgegenstand des (Dienstleistungs-)Marketing. Einsatzmöglichkelten und Konzeptualisierung