Impact of Service Orientation on Frontline Employee Service Performance and Consumer Response

Abstract

As product and price become less important, managers search for new ways to differentiate themselves in abuyer-seller relationship. Increasingly, businesses have to focus on service orientation to differentiate themselvesfrom their competitors. As consumer loyalty depends primarily upon rendering quality service, the deliveryprocess among business service orientation, frontline service employee performance and consumer responsedeserves more attention. This article explores some of the ways in which service orientation can be used as anappropriate alternative to the more traditional business methods. This study analyzes the dyadic data collectedfrom 247 questionnaires distributed to consumers and employees across 17 branches of a financial servicecompany. The results show that service orientation positively affects employee service performance butnegatively affects consumer loyalty. Employee service performance positively influences consumer loyalty andindirectly positively influences word-of-mouth of consumers.