The Impact of the Customer Orientation of Call Center Employees on Customers' Affective Commitment and Loyalty

TLDR

The study examined how employees’ customer orientation influences customers’ affective commitment and loyalty. The authors surveyed 614 customers of two Australian call centers—insurance consumers (n = 289) and bank business customers (n = 325)—to test relationships between customer focus, customer feedback, perceived service quality, affective commitment, and loyalty. The model showed that customer focus increased loyalty via perceived service quality, while customer feedback directly boosted affective commitment, with results consistent across both insurance and bank samples.

Abstract

This study investigated the potential benefits of employees' customer orientation to service providers. To achieve that aim, the author tested relationships between customer focus (creating value for customers) and customer feedback (seeking evaluations of work and quality) and perceived service quality and customers' affective commitment and loyalty to service firms. Mail survey data were collected from customers of two call centers in Australia. The samples consisted of end “consumers” of insurance services (n = 289) and business “customers” of a bank (n = 325). Two key findings emerged from the final structural model. First, customer focus was related to loyalty, with partial mediation by perceived service quality. Second, and in contrast, customer feedback exhibited a direct relationship only to affective commitment. The findings were highly consistent for the two samples and have implications for both managers and researchers.