An exploration of frontline staff service orientated behaviours

Abstract

The successful management of frontline staff is important for service organisations as customers often make evaluative judgements of the service encounter through interactions with these staff. The behaviour and attitude of these frontline staff therefore playa fundamental part in this evaluation. It is important therefore to understand the factors which affect staff performance, their satisfaction with their job and their quitting intentions. With that in mind, this study investigates the relationship between organisational level service orientation and staff training, individual service orientation, job satisfaction, affective commitment and instrumental commitment, and intention to leave the organisation. The study is a survey to frontline service staff in a tourism operation. We find that employees' perception of organisational level service orientation positively impacts their behaviour towards customers, as does training. However, employee satisfaction and affective commitment do not appear to be significant predictors of customer focused behaviour. The study contributes to the field of services management, by further exploring managerial actions that impact the behaviour of employees towards customers, and casts doubt-on the long held assumption that satisfied and committed employees will be motivated and able to deliver exceptional customer service.