Frontline employee work engagement and customer service evaluations: a conceptual replication
Abstract
Purpose
The relationship between frontline employee work engagement and customer service evaluations is a major theme in service research. Recent studies have called for further exploration and validation of this relationship. This paper conceptually replicates the work engagement-customer service evaluations link within the context of technology-mediated voice-to-voice encounters. Moreover, we extend prior work by examining how work engagement influences customer service evaluations depending on the outcome of the service encounter (positive or negative).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a multilevel, multi-source study involving data from 4,198 customer interactions and 346 employees at a major European telecom operator. The data were analyzed using a linear mixed effects model.
Findings
The study could not replicate the relationship between work engagement and customer service evaluations in technology-mediated voice-to-voice encounters. The findings reveal that customers who interacted with a highly engaged employee but received a negative service outcome evaluated the interaction more negatively than those who interacted with a less engaged employee. Conversely, when the service outcome was positive, work engagement was not significantly related to customer service evaluations.
Originality/value
In voice-to-voice encounters, employee engagement appears to have little impact on customer service evaluations and can even be detrimental when the service outcome is negative. This study is among the first to empirically demonstrate a negative effect of work engagement on customer service evaluations. Future replication studies are needed to validate these findings.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the telecom operator for the opportunity to collect data among their frontline employees. The first author acknowledges financial support from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, grant n° G0B2621N). The funding source was not involved in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the article for publication. During the preparation of this work the authors used ChatGPT 3.5 for language editing purposes, using “Please copyedit the following paragraph:” as a prompt. We did not use ChatGPT or any other large language model for other purposes. After using ChatGPT, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication. Finally, we thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their support, excellent comments, and suggestions.
Citation
Van Vaerenbergh, Y. and Hazée, S. (2024), "Frontline employee work engagement and customer service evaluations: a conceptual replication", Journal of Service Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-07-2024-0304
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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