Employee Roles
Employees play a pivotal role in the delivery and quality of services, serving as the direct link
between organizations and customers. In service industries, frontline employees are not just
representatives—they embody the service, influence the brand image, and drive customer
satisfaction through their interactions. A strong service culture, supported by effective human
resource strategies, equips employees to excel in meeting customer needs, overcome unique
job stresses, and build lasting relationships. Understanding and empowering these employees
is essential for closing performance gaps and achieving sustainable success in any service
organization.
Importance of Employees in Service
• Employees are the Service and Brand: Employees often embody the entire service in
the customer's eyes, acting as the organization's representatives, marketers, and ‘the
brand’ itself, especially in high-contact services.
• Service Success Relies on Employees: Consistent business success is linked to
significant investments in employee quality, satisfaction, and training. Companies like
Charles Schwab, USAA, Chick-fil-A, and Singapore Airlines exemplify this principle
through employee empowerment and proactive service behaviors.
Service Culture
• Definition: A service culture is where an appreciation for good service exists
throughout the organization, and providing excellent service to both internal and
external customers is the norm and expectation.
• Role of Leadership: Service culture begins with leaders who demonstrate values like
integrity, joy, and respect, “living” these values daily rather than just voicing them.
Employees notice and internalize what is enacted, not what is merely stated.
• Development and Sustainability: Creating and sustaining a true service culture
requires consistent, organization-wide effort over years. Even global leaders like FedEx
and Ritz-Carlton must continually nurture their service culture. Service culture must be
both enacted and adapted thoughtfully across international contexts.
Global Transfer of Service Culture
• Challenges in International Expansion: Cultural differences impact the transfer of
service culture. For example, McDonald's balances American values with local
adaptations (menu, decor), UPS faced cultural surprises in Europe regarding work
norms, and Disney encountered value clashes in Europe regarding employee attitudes
and customer behaviors.
• Adaptation vs. Replication: Companies must decide whether to strictly replicate their
core values or adapt practices to fit local expectations without compromising critical
values.
Critical Role of Employees in Service Quality
• Service Marketing Triangle: Service promises and delivery involve three key
groups—company (management), customers, and providers (employees,
subcontractors).
o External Marketing: Making promises to customers via communication and
promotion.
o Interactive Marketing: Delivering or breaking those promises during service
encounters—employees at the frontline are crucial here.
o Internal Marketing: Enabling employees to fulfill service promises via
training, motivation, technology, and support.
• Service Profit Chain: There is a mutual reinforcement between internal service quality,
employee satisfaction, service value, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and eventually,
profits.
Impact of Employee Behaviors on Service Quality Dimensions
• Reliability: Employees’ ability to deliver the service as promised.
• Responsiveness: Willingness and promptness of employees in helping customers.
• Assurance: Employees' ability to inspire trust and confidence.
• Empathy: Capacity to listen, adapt, and provide individualized attention.
• Tangibles: Employee appearance and the physical environment conveying quality.
Boundary-Spanning Roles
• Definition: Employees at the interface between organization and customer, responsible
for mediating between internal operations and external environments.
• Emotional Labor: Requires employees to display organizationally desired emotions
(smiling, listening, showing empathy), often regardless of their actual feelings. Includes
both ‘surface acting’ and ‘deep acting.’
• Sources of Conflict:
o Person/Role Conflict: When expectations of the role clash with employees'
values or self-image.
o Organization/Client Conflict: Arises when customer demands conflict with
organizational rules or expectations.
o Interclient Conflict: Occurs when multiple customers have incompatible
expectations simultaneously.
• Quality/Productivity Trade-Offs: Frontline employees must balance high-quality
service with efficiency and productivity, creating real-time pressures and operational
dilemmas.
Strategies for Delivering Service Quality Through People
1. Hire the Right People:
o Compete for talent market share by marketing jobs and employer brand.
o Assess both service competencies (skills, knowledge) and service inclination
(attitude, orientation).
o Preferred employers (Google, SAS, Marriott) attract and retain the best talent.
2. Develop People to Deliver Service Quality:
o Train for both technical (operations, procedures) and interactive
(communication, rapport, empathy) skills.
o Empower employees with authority, tools, and incentives for on-the-spot
decision-making.
o Promote teamwork to alleviate frontline stress and improve service delivery.
3. Provide Needed Support Systems:
o Measure and reward internal service quality, not just external.
o Offer supportive technology, equipment, and tailored workplace environments.
o Develop service-oriented internal processes—ideally via process reengineering
if needed.
4. Retain the Best People:
o Communicate and include employees in the organizational vision.
o Treat employees as internal customers, offering a compelling package of
benefits and recognition.
o Measure and reward strong service performers, align reward systems with
service excellence, and minimize the business risk of employee turnover.
Practical Frameworks and Tools
• Service Marketing Triangle: Visualizes the alignment among management, providers,
and customers; emphasizes matching and enabling promises with actual service
delivery.
• Service Profit Chain: Links internal service quality, employee satisfaction, loyalty,
and productivity to customer satisfaction, retention, revenue growth, and profitability.
• Customer-Focused Organizational Chart: Suggests flipping the traditional hierarchy
to place customers and frontline employees at the top, supported by management at the
bottom.
Summary Table: Key Service HR Strategies
HR Strategy Theme Core Approaches Supporting Examples
Hire the Right People Compete for talent, service fit Google, Marriott
Develop Employees Training, empowerment, teamwork Ritz-Carlton, Southwest
Provide Support Internal service quality, tech, process Zappos, Mayo Clinic
Retain the Best Vision, rewards, internal marketing SAS, Google