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Employee

Employee perceptions of service perceptions of

service quality
quality in a call centre
Prabha Ramseook-Munhurrun, Perunjodi Naidoo and 541
Soolakshna D. Lukea-Bhiwajee
University of Technology, Pointe-aux-Sables, Mauritius

Abstract
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to assess service quality of a call centre as perceived by its
employees using the SERVQUAL model. It also aims to explore factors predicting front-line employee
satisfaction and behavioural intentions in a call centre. Behavioural intentions are to be measured in
terms of employees’ willingness to recommend the call centre and their intentions to stay.
Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected by field study in a particular call centre in
Mauritius using a modified SERVQUAL questionnaire. The study explored both perception and
expectation levels of front-line employees. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the gap scores
(performance minus expectation-based model) were examined. Regression models were used to test the
influence of the service quality dimensions on satisfaction and behavioural intentions.
Findings– Exploratory factor analysis uncovered three composite dimensions of call centre service
quality: Assurance-Empathy, Reliability-Responsiveness, and Tangibles. The results for the
regression model indicate that satisfaction is best predicted by tangibles, and intentions to stay and
willingness to recommend are best predicted by reliability-responsiveness.
Practical implications– Based on the results, service managers may consider measures in order to
improve and diagnose service features in call centres.
Originality/value– The paper examines the structure and validity of the SERVQUAL model, given
its wide use and criticism, and applies the model to an important set of related, yet distinct service
organisations such as call centres.
KeywordsCall centres, Job satisfaction, Retention, Service industries, Competitive advantage, Mauritius
Paper typeResearch paper

Introduction
The competitive pressures faced by many service industries today are compelling them
to seek competitive advantage, efficiency, and profitable ways to differentiate
themselves from others (Meiet al., 1999). It is recognised that high quality service is
essential for the success of organisations (Parasuramanet al., 1988; Mangold and
Babakus, 1990; Rust and Oliver, 1994) as service quality has been observed as the
major driving force for business sustainability (Carlzon, 1987). According to Czepiel
(1990) business success now and in the future depends on the performance of the
service provider’s interactions with the customer, and the call centre industry is no
different. Call centres are a relatively new phenomenon and employees in call centres
perform a crucial role in the delivery of front-line services, which is fundamental to the
management of customer relationships (Frenkelet al., 1998). In recent years, call
centres have grown rapidly in volume and popularity over the world. Despite this Managing Service Quality
Vol. 19 No. 5, 2009
increase, Frenkel and Donoghue (1996) argue that there has been a shift from a cost pp. 541-557
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
reduction strategy to a customer interface strategy. They assert that, as the role of call 0960-4529
centres becomes more sophisticated, their management becomes more complex. Call DOI 10.1108/09604520910984364

centres have thus experienced a consequential level of employee turnover and this has
MSQ become a source of great concern for these firms (Deeryet al., 2002; Malhotra and
19,5 Mukherjee, 2004). It is believed that the inability to retain employees represents
substantial costs to stakeholders of these firms (Robinson and Morley, 2006). It is hence
important for call centres to understand the factors that affect employee turnover.
Studies have revealed a negative relationship between employee turnover and
employee satisfaction (March and Simon, 1958; Rusbult and Farell, 1983; Price and
542 Mueller, 1986; Hom and Griffeth, 1991). Furthermore, meta-analytic research confirmed
that the two constructs were linked (Steel and Ovalle, 1984; Carsten and Spector, 1987;
Hom and Griffeth, 1995). Hence, improving employee satisfaction is crucial for
decreasing employee turnover (Nejatiet al., 2007). Service quality has become a crucial
issue given its relationship to employee satisfaction (Zeithamlet al., 1990) as well as
employee behavioural intentions (Loveman, 1998; Silvestro and Cross, 2000). In their
endeavour to strengthen service quality, organisations must provide employee
satisfaction and a work environment conducive to positive employee behavioural
intentions.
The call centre industry is growing at a fast rate in developed countries (Staples
et al., 2001), and this is also the case in developing nations such as Mauritius. The
Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector is expanding rapidly in this
small island developing state and has become the fifth pillar of the economy after
Sugar, Textiles, Tourism and Financial Services. According to Southwood (2008) the
expansion of ICT was mainly achieved through the development of Business Process
Outsourcing (BPO), computer software programming and call centres. Additionally,
the growth of call centres in Mauritius is due to taking advantage of the bilingual
capability of its population who speak both French and English (Minter, 2008). The
objectives set for the ICT sector by the year 2010 is to attract investment varying
between US $240 million (8 billion Mauritian rupees) to US $360 million (12 billion
Mauritian rupees) and providing employment to around 15,000 individuals (Gokhool,
2006). However, one of the main factors which impinges on the success of call centres is
a shortage of high-quality staff (Southwood, 2008). To achieve the set objectives, it is
essential for this sector to deliver high service quality through effective management of
the employees.
Call centres are a relatively new arena on the local and international scene, thus,
little is known about employee perception of call centre service quality and their
behavioural intentions towards the industry. A substantial amount of research in the
areas of management, marketing, and psychology have focused on customer service
(Parasuramanet al., 1988; Carman, 1990; Parasuramanet al., 1991; Babakus and Boller,
1992; Croninet al., 1992; Babakus and Mangold, 1992), yet comparatively little
attention has been centred on the employees who are responsible for the customer
service process in service industries. Therefore, the objectives of this study are to:
test the reliability and validity of a modified SERVQUAL scale;
.

measure front-line employees (FLE) expectations and perceptions of service

.

quality based on the SERVQUAL model; and

examine service quality dimensions in predicting satisfaction and behavioural
.

intentions among front-line employees (FLE).

 Employee
and behavioural intentions, followed by the methodology. The results are discussed

perceptions of
and finally, the conclusions, managerial implications and further research are outlined. service quality

Literature review
Service quality 543
Measuring service quality is a challenging task because the concept of service quality
is inherently intangible in nature and difficult to define (Kandampully, 1997).
According to Boshoff and Tait (1996), FLE, through their interactions with customers,
largely determine the level of service quality delivered and therefore efforts to improve
service quality should be concentrated on FLE. In the service industry, definitions of
service quality tend to focus on meeting customer’s needs and requirements and how
well the services delivered meet their expectations (Lewis and Booms, 1983). According
¨ to Gro nroos (1988), service quality is commonly defined as a discrepancy between the
service quality that is delivered by the organisation and the service performance that
employees expect. Conceptually, service quality is defined as global judgment or
attitude relating to the overall excellence or superiority of the service (Parasuraman
et al., 1988). Parasuramanet al.(1985) developed the SERVQUAL model for measuring
service quality, that is, the gap theory. SERVQUAL is based on Parasuramanet al.
(1991) five dimensions of service quality, namely, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance, empathy and tangibles, and is operationalised in the form of two
22-items sections to measure customer expectations and perceptions. This
measurement instrument is the most widely utilised tool for measuring service
quality (Parasuramanet al., 1988, 1994; Sureshchandraet al., 2001; Chiu, 2002) and its
application continues to increase in different service settings, such as banks (Jabnoun
and Al-Tamimi, 2003), hospitality (Saleh and Ryan, 1992), health (Arasliet al., 2008),
education (Tan and Kek, 2004), travel and tourism (Fick and Ritchie, 1991).
The SERVQUAL instrument for measuring service quality has been subjected to a
number of criticisms. Researchers have criticised the SERVQUAL dimensions
(Crompton and MacKay, 1989; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Tayloret al., 1993) and they
argued that the dimensions change with the type of service settings. One of the main
criticisms is that most research studies do not support the five-factor structure of
SERVQUAL put forward by Parasuramanet al.(1988, 1991). It is generally agreed that
service quality is a multi-dimensional or multi-attribute construct (Croninet al., 1992,
1994; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Llosaet al., 1998). These authors contend that there is
a need to amend the dimensions to suit specific services especially as services are
becoming more diffuse. Babakus and Boller (1992) maintain that the dimensionality of
service quality may depend on the type of services under scrutiny. While Cronin and
Taylor (1992) and Brownet al.(1993) suggest the unidimensionality of SERVQUAL,
the number of dimensions found in other replications vary from three to five (Llosa
et al., 1998) or ten (Carman, 1990). Despite these criticisms, Parasuramanet al.(1991,
1994) contended that the SERVQUAL scale using the expectation/performance gaps
method is a much richer approach to measuring service quality than any other method.
Parasuramanet al.(1988) noted that even if it may be necessary to reword or modify
some of the items, yet the SERVQUAL scale is applicable in a wide range of business
services.
MSQ Service quality in call centres
Most of the empirical studies carried out in call centres have focused on customers. For
19,5 example, Stapleset al.(2001) found that the four attributes of tangibility proposed by
Parasuramanet al.(1991) were not “portable” to the virtual setting of call centres as
customers do not encounter visual cues. Similarly, a study carried out by Keiningham
et al.(2006) conducted from the customers’ perspectives has shown that call centre
544 satisfaction has all the dimensions as found in SERVQUAL, for example, reliability,
responsiveness, assurance, and empathy except tangibility. However, the work of
Gilmore (2001) considered the perceptions of different level of staff and their
relationship with service quality and managerial approaches within call centres. She
adopted an in-depth case study using focused group discussions with FLE, interviews
with managers and observations to investigate service quality. The results showed
that FLE were dissatisfied with the managerial approach as they felt that they were not
empowered to handle customer problems efficiently and effectively. Similarly, Jaiswal
(2008) adopted qualitative methodology involving in-depth interviews to understand
the current practices of measuring customer satisfaction and service quality in call
centres in India with a focus on management perspective. The findings revealed that
call centres need to develop systematic and comprehensive measurement of perceived
service quality in order to provide superior call centre experience to their customers.

Linking service quality to satisfaction

Studies in services marketing have shown that service quality and satisfaction are
closely related constructs (Cronin and Taylor, 1994; Oliver, 1993; Babakuset al., 2004).
In modelling satisfaction, two general conceptualisations of satisfaction exist in the
literature: transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction (Bouldinget al.,
1993; Johnsonet al., 1995). In transaction-specific, satisfaction with a product or service
is measured at a certain point in time (Cronin and Taylor, 1994; Oh and Parks, 1997).
Overall satisfaction is defined as customers’ cumulative satisfaction with all previous
exchanges, including the most recent one (Maxham and Netemeyer, 2002) or
satisfaction that accumulates across a series of transaction or service encounters
(Oliver, 1997). Overall satisfaction, theoretically founded by Johnson and Fornell (1991)
developed into cumulative satisfaction as a distinction from transaction specific
research (Johnsonet al., 1995). In general, researchers in services marketing literature
agree that perceived service quality and satisfaction are highly interrelated (Bitner and
Hubbert, 1994).
Employee satisfaction is an important factor in determining service quality
(Zeithamlet al., 1990). Satisfied employees are more committed to continuous
improvement and quality (Matzleret al., 2004), thus they are also more likely to be
committed to delivering quality service. Studies have also shown that satisfied
employees are highly motivated, have good morale at work, and perform more
effectively and efficiently (Eskildsen and Dahlgarrd, 2000; Yoon and Suh, 2003). The
interactive nature of services places FLE in a very critical role in the delivery of quality
services (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000) as the level of service being delivered depends on
the behaviour of the FLE. The relationship between employee satisfaction and
customer satisfaction has been relatively well researched in the literature. Numerous
studies have demonstrated the impact of employee satisfaction through mediating
constructs such as customer satisfaction and loyalty on the financial performance of
 Employee
2003). Similarly, Reichheld and Sasser (1990) suggest that the higher the degree of

perceptions of
employee satisfaction, the greater the chance of customer satisfaction and customer service quality
retention. There is concrete evidence that satisfied employees make satisfied customers
(Zeithaml and Bitner, 2000). Yoonet al.(2001) found a significant linkage between FLE
satisfaction and customer-perceived service performance in the banking sector. Yee
et al.(2008) empirically examined employee satisfaction through a survey of service 545
shops in Hong Kong and found that employee satisfaction is significantly related to
service quality and customer satisfaction, while the latter in turn influenced firm’s
profitability. Although employee satisfaction should not be ignored in the delivery of
service quality, yet very few businesses consider this aspect. This study therefore is
interested in investigating employee satisfaction as a function of service quality
perceived by FLE by adopting the cumulative satisfaction measure.

Linking service quality to behavioural intentions

According to Zeithamlet al.(1996), to influence customer loyalty, organisations must
understand the factors that contribute to service quality. If employees are not happy
with the work, they will more readily quit their jobs than satisfied employees.
Robinson and Morley (2006) contend that the high rate of employee turnover in call
centres has a significant cost impact on the firm and its stakeholders. The authors
argue that this cost can be measured in terms of direct costs associated with recruiting,
inducting and training staff but also in terms of indirect costs reflected in the depletion
of customer service. On the other hand, researchers have found that satisfied
employees are more likely to improve their job performance (Judgeet al., 2001), be
creative and cooperate with others because satisfaction is the inner force that drives
employee behaviour. Research has also shown that employee satisfaction is highly
related to employee loyalty (Christenet al., 2006) and that loyal employees are more
willing and capable of delivering a higher level of service quality (Loveman, 1998;
Silvestro and Cross, 2000). According to Schneider and Bowen (1985, 1993) the efforts
to promote service quality must be based on managing employee behaviours and
training them in interpersonal skills in order to exhibit a true customer focus. Bitner
et al.(1990) observed that in service encounters, employee behaviour will impact on the
customers’ perceptions of service quality. It is therefore crucial to understand
employees’ needs, demands and wishes and not only those of the customers
(Edvardssonet al., 1997). Conversely, employee satisfaction can improve productivity,
reduce staff turnover and enhance creativity and commitment. Reichheld (2003)
suggested that among all the behavioural intentions, willingness to recommend was
the most important for organisations to measure, as it is more strongly associated with
the organisations growth than any other. The relationships between satisfaction and
purchase intentions are assumed to be positive (Taylor and Baker, 1994), but vary
between products, industries, and situations (Fornell, 1992; Croninet al., 2000; Johnson
et al., 2001). However, although a substantial amount of service quality research has
focused on service customers’ perceived service quality (Parasuramanet al., 1988;
Carman, 1990; Parasuramanet al., 1991; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Cronin and Taylor,
1994), relatively little attention has been paid to exploring the factors which impact on
FLE behaviour with regard to delivering service quality, and to articulating the
predictors of employee behaviour to service quality perceptions and satisfaction.
MSQ Research methodology
Among the service industries examined to measure service quality, very little attention
19,5 has been given to call centres, especially from the employees’ perspective. The 19 items
used to measure the five SERVQUAL dimensions were adapted from the study by
Parasuramanet al.(1991) and some modifications were made to suit the call centre
service setting. Each item was reworded to capture internal rather than external service
546 quality. Modification to suit the service setting resulted in changes to some existing
items and deletion of items. For example, an original assurance item: “Customers feel
safe in their transactions with employees” was replaced by “We can be trusted by our
customers”. The questionnaire consisted of three sections. In the first section,
demographic information of the respondents was captured. The second section was
designed to measure the expectations (E) and perceptions (P) of the respondents
according to the five service dimensions. Some researchers have used the seven-point
Likert scales while others used the five-point format. In this study, respondents were
asked to rate their expectations and perceptions of each of the 19 items on a five-point
Likert scale ranging from “1¼Strongly disagree” to “5¼Strongly agree” as suggested
by Babakus and Mangold (1992) and Johnset al.(2004). The final section measured FLE
satisfaction with the services offered by the call centre and their behavioural intentions
such as willingness to recommend and intentions to stay with the organisation. As in
¨ ¨ other studies (Cronin and Taylor, 1994;
Vosset al., 1998; Yu ksel and Yu ksel, 2002),
this
study also adopted the use of a single five-point item with endpoints “extremely
dissatisfied” to “extremely satisfied” to measure FLE overall satisfaction: “In general,
how satisfied were you with the way you treated the customers”. Employees’ intentions,
namely willingness to recommend the organisation to others and their intentions to stay
with the organisation were assessed by five-point Likert items.
The questionnaire was pilot tested among ten FLE and it was observed that
respondents were confused with the wording of some questions and two questions were
repeated. Given that the SERVQUAL instrument can be modified to fit specific research
needs (Carman, 1990; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Cronin and Taylor, 1994; Saurina and
Coenders, 2002), some wordings were changed and the 22 statements were shortened to
19. Question 5 and question 8, as “promise to do something by a certain time” and
“provide its services at the time it promises” were found to the have same meaning by
respondents, therefore the former one was omitted. Also, statement 18 and 20, as
“individual” and “personal” shares the same meaning, hence, statement 18 was removed.
Furthermore from the pilot test, the respondents indicated the item “Employees are
neat-appearing” was not significant as the call centre delivers its services virtually and
the FLE are not in contact with the customers. Therefore this item was deleted.
The survey was administered to the FLE population of a particular call centre
` located in the Business Park at Ebe ne in Mauritius during a one-week
period in March
2008. All FLE in the Call Centre were invited to participate in the study. A total of 130
questionnaires and covering letters were distributed and 90 were returned. In total, 79
were judged usable for data analysis for this study. The SPSS 14.0 for Windows was
used to analyse the data. Reliability checks were applied to the three models of
perception, expectation, and gap. Cronbach Alpha coefficients for each dimension were
calculated. The overall coefficient alpha for each model was also calculated. These
values provided an indication of the levels of internal consistency at the aggregate
level. To further explore the dimensions of service quality in the call centre, a factor
 Employee
employees’ perceptions of service quality. Descriptive statistical techniques were then

perceptions of
used to assess the call centre employees’ expectation and perception scores. Paired service quality
t-tests were executed to test for the significant difference between the two means of
expectations and perceptions. Finally, multiple regressions were applied to
demonstrate the relationship between the service quality dimensions and overall
satisfaction and behavioural intentions. 547

Results
In this study, the ratio of male to female employees was 56 per cent to 44 per cent. More
than 61 per cent of the respondents were between 18 and 25 years of age showing that
employees in the call centre are on average young. Approximately 83 per cent have
either School Certificate or Higher School Certificate as highest level of education and
the majority (68 per cent) has less than one year of service.

Psychometric properties of the scale

The first objective of this study was to test the reliability of the SERVQUAL scale and
the internal consistency of the five dimensions in the call centre context. Many
empirical applications failed to recover the five dimensions of service quality
(tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, assurance, and empathy) as described by
Parasuramanet al.(1991), thus some researchers suggested modifying them (Carman,
1990; Babakus and Boller, 1992; Cronin and Taylor, 1994; Saurina and Coenders, 2002).
In order to examine the dimensionality of the scale, the principle component factor
analysis with Varimax was employed on the 19 service quality items on each of the
difference score between perceptions and expectations. On the basis of Hairet al.(1998)
criterion, factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and factor loadings that are equal to
or greater than 0.50 were retained.
Table I clearly indicates that the factor analysis failed to reveal the five specified
dimensions as suggested by Parasuramanet al.(1991) as the factor analysis indicted
that a three-factor solution would be more appropriate for this study sample. From the
Varimax rotated factor matrix on the gap data, three factors with the same 19 variables
were extracted, representing 75.26 per cent of the overall variance. The Varimax
process produced a clear factor structure with relatively higher loadings on the
appropriate factors. The variables with higher loadings signalled the correlation of the
variables with the factors on which they were loaded. The communality of each
variable was relatively high, ranging from 0.62 to 0.89. This indicates that the variance
of the original values was captured fairly well by these three factors. The factor 1
accounted for 39.45 per cent of the variability and eight items loaded on this factor
(four assurance and four empathy). The factor 2 accounted for 21.79 per cent of the
variance and contained eight items (five reliability and three responsiveness). The last
factor, factor 3 accounted for the remaining 14.02 per cent of the variance and
contained the three tangibles items. In the current study, it seems that FLE perceive
reliability and responsiveness, which are related to the way FLE solve customers
problems effectively and speed of service, as one dimension and assurance and
empathy, which concerns how customers’ needs are perceived, how FLE instill
confidence in customers as well as FLE product knowledge as one dimension.
“Tangibles” was the only dimension that emerged from the original SERVQUAL
MSQ Factor and items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

19,5 Reliability
When we promised to do something by a certain time, we do so 0.623
We show sincere interest in solving our customers’ problems 0.628
We perform services right the first time 0.764
We provide services at the time we promised to do so 0.709
We provide correct/accurate information to our customers 0.709
548
Responsiveness
We provide prompt services to our customers 0.754
We are always willing to help our customers 0.808
We are never too busy to respond to our customers’ request 0.768
Assurance
Our behaviour instils confidence in customers 0.622
We can be trusted by our customers 0.621
We are consistently courteous to our customers 0.725
We have the required knowledge to answer our customers’ questions 0.611
Empathy
We give individual attention to our customers 0.631
We have our customers’ best interest at heart 0.727
We understand the specific needs of our customers 0.790
We have convenient working hours 0.785
Tangibles
We have modern-looking equipment 0.645
The resources in the workplace are visually appealing 0.814
The work environment is comfortable and attractive 0.873
Total variance explained
% of variance explained 39.45 21.71 14.02
Eigenvalue

Table I.
Results of the factor Notes:Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO-MSA): 0.607; Bartlett’s Test of
analysis Sphericity¼1253.296;p,0.01

dimensions. Although this study shows that the data collected do not support the
five-factor structure as proposed by Parasuramanet al.(1991) with the exception of
tangibles, the three service quality dimensions are still useful as a foundation for
discussion and determination of areas for improvement in the call centre.
Cronbach’s coefficient for each dimension were calculated and subjected to reliability
assessment. The items for each subscale were subjected to reliability analysis and the
alpha coefficient for the total scale was 0.908 and 0.848, 0.893 and 0.725 respectively for
the dimensions of Assurance-Empathy, Reliability-Responsiveness and Tangibles.
According to Nunnally (1978) reliability coefficients greater than or equal to 0.50 are
considered sufficient for exploratory studies.

Dimensions of service quality in the call centre

Based on the factor analysis, three factors emerged as dimensions of service quality in
the call centre industry in Mauritius. Factor 1 includes items under the dimension
assurance and empathy. Reliabilty and responsiveness were merged into a second
 Employee
Table II presents the mean scores on the basis of the expectations, perceptions and gap

perceptions of
for the three new dimensions. The gap scores will enable the service manager to service quality
understand current service quality and also to quantify gaps that exist. Thet-statistics
was also calculated to test for the significant difference between expectations and
perceptions. The more negative the score, the less desirable the performance. The gap
scores for the three dimensions were all negative implying that FLE expectations are 549
actually not being met. All the gap scores were statistically significantly different at
p,0.05. It is further observed that the gap scores for Assurance-Empathy (20.67) is
higher than the other dimensions, followed by the gap scores for Reliability-
Responsiveness (20.42) and Tangibles (20.38). The overall gap score (20.49) was
statistically significantly different atp,0.05, indicating that the overall service
quality fell below the employees’ expectations. These negative gaps revealed that the
internal service levels were below the employees’ expectations, indicating that FLE
were not provided with the required internal support and facilities to deliver quality
service to customers.

Predictors of the service quality dimensions in the call centre industry

Because the main analysis will use multiple regression, a technique highly sensitive to
multi-collinearity, it was important to explore this issue further. For each of the three
constructs variance inflation factor (VIF) scores were calculated. The highest VIF score
was for Assurance-Empathy at 2.07 and all other scores were less than 2.00 (Table III).
Since no significant collinearity was detected, these results confirm the
appropriateness of using multiple regression.
Subsequently, the focus of this study was the extent to which overall satisfaction
and future behavioural intentions in call centre can be predicted. Based on the new
factors derived from the factor analysis, a multiple regression analysis was used to
determine the relative importance of service quality characteristics in predicting the
overall employee satisfaction and behavioural intentions, namely willingness to stay
with the organisation and to recommend the organisation to others. The regression
models considered the three service quality dimensions as independent variables and
overall satisfaction and behavioural intentions as dependent variables.
Table III shows that overall satisfaction is influenced by one of the three service
quality dimensions. TheR2 value of 0.21 in the model indicates that 21 per cent of the
variance in FLE overall satisfaction is explained by tangibles only (b¼0.651).
Perceptions related to tangibles such as “modern-looking equipment”, “resources in the
workplace” and “comfortable and attractive workplace environment” have been
significant in explaining overall satisfaction. As argued by Stapleset al.(2001)) and

Perception Expectation Gap

Dimensions Mean SD Mean SD Mean SDt-values
Table II.
Assurance-Empathy 3.37 0.77 4.04 0.4120.67 0.7727.68 Descriptive results for the
Reliability-Responsiveness 3.42 0.90 3.84 0.5920.42 0.7924.72 service quality
Tangibles 3.46 0.79 3.84 0.4820.38 0.8926.77 dimensions in the call
Note:Significant atp,0.05 centre industry
MSQ Independent variable
Reliability-
19,5 responsiveness TangiblesR2 Constant
Assurance-
Dependent variable empathy 0.21
0.175 0.119 3.55
Overall satisfaction
0.651 * *20.113
b-value20.085 17.40 * *20.684 0.501
550
Beta20.473 0.39
t-value20.360 0.11820.085 1.73
F¼0.16; *p,0.01; * *p,0.05 0.207 *20.146
Intention to stay 23.13 *1.26220.979
b-value 0.021
Beta 0.042 0.62
t-value 0.319 0.26320.018 1.87
F¼0.27 * * ; *p,0.01; * *p,0.05 Table III. 0.453 * 0.031
Regression analysis Willingness to recommend 29.04 *3.25220.245
results for behavioural b-value 0.094
intentions against the Beta 0.184
service quality t-value 1.660
F¼10.69 * * ; *p,0.01; * *p,0.05dimensions
Keininghamet al.(2006), tangibles are insignificant to customers in call centre business

because of the virtual service offering, however this study shows that it is a crucial

element in the service delivery process for FLE. The model also indicates that 79 per

cent of the variance can be explained by other dimensions, and future research is

needed to identify the additional dimensions that influence the level of overall

satisfaction in call centres in Mauritius.

To further test FLE behavioural intentions measure against the three dimensions,

additional regression analysis was conducted, using the service quality dimensions as

predictors of intention to stay and willingness to recommend the call centre to others.

As it can be seen from Table III, the regression is statistically significant. 39 per cent of

the variation of intention to stay could be explained by reliability-responsiveness only

(b¼0.207). The other dimensions were not significant predictors of intention to stay.

Tangibles appear to influence overall satisfaction, but this dimension is not significant

and does not influence FLE intention to stay with the call centre. Therefore providing

accurate/reliable information, sincere interest in solving customers’ problems as well

as providing prompt service and willing to help customers appear to be the crucial

service attributes for FLE to stay with the call centre.

 In order to explore FLE willingness to recommend the call centre to others,

reliability-responsiveness emerged as the only predictor, explaining almost 62 per cent

of the variation, indicating a high explanatory power (Table III). The other dimensions,

assurance-empathy and tangibles, were not significant predictors of willingness to

recommend.

Conclusions and managerial implications

The study presented the findings of FLE perceptions of service quality in a call centre

and leads to a number of conclusions and managerial implications. The SERVQUAL

items used in the present study were modified so as to assess service quality from the

FLE perspectives. The findings demonstrate that the five-component structure

 Employee
study reveals three service quality dimensions: assurance-empathy,

perceptions of
reliability-responsiveness and tangibles are core dimensions in the call centre in service quality
Mauritius. Hence, the findings confirm that the SERVQUAL can be modified to fit
specific service settings (Carman, 1990; Parasuramanet al., 1991; Babakus and Boller,
1992; Cronin and Taylor, 1994; Babakus and Mangold, 1992) and the number of
dimensions may vary (Llosaet al., 1998; Carman, 1990). The expectations of the FLE on 551
service quality items as suggested by Parasuramanet al.(1988) were higher than their
perceptions. The largest discrepancy between the expectations and perceptions was in
terms of the “assurance-empathy” dimension which reflects a negative gap in the
provision of personalised and courteous service, product knowledge and sensitivity to
the needs of external customers. The gap model is a useful tool for managers to identify
areas of service shortfalls and hence could be used in the preliminary stages of
devising process improvements and developing staff training programmes in order to
enhance service quality in a call centre setting.
The findings of this study are important to the understanding of the call centre
quality in the Mauritian context. According to Comm and Dennis (2000) employee
satisfaction is vital because it determines the success or failure of customer experiences.
Another important finding of this study is that the service quality dimension, tangibles,
was found to have significant relationships with FLE overall satisfaction. Although the
service is provided in a virtual environment where the customers do not interact with the
physical environment, call centre employees allow for tangible elements in assessing
their level of satisfaction and managers must take this issue into account. The call centre
should pay special attention to the quality of the services delivered by the FLE to ensure
long-term growth and prosperity of the organisation. The most important service factor
contributing to intention to stay as well as willing to recommend the organisation to
others is “Reliability-Responsiveness”. In other words, “performing services right the
first time, providing correct and accurate information, being able to solve problems,
providing prompt service, helpful and never to busy to respond to request” are all
essential ingredients for good service quality. Assessing the service quality of employees
and understanding how the different dimensions influence overall satisfaction and
behavioural intentions should enable service organisations to effectively and efficiently
design the service delivery process, thus ultimately provide better service to the external
customers.
The findings should help managers understand specific employee behaviours
associated with high service quality. If managers understand the behavioural
intentions of employees and their positive association with service quality, they will be
better placed to improve service quality. The results of the regressions analyses
showed that only reliability-responsiveness was significantly associated with FLE
intentions to stay as well as willingness to recommend the call centre to others. FLE
perceive that providing accurate and reliable information at the time they promise to
do so and prompt service to customers influence their decision to stay and intention to
recommend the call centre to others. This is an important finding for service marketers
since it shows that employees indulge in negative word-of-mouth if there is a shortfall
in their perceptions of the reliability-responsiveness gap. Finally, the importance of
perceived service quality measured at the call centre seems clear in order to both
improve customer satisfaction and increase behavioural intentions.
MSQ Managers can use a variety of strategies to encourage positive employee behaviour,
including training, coaching, and incentives. For example, the call centre should
19,5 provide more training to their employees to enhance their customer service skills so
that FLE feels confident and can deliver prompt service. Training and coaching will
help FLE improve their product knowledge so that they can help customers to solve
their problems and provide a fast service, especially if FLE have promised to do
552 something for the customers within a certain time, they must fulfil that promise.
Additionally, these findings should enable call centre managers to identify specific
areas for performance improvement that should have a direct effect on employee
satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

There are some limitations in this study that need to be acknowledged. The results
reported in the study are specific to a particular call centre, so the findings may be
limited to this call centre only and might not represent the call centre service quality in
Mauritius. Further, the study used a single-item employee satisfaction measure,
another scale or multi-items may be a more convenient means to measure satisfaction,
such as that used by Croninet al.(2000). The five SERVQUAL dimensions of service
quality were used in this study, further research may consider more attributes
specifically related to call centre service quality that may influence employee overall
satisfaction and behavioural intentions, and explore their interrelationships.

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About the authors

Prabha Ramseook-Munhurrun is a lecturer in Services Management in the School of Sustainable

Development and Tourism at the University of Technology, Mauritius. Her research focuses on

service quality, customer satisfaction and waiting times. Prabha Ramseook-Munhurrun is the

corresponding author and can be contacted at: pmunhurrun@utm.intnet.mu

Perunjodi Naidoo is a lecturer in Tourism in the School of Sustainable Development and

Tourism at the University of Technology, Mauritius. Her research interest includes services

marketing.

Soolakshna D. Lukea-Bhiwajee has been teaching at the University of Technology, Mauritius

for the past six years in the field of HRM. Her research focus is service quality in the public

service.
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