Thorsten Gruber, Ibrahim Abosag, Alexander E. Reppel and Isabelle Szmigin

Abstract 

Purpose – This paper seeks to use the Kano model to gain a deeper understanding of attributes of effective frontline employees dealing with customer complainants in personal interactions. Previous research revealed that excitement factors deteriorate to basic factors over time. This research aims to investigate whether the same phenomenon holds true for attributes of service employees. 

Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using Kano questionnaires from 272 respondents with complaining experience in the UK and Saudi Arabia, these being two countries at different stages of service sector development.  

Findings – The analysis of the Kano questionnaires for the UK reveals that complaining customers take the contact employee's ability to listen carefully for granted. The Kano results for Saudi Arabia clearly indicate that complaining customers are (still) easier to delight than their UK counterparts. 

Research limitations/implications – Even though the study has a sample size similar to several existing Kano studies, future research studies could still use larger probability samples that represent the broader (complaining) consumer population in the selected countries. 

Practical implications – If companies know what complaining customers expect, frontline employees may be trained to adapt their behaviour to their customers' underlying expectations. For this purpose, the paper gives several suggestions to managers to improve active complaint handling and management.

Originality/value – The study adds to the understanding of effective complaint handling. The findings are the first to show that employee factors that are performance factors in a highly developed service economy can still delight customers in a less developed service economy.

Reference

Gruber, T., I. Abosag, A. E. Reppel, and I. Szmigin (2011), "Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints: A cross-national Kano study", The TQM Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, pages 128-144 (link to publisher)

Alexander E. Reppel and Isabelle Szmigin

Abstract 

This paper considers the darker side of digital identity through the Doppelgänger concept drawn from German folklore. We present the idea of the Data Doppelgänger, a person’s unwanted digital second self.

We begin with a brief description of the nature of the Doppelgänger and its use in literature and psychoanalysis. We then consider some theories of identity and how they contribute and interplay with the idea of other selves. We then use the conceptual premises developed by Webber (1996) in his ‘working definition’ of the Doppelgänger in practice to build the conceptual underpinnings of the Data Doppelgänger. 

Reference

Reppel, A. E. and I. Szmigin (2010), "Data Doppelgänger: Addressing the darker side of digital identity", European Conference of the Association for Consumer Research (EACR), Egham/UK, July

Thorsten Gruber, Alexander E. Reppel and Rödiger Voss

Abstract 

Increasingly, higher education institutions are realising that higher education could be regarded as a business-like service industry and they are beginning to focus more on meeting or even exceeding the needs of their students. Recent research findings suggest that the factors that create student satisfaction with teaching ('teaching satisfiers') may be qualitatively differently from the factors that create dissatisfaction with teaching. Thus, this research uses the Kano methodology to reveal the characteristics of professors that students take for granted ('Must-be factors') and that have the potential to delight them ('Excitement factors'). Kano questionnaires containing 19 attributes of effective professors taken from previous studies and focus group discussions were handed out in two marketing courses to 63 postgraduate students enrolled in a service marketing course. The Kano results corroborate previous US findings that revealed the importance of personality in general and support studies that stress the importance of professors creating rapport with their students in particular..

Reference

Gruber, T., A. E. Reppel and R. Voss (2010), “Understanding the characteristics of effective professors: The student’s perspective”, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, vol. 20, no. 2, pages 175-190