The following dissertation is an exploratory case study of a telecommunications organisation�s call
centres. Specifically, it was focused on investigating internal service quality issues that related to
the frontline employee role, a clearly underdeveloped area of study in services marketing literature.
The study involved firstly identifying the internal services delivered to frontline employees, and
then gaining their perceptions of the service quality dimensions most important to them within each
workplace situation. This in turn provided an indication of how internal services could be
customised and classified to best meet frontline employees� work requirements and therefore
increase their job effectiveness. In addition, the case study explored frontline employees� overall
perceptions of the quality of delivery of each internal service, which helped provide further insights
into their work needs. Frontline employees� perceptions were also sought regarding the importance
of each internal service to them, in terms of increasing their ability to generate revenue for the
organisation. This provided an indication of how different internal services impacted upon their
exchanges with external customers.
Twelve internal services and seven internal service quality dimensions were identified through
conducting extensive observation and undertaking interviews with frontline employees at one of the
call centres. The information obtained helped inform a web-based online survey that was
implemented to address the three focal research questions. The online survey was successfully
completed by 301 frontline employees.
The results showed that while all twelve internal services shared some similarities in their demand
characteristics, some groups of internal services were distinctly different to others. As a result of
these similarities and differences, the internal services were classified into four categories: trainingintensive
internal services; communication-based internal services; real-time-based internal
services; and, performance-related internal services.
While the four classification categories can provide a solid guide for internal suppliers about how to
approach groups of internal services, it was apparent that frontline employees had unique needs in
each of the twelve internal services. This emphasised the need for the classification scheme to be
used only as a guide, whereby internal suppliers should methodically identify all the quality
attributes most important to frontline employees in each individual internal service situation.
The results also showed that frontline employees perceived some internal services as more
important than others, in terms of increasing their ability to generate revenue for the organisation.
As a result, it was suggested that internal services could also be classified according to their
�importance� levels, as this could help managers in their allocation of organisational resources.
The case study provided a valuable insight into frontline employees� needs, and other internal
service quality issues related to their roles. Because the results and conclusions were specific to a
particular case, it is essential that this area of research be extended further in future.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216563 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Krios, Kon, kon.krios@telstra.com |
| Publisher | Swinburne University of Technology. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.swin.edu.au/), Copyright Kon Krios |
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