EMPI RICAL ARTICLE

Spending more time with the customer: service-providers’ behavioral discretion and call-centeroperations

Luria Gil • Gal Iddo • Yagil Dana

Received: 9 June 2013 / Accepted: 27 January 2014

� Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Abstract The purpose of the present study was to examine service providers’

behavioral discretion regarding length of service time, and the variables that affect

their discretion. Our sample consisted of 225 call center employees. They responded

to questionnaires concerning burnout, leader–member exchange (LMX), and per-

ceived service climate. Operational data regarding employees’ average call duration

in the subsequent 3 months served as proxy of their behavioral discretion. We found

that higher service climate and LMX predicted longer call duration, while higher

levels of burnout were associated with shorter call duration. Service climate med-

iated the relationship of LMX with call duration.

Keywords Employee behavioral discretion � Call duration � Productivity �Service climate � Burnout � Leadership � Call center management

1 Introduction

The growing need and emphasis on productivity in the world’s economy has led

over the last few decades to an increased interest in productivity improvement in the

service sector, not only in the production (industrial) sector (Ganz et al. 2013).

However, it has been suggested that there is an inherent discrepancy between

productivity and service quality in service jobs, because delivering good service

L. Gil (&) � G. Iddo � Y. Dana

Department of Human Services, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa,

Mount Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel

e-mail: gluria@univ.haifa.ac.il

G. Iddo

e-mail: iddo@research.haifa.ac.il

Y. Dana

e-mail: dyagil@research.haifa.ac.il

123

Serv Bus

DOI 10.1007/s11628-014-0232-3

frequently requires time (Anderson et al. 1997; Gronroos and Ojasalo 2004; Singh

2000). As Bateson (1985) explained, frontline employees have to achieve a modus

operandi both for customers who are mainly interested in quality of service, and for

management which is mainly interested in productivity and profit (Jaiswal 2008).

For example, in order to save costs and increase productivity in a call center, the

profile of a service provider who handles many short calls may be seen as optimal or

desirable. On the other hand, customers may be less satisfied with such service,

preferring someone who invests as much time as is needed in interacting with them.

Unlike production tasks, in which it is possible to assess in advance how long they

will take, service deals with unexpected matters such as customer requests, reactions,

and behaviors that necessitate leaving management of the service interaction to the

frontline service provider (Djellal and Gallouj 2013). Service organization engage in

many behavioral change interventions in order to enhance service-oriented behaviors,

including: service review with score cards (Szabo et al. 2012), videotaped

performance feedback (Williams and Gallinat 2011), and graphic feedback (Loewy

and Bailey 2007). Service employees’ decisions regarding length of interaction with

customers reflect important aspects of behavioral discretion (Katz and Kahn 1978; see

also Bowen et al. 1999, for a discussion of discretion in regard to empowerment).

With the above in mind, this article focuses on understanding employees’

discretion regarding a basic aspect of service, that of interaction length. This is

because of the potential discrepancy between how quality is viewed by service-

providing organizations and by their customers (Parasuraman et al. 1988; Vargo and

Lusch 2004), and given the diverse needs and expectations of customers in different

types of services. For example, in a call-center context, from an organization’s

perspective, extended call duration has clear financial disadvantages in the short

term; behavioral measures are thus often taken by management to restrict length of

calls, e.g., bonuses or other incentives are linked to key process indicators such as

the number of calls taken by employees or average call duration (Dean and Rainnie

2009). Yet, there is significant variation in call duration in call centers (Banks and

Roodt 2011) and variability in what customers perceive as ‘‘adequate’’ contact time

or wait period (Soteriou and Chase 1998).

Despite the complex connection between call duration and service quality, call

duration is one of the most basic key performance indicators or metrics used in call

centers worldwide. Surveys of call center managers in numerous countries

(Robinson and Morley 2006; Dean and Rainnie 2009; Banks and Roodt 2011)

have repeatedly shown that call centers seek to not only monitor but also shorten

call length on grounds of efficiency and improved productivity, and continuously

pressure employees through various mechanisms to reduce call average length to

within defined boundaries. Thus, understanding factors that affect employee

discretionary behavior regarding call length can make a valuable contribution to the

service management literature. Yet to date, only a few studies of the antecedents or

correlates of service-call duration have been conducted (e.g., Rafaeli et al. 2008),

and little is known about the factors associated with the discretionary behaviors of

service employees in this regard.

Singh (2000) suggested that one problem of service research is the division

between research on productivity (mostly operational research) and on service

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quality (mostly and organizational behavior research). The intention of the current

study is to contribute to the service literature by examining the antecedents of

frontline employees’ discretion in regard to the length of service interactions.

Specifically, we examine selected variables that, according to the literature,

influence how frontline employees perform during service encounters, and link them

with operational data about the same employees. The study was held at the call

center of a large credit-card service firm, so that both self-report measures and

operational data could be collected for the same workers.

The literature review below is structured as follows: We first introduce the

conflicting demands between productivity and quality in service roles. We then

suggest three antecedents (leadership, burnout, and service climate) that according

to the service literature should influence the discretion of service employees in

terms of the amount of time invested in service interactions. Finally, we discuss the

process by which leadership affects call duration and suggest that service climate

mediates the relationship between leadership and call duration. Figure 1 presents

the resulting research model. Later on, we present the data collection methods and

results, and discuss the study’s contribution and implications.

2 Conflicting demands of service: productivity versus quality

Service employees face two conflicting demands, i.e., the need for productivity and

the achievement of high-quality service. Productivity is related to how effectively

resources are transformed into output (Griliches and Jorgenson 1967; Solow 1957).

Hence productivity measures in service organizations focus on, e.g., number of

customers served per time period, or profit per customer (Singh 2000). In

comparison, service quality focuses on how service is delivered and how it is

perceived by customers. Service quality has been described as an attitude related

(but not equivalent) to satisfaction (Parasuraman et al. 1988). For example, the

SERVQUAL measure highlights five basic components of service quality:

tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy (Parasuraman et al.

1988). Since this quality is essentially intangible (Bowen and Schneider 1985),

Research model

Leadership

(LMX)

Call

Duration

Service

Climate

Burnout

Fig. 1 Research model

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managers know less about the quality of service processes and the factors affecting

it, unlike productivity which can be measured relatively precisely.

Economic analyses of the service process indicate that a negative relationship

between productivity and customer satisfaction is expected in service organizations.

The logic of this negative relationship rests on the assumption that pursuit of customer

satisfaction increases costs, thereby reducing productivity (Griliches 1971; Lancaster

1979). Anderson et al. (1997) suggested that tradeoffs between customer satisfaction

and productivity are more likely in services than in the production of goods.

Vargo and Lusch (2004) expressed a different view, suggesting that value is

defined by the consumer rather than embedded in organizational outputs and that the

consumer must participate in creating value through the process of co-creation and

co-production (Lusch and vargo 2006). According to this view, service should be

conceptualized as a process—doing something with and for someone else. The onus

of value-creation moves from the ‘‘producer’’ to a collaborative co-creation between

parties in which the knowledge and skills of the service provider are the essential

source of value-creation (Vargo and Lusch 2008).

With regard to call centers, it seems that productivity has higher priority than

service quality (Gilmore 2001; Jaiswal 2008). Parasuraman (2010) argued:

the productivity of a cellular phone company’s call center offering telephone-

based support to customers is typically measured by a metric such as the

number of customer calls processed per hour per employee. Productivity

improvement as measured by this metric can be achieved by reducing the call

center staff and/or setting stringent performance standards for them…. The

key shortcoming of this productivity-improvement approach is that it ignores

customers’ input into the process (p. 279).

The above conclusion was supported in a qualitative study of call-center workers

by Dean and Rainnie (2009). To deliver quality service, frontline employees must

impart empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and assurance to their customers

(Parasuraman et al. 1988). Rafaeli et al. (2008) have demonstrated the importance of

such factors in the context of a call center. Their data showed that customer-oriented

behaviors such as anticipating requests, offering explanations/justifications, edu-

cating customers, or providing emotional support, and personalized information are

crucial aspects of service quality. We argue that such service may require that

frontline workers spend more time with customers. At the same time, it cannot be

assumed that extending call length would contribute to increased service quality

perceptions by all customers, as their needs may vary, and some customers may

prioritize speed over other attributes.

The upshot is that service employees must use their own discretion concerning

the time they allocate to interact with each customer, taking multiple considerations

into account. The present study was designed to examine the quantitative

relationships between call duration and variables representing three types of

antecedent conjectured to influence employees’ pro-service behaviors in general,

and in particular to affect their discretion concerning time spent with customers, i.e.,

emotion (burnout levels), relationships (perceptions of leader-member/worker

exchanges), and organization (perceptions of service climate). It is important to

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note that although these variables have received significant attention in the

literature, there may be other antecedents that also affect employee discretion.

2.1 Service climate

Studies of climate focus on organizational, group, and individual analyses (for

reviews see Zohar and Luria 2005, 2010). This study focuses on the individual level,

i.e., on the ‘‘psychological climate’’ (Hellriegel and Slocum 1974; Litwin and

Stringer 1968; Schneider and Bartlett 1968). Service climate is defined as

employees’ perceptions of the importance of service in their organization, and of

the extent to which management emphasizes quality of service in its activities,

policies, and communications (Schneider et al. 2009). It has been established that

employees in organizations with high service-climate provide better service, which

in turn affects customers’ perceptions of service quality (Salanova et al. 2005;

Schneider et al. 1998, 2005, 2009; Tsai 2001).

Schneider’s (1973) study explained that service climate is related to the influence

of employee behavior on customer service. It was conducted in banks, and included

examples of teller-customer attitudes (Schneider 1973). Later, Schneider and

Rentsch (1988) clarified the relationship between climate and behavior, and defined

climate level as a ‘‘sense of an imperative’’, i.e., the perceived importance of a goal

or facet (e.g., service). Employees with high perceptions of service climate are

described as having a ‘‘passion for service’’ (Schneider et al. 1992). In other words,

when service climate level is high, employees perceive service quality to be

important to both their managers and their organization, and are encouraged to

deliver high-quality service (Schneider et al. 1998).

Climate is thus related to employees’ behavior-outcome expectations, which

influence their decisions about how to behave in the workplace (Zohar 2002; Zohar

and Luria 2005). This link between climate and behavior has also been

demonstrated with regard to other climate facets. For example, Luria (2008) has

demonstrated that, in high-quality climate levels, employees more frequently use

quality-related behavior despite the cost of such behavior (time, energy, etc.). In the

field of safety, Zohar and Luria’s (2005, 2010) studies have shown that employees’

safety-climate perceptions are related to the frequency of safety-related behaviors.

Accordingly, we hypothesize that when frontline employees perceive high-

service climate they are oriented to behave in a pro-service manner and to use their

discretion about investing more time in serving customers. Under low service

climate, frontline employees are expected to be less oriented towards quality service

and to act more according to demands for productivity and speed, thereby

shortening the service interaction.

H1 Service climate will be positively related to call duration.

2.2 Burnout

Burnout is a response to chronic stress, and can reach high levels among frontline

employees who are exposed to stressors that are unique to the service context (Yagil

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et al. 2008). Examples of stressors include perceived negative behaviors of

customers toward service providers (Ben-Zur and Yagil 2005; Evers et al. 2001;

Grandey et al. 2004; Van Dierendonck and Mevissen 2002; Winstanley and

Whittington 2002), or the organizational requirement that service providers regulate

their emotions when interacting with customers (Brotheridge and Grandey 2002;

Brotheridge and Lee 2003; Erickson and Wharton 1997; Grandey 2003).

Burnout consists of three main elements—emotional exhaustion, reduced sense

of accomplishment, and de-personalization (Maslach and Jackson 1981), all of

which are conducive to low-quality service: Emotional exhaustion is reflected in a

sense of energy depletion; reduced personal accomplishment is reflected in reduced

feelings of achievement; and de-personalization is reflected in a tendency to regard

customers as objects. It is not surprising, therefore, that burnout has been found to

be negatively related to outcomes in service organizations (e.g., Banakus et al.

2009; Bakker et al. 2004; Schaufeli and Bakker 2004; Singh 2000; Singh et al.

1994). Burnout is expected to reduce call duration because burned-out employees

lack the motivation and energy for delivering high-quality service. The stronger the

sense of burnout, the more likely employees are to adhere to a service script and to

maintain impersonal (and necessarily relatively short) interactions.

We therefore expect that employees with high levels of burnout will spend less

time with customers.

H2 Burnout will be negatively related to call duration.

2.3 Leadership and employee-manager relations

A key element of effective management of service-providing employees is

leadership (Yagil 2008). A meta-analysis by Harter et al. (2002) showed that

high-quality supervision (e.g., a supervisor who recognizes competencies and

supports employees in their work) leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction.

Schoorman et al. (2007) demonstrated that leaders create alignment between a

company’s service goals and service employees’ personal goals.

Here, we employ the leader-member exchange (LMX) construct for studying

links between leadership and organizational outcomes (Gerstner and Day 1997;

Schriesheim et al. 1999). We explore the LMX model for two reasons. First,

addressing the notion of employee discretion in determining call length, we expect

to find between-employee differences. The LMX theory is unique in considering the

dyadic-leader–follower relationships rather than the leader’s impact on a group as a

whole. In addition, because the LMX model directly addresses the concept of

relationships, it is highly relevant to the service context where the quality of leader-

member relationships may indirectly transfer to employee-customer relationships.

The LMX is based on role theory, and suggests that leaders develop relationships of

different qualities with their team members or subordinates. A high-quality leader-

member exchange (i.e., high LMX) involves mutual positive affect, caring, loyalty,

and mutual obligation (Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995), so that team members in high-

quality relationships will receive better support from their leaders (Dienesch and

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Liden 1986; Uhl-Bien et al. 2000). Leaders participating in such relationships also

create a sense of fairness among their followers (Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995).

When employees feel that they are treated fairly, they tend to be fair to their

customers, and thus to achieve better service quality (Bowen et al. 1999: Masterson

2001; Maxham and Netemeyer 2003). Moss et al. (2009) reported that higher

quality leader-member relationships are positively related to improved subordinate

performance. Accordingly, we predict that employees who report higher-quality

relationships with their leaders will be more motivated to offer good service to

customers, and to invest more time in talking to them.

H3 LMX will be positively related to call duration.

2.4 The mediating role of service climate

In this section, we argue that service climate mediates the effect of LMX on call

duration. In line with the framework of Schneider et al. (2005) for understanding the

links between organizational variables and service outcomes, we suggest that

leaders both communicate, and behave according to, organizational goals to

followers. Leader behavior creates perceptions in the minds of followers with regard

to goals which reflect the importance of service. Employees’ climate perceptions

then influence their behavior, including the amount of time they spend with

customers. Examples of this mediating role of individual-level perceptions can be

found in the results of Zohar (2002) and Wu et al. (2008), who demonstrated that

safety climate mediates the relationship between leadership and safety outcomes.

Similarly, Gil et al. (2005) found that innovation climate mediates the relationship

between change-oriented leadership and group outcomes. Accordingly, we posit the

following hypothesis:

H4 Service climate will mediate the relationship between LMX and call duration.

3 Method

3.1 Sample and procedure

We conducted the study in a call center of a large Israeli financial-services

company. Participation was voluntary, and workers were assured that full

confidentiality was guaranteed. Workers were encouraged by management to

participate, during working hours and on company time. They reported to a facility

where the research questionnaires were administered and collected by a member of

the research team, who was present at the facility for three full days. Almost all of

the 237 frontline workers in the call center volunteered to participate, and we

obtained operational call-duration data for 178 workers, i.e., response rate in

analyses of operational data was 75 %. Of the 178 respondents, 123 (69.1 %) were

female. Average age 24.01 (SD 4.07) years. We conducted our analysis on these 178

individuals on which we had both operational data (call length) and psychological

data based on the questionnaires (service climate, burnout, LMX).

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3.2 Measures

All items in the burnout, service climate, and LMX measures were rated on a

5-point Likert scale, ranging from ‘‘completely agree’’ to ‘‘completely disagree’’.

For service climate and leadership, higher scores meant stronger pro-service

perception (i.e., higher climate), while for burnout, lower scores meant stronger pro-

service perception (i.e., less burnout).

3.2.1 Psychological data based on service quality approach

Burnout was measured on a 9-item questionnaire (Maslach and Jackson 1981). A

sample item: ‘‘I feel used up at the end of the workday ‘‘. Coefficient alpha was .72.

Service climate was measured by a 7-item scale developed by Dietz et al. (2004).

One item from the original scale was dropped to improve validity and reliability

based on factorial analysis. Together these eight items represent key practices

indicating that service is very important to the organization as perceived by the

employee. A sample item: ‘‘Where I work, individuals are recognized for their

contributions to quality improvement’’. Coefficient alpha was .79.

Leadership was measured by the 7-item leader-member exchange (LMX) scale

(Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995). A sample item: ‘‘I can count on my manager to ‘bail me

out’ even at his/her own expense, when I really need it’’. Coefficient alpha was .89

3.2.2 Operational data

3.2.2.1 Call duration The dependent variable was average call duration, in

seconds, recorded by the company’s CRM system for three months after self-report

data were collected. The use of a 3-month average reduces the influence of rare or

extreme cases in which service providers had to lengthen or shorten service

interactions due to special circumstances or because of management’s request due to

operational pressures. The 3-month average, therefore, provides a measure that (in

our view) reflects workers’ long-term discretion regarding time use. Measurement

was made after collection of the self report measures.

All the questionnaires were previously validated and tested for convergence and

divergence (see, e.g., Linden and Maslyn 1998 for validation of the LMX scale;

Dietz et al. 2004 for validation of the service-climate scale; and Maslach and

Jackson 1981 for validation of the burnout scale). To explore the validity of these

scales in our sample, we conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in which

the LMX and service-climate scale items were loaded directly on their two factors.

The burnout items were loaded to 3 first-order factors (emotional exhaustion,

reduced sense of accomplishment, and de-personalization) within the second-order

factor (burnout) according to the theoretical structure of the concept. The model

presented good fit to the data (CFI = .92; TLI = .9, IFI = .92; RMSEA = .05). All

items were loaded significantly on their factors (estimates ranged between .39 and

.72 for the service climate scale; .23–.78 for the burnout scale; .53–.88 for the LMX

scale). We compared the 3-factor model with a single-factor model in which all

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items are loaded on the same factor. The 3-factor model had better fit indices, and

the difference between these models was highly significant (Dv2 = 540.38 on 16

degrees of freedom, p \ .001).

4 Results

Table 1 presents means, standard deviations, and correlations for all the research

variables. In line with Hypotheses 1–3, call duration was positively correlated with

service climate and LMX, and negatively with burnout. We also tested the

hypothesized relationships with multiple regressions, controlling for age and

gender, and found further support for all three hypotheses. As predicted in H1,

service climate was positively related to call duration (b = .25, p \ .001, Adj

R2 = .07, F = 5.39, p \ .01). Supporting H2, burnout was negatively related to

call-duration discretion (b = -.193, p \ .05, Adj R2 = .048, F = 3.947, p \ .01).

In line with H3, LMX was positively correlated with call duration (b = .173,

p \ .05, Adj R2 = .041, F = 3.475, p \ .05).

To examine Hypothesis 4, we tested whether the relationship between LMX

and call duration was mediated by service climate, following the Edwards and

Lambert (2007) approach (Preacher et al. 2007). According to this procedure,

conditions for mediation are: that the independent variable (LMX) will predict

the mediator (service climate); that after controlling for the independent variable

(LMX), the mediator (service climate) will significantly predict the dependent

variable (call duration). Table 2 presents the results of this analysis, in which we

also controlled for age and gender. In the first model, LMX significantly

predicted service climate. In the second model, service climate, predicted call

duration, but the independent variable LMX did not. This is a non-parametric

‘‘bootstrap’’ procedure to test the size of the indirect (mediation) effect, to

estimate effect sizes, and to construct bias-corrected confidence intervals. There

were two estimates of the confidence interval (1.89 and 18.96). In support of the

significance of the mediation (indirect) effect, the range of the bootstrap

confidence interval did not include zero (Preacher et al. 2007). In sum, full

mediation was supported. Controlling for the mediator, the direct effect (LMX—

call duration) was found to be insignificant, while the indirect effect (mediating

effect of service climate) was significant.

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4

1. LMX 4.08 .78

2. Service Climate 4.46 .47 .55***

3. Burnout 2.04 .79 -.35*** -.40***

4. Call duration (in s) 270.47 69.16 .16* .22** -.19**

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01;*** p \ .001; N = 178

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5 Discussion

This study was designed to examine antecedents of service workers’ discretion in

regard to length of interactions with customers. A key finding is that, as

hypothesized, climate and LMX were positively related, and burnout was negatively

related, to duration of service interactions. Leaders in high-quality LMX encourage

followers to undertake more responsible activities and consequently employees

perform beyond contractual expectations (e.g., Dunegan et al. 1992). It is thus

possible that when LMX is high, employees are motivated to extend call length

beyond normative organizational expectations. Furthermore, high-quality service is

likely to be seen as the level of performance desired by the leader because it

contributes to long-term organizational profits. Employees may thus feel that, by

exercising discretion over call length, they are reciprocating the leader’s positive

attitudes toward them (Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995). Similarly, employees with high

service-climate perceptions are likely to see service quality as more important than

other goals, and are, therefore, apt to spend more time with customers.

Burnout may affect call duration due to the necessity for longer calls in high-

quality service. A high-quality interaction with a customer is usually more

complicated than a standardized interaction and may involve initiatives such as

interpersonal skills, professional knowledge, or retrieving customer-related infor-

mation. A burned-out employee is less likely to have the required motivation and

energy, and can be expected to adhere to the service script and conduct shorter

interactions with customers. However, burnout is a multidimensional concept

composed of three dimensions (exhaustion, reduced sense of accomplishment, or

de-personalization). Although we used the short version of the burnout scale we

conducted additional analysis to understand which of the three dimensions is more

Table 2 Results of mediation analysis

Variable B Std. Err t

1. Mediator variable model (predicting service climate)

Age -.01 .01 -1.15

Gender .12 .06 2.1*

LMX .29 .03 8.52***

Rsq = .32

F = 27.32***

2. Dependent variable model (predicting call duration)

Age -.23 1.01 -.23

Gender -27.02 10.15 -2.66**

LMX 4.41 7.08 .62

Climate 28.16 11.69 2.41*

Rsq = .08

F = 4.13**

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001; N = 176

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correlated to call length. We found that among these variables only de-personal-

ization is correlated significantly with call length (r = .21, p \ .01) while the other

dimensions are not correlated significantly with call length. It is possible that service

providers that regard customers as objects are less motivated to invest time in

solving customers’ needs and tend to be more influenced from the operational

demands of their company. Another important finding of the present study is that the

relationship of LMX with call duration was mediated by service climate. We

suggest that the mechanism explaining this result (which has not been examined in

the literature to date) is that high-quality leader–follower relationships promote pro-

service climate perceptions which, in turn, influence employees to spend more time

with customers. Thus the quality of employee–manager relationships can also affect

service quality because of greater role clarity, apart from the positive affect of

employees toward managers (Sears and Hackett 2011).

Our analyses were controlled for age and gender. We found that only the gender

variable remained significant, and that, on average, male service employees’ calls

were 24 s longer than those of their female counterparts. This result is aligned with

findings in previous studies (Snipes et al. 2006). Snipes et al. (2006) conjectured that

one explanation for the differences is customers’ tendency to evaluate male service

providers more highly. If our finding is also applicable to other call centers, it may

help to explain those reported by Snipes et al. (2006).

To the best of our knowledge, our research is one of the few that offer empirical

integration of data pertaining to two different service fields (operations and service

quality), thereby providing a broader perspective that responds to recent calls in this

regard (Banks and Roodt 2011; Jaiswal 2008). As predicted, our data suggest that

service employees with higher or more positive pro-service inclinations have longer

interactions with customers, while those conducted by employees with negative

attitudes and emotions (higher burnout) are shorter.

A primary contribution of this study to the service management literature is the

demonstration that employees with ‘‘better’’ attitudes and emotions tend to be less

productive operationally. In most call centers, including the one in which this study

was conducted, employee bonuses are partly based on their overall output, including

the number of calls completed. Thus, our results imply that workers with pro-service

attitudes and perceptions knowingly act in ways that are seemingly contrary to their

own interests, but ultimately serve both the customers’ interests and the long-term

interests of the organization.

An established theoretical model that could help to explain such seemingly

counterintuitive results is the Customer Contact model advanced by Chase and

colleagues (e.g., Soteriou and Chase 1998; Kellogg 2000). That model was one of

the early attempts to clarify and provide empirical analysis of the intangible aspects

of service and identify factors affecting the quality of service encounters, pointing to

three connected dimensions, each having multiple elements: Contact time (which

includes wait time and interaction time), intimacy (mutual confiding, trust, etc.), and

information richness (amount of information, degree of personal or impersonal

aspects, feedback during conversation, etc.). It is possible that our results reflect a

tendency for workers with higher pro-social attributes to be better at identifying or

being sensitive to aspects of the intimacy or information needed by the customer or

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called for by the situation at hand. This could lead such workers to adjust contact

time and their investment in establishing interpersonal relations or providing deeper

information or feedback, based on their perception of what their customers value as

the service encounter is in progress.

We conjecture that the relationship between employee attitudes and call duration

may be cyclic—longer calls may allow more meaningful interactions with

customers (i.e., improve the overall ‘‘contact’’ experience both for customers and

employees), and reduce the adverse impact of routine and stress involved in a

succession of brief calls; this could in turn contribute to employees’ sense of

wellbeing and control in their work environment. This, in turn, may then reinforce

future pro-service behavior. A somewhat similar cyclic process was recently

described as underlying empowerment processes in social organizations (Bennett-

Cattaneo and Chapman 2010), and is also posited in discussions of the impact of

leadership role in high-performance work organizations (Liao et al. 2009).

Overall, our results add to the service literature, which in recent years has placed

a premium on improvements in labor productivity (Beyers 2013). Efforts to improve

productivity in service roles are evident in several parts of the world, yet should be

made in a holistic manner, in line with Zolnowski et al. (2013) who argue that there

is a need to improve both productivity and quality and not to concentrate on one

characteristic only. As our results suggest, workers with different characteristics

may opt for different behaviors to promote productivity and quality, and such

diversity should be noted by service organizations when they try to maximize both

productivity and quality.

5.1 Limitations and future research

We sampled from a single organization in a specific industry. Future studies should

test the relationships discussed in the present study with larger samples from several

firms and service fields. Note that the results underestimate the relationships

between variables because the call-center context limits employees’ discretion to

some extent. Larger correlations can be expected in other service contexts.

This study focused on three variables: burnout, leadership, and service climate.

Although these variables have received significant attention in the service literature,

we acknowledge that other antecedents may also affect employee discretion. Future

studies could investigate variables such as employees’ service orientation, core self-

evaluations (Yagil et al. 2008), and empowerment.

We have demonstrated that employees with high service-climate and leadership

perceptions interacted longer with customers, and that those with high burnout had

shorter call durations. The literature reviewed earlier suggests that workers

demonstrating such attributes (i.e., high-service climate, lower burnout, etc.) also

provide better service and report other pro-social behaviors. A similar finding was

reported by Rafaeli et al. (2008), lending support to our findings. However, Rafaeli

et al. (2008) also showed that customers were more satisfied with longer, rather than

shorter, service interactions. In contrast, the current study did not directly study the

linkage between call duration and service quality and hence cannot make such

claims. Yet, it is curious that employees who were found in our study to invest more

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time in their customers are also those that according to the literature tend to provide

better service overall. Our results are thus aligned with the notion that a negative

relationship between productivity and behaviors leading to customer satisfaction is

to be expected in service organizations (Griliches 1971; Lancaster 1979).

Given the above, future studies should test the relationship between call duration

and customers’ perceived quality of service, taking into account the need to consider

intervening variables and in particular to test the influence of the characteristics of

different groups of workers in terms of their pro-service and pro-social behaviors on

the call duration—service quality link. Such research may need to include

qualitative analysis of the interactions of workers who are high or low on such pro-

service and pro-social attributes, and their explanations for their behaviors during a

service encounter, and in order to better understand the decisions, they make during

the encounter about the amount of contact time to be devoted (Soterious and Chase

1998). Finally, there is a need to consider additional worker-level variables that

could be antecedents of call length, beyond those examined in the current study, as

well as managerial practices known to affect service climate or pro-service

behaviors (Schneider et al. 2009).

Data regarding the independent variables (LMX, service climate, and burnout)

were retrieved from the same employees, which may have caused common-source

bias in responses. However, the dependent variable, call duration, derived from a

different objective source (operational data) and this should reduce the effect of

such bias. We suggest that future research should test the mediating role of service

climate by measuring independent variables and mediators from different sources,

e.g., measuring the independent variable according to supervisor and/or peer

evaluations. Schneider et al. (2005) paper postulate that leaders influence employee

behavior through leadership processes which were measured through LMX in our

article. However, given that role modeling may play a key variable in this process, it

would be interesting to test the role of transformational leadership in predicting call

length.

5.2 Managerial implications

Organizations often invest in reducing call duration or service encounter length by

means of call scripts, training sessions, and various reward schemes. However, our

results suggest that high-quality employees are those who conduct longer

interactions with customers. Thus, an important implication of the present study

is that organizations should be careful about interpreting operational data

concerning call duration. Our results suggest that service managers should not

automatically assume that employees who spend more time on the phone are

problematic or less motivated, or that employees who, on average, spend less time

with customers do a better job of adhering to organizational goals.

A second implication is that organizations should re-consider how they link

operational data about call duration to reward schemes. To motivate and encourage

employees to use their discretion, organizations could revise their criteria for

rewarding calls of shorter duration so that employees could use their discretion

about extending a predetermined proportion of calls without being sanctioned. It is

Spending more time with the customer

123

possible, in fact, that such a policy may result in higher levels of customer

satisfaction in the long term, and is likely to affect the behavior, job satisfaction, and

retention of pro-service employees who are a valuable organizational resource

(Yagil 2008).

Regarding the mediating role of service climate, the results suggest that leaders

influence employees’ service-climate perceptions, which in turn influence employ-

ees’ discretionary decisions to spend more time with customers. A further

implication concerns attention to the role of line managers as well as to senior

management in fostering high-service climate, as well as leadership practices in this

regard. Our results indicate the importance of such practices in terms of investment

in high-quality service. Leaders can convey the importance of service quality by

recognizing and appreciating high-quality service, removing obstacles to service

delivery and setting clear standards for service quality (Salvaggio et al. 2007). There

is evidence that employees’ climate perceptions can be promoted within organi-

zations by modifying supervisors’ leadership behavior (Luria et al. 2008; Zohar and

Luria 2003). Luria et al. (2008) found that such interventions are especially

effective in high-visibility situations, and explained that in such situations it is

possible for the supervisor to observe employees’ behavior and provide guidance,

feedback and recognition to highlight the importance of critical issues such as safety

and quality service.

In line with the above recommendations, the overall results of the present study

indicate that multiple factors affect employee discretion and decisions on how much

time to invest in service calls. Liao et al. (2009) have shown that employees’ views

of high-performance work systems in the service sector, and their resulting

individual service performance, are positively related to broader factors through the

mediation of organizational support and HRM processes contributing to employee

empowerment. Accordingly, service organizations should try to create a working

environment that encourages employees to use their discretion to benefit their

customers and organizations alike, and to implement relevant and flexible reward

systems to ensure that employees exercise that discretion, and encourage its positive

use.

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