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MSQ
18,6 Assessing poor quality service:
perceptions of customer service
representatives
610
Marilyn M. Helms and Donna T. Mayo
Dalton State College, Dalton, Georgia, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the variables most often associated with customer
dissatisfaction and to discern which variables result in customer defection. Identification of these
variables can aid managers as they develop strategies to prevent their occurrence.
Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory study examined customer service
dissatisfaction from a respondent group of customer service representatives employed by a call
center. These employees deal with customers as their exclusive job function and are trained to correct
customer concerns. The customer service respondents were surveyed and asked to list their top service
complaints. From this list they were also asked to indicate the top ranked poor service issue that would
cause them, as customers, to defect and select a competitor to provide a substitute product or service.
Findings – Results of the study parallel those in other customer dissatisfaction research and indicate
interesting characteristics of customer dissatisfaction arising from service failure. Interestingly, the
top four categories (rude employees/poor attitudes; overall poor service; employees socializing and not
paying attention to customers; and slow service) were noted most often as service problems by
respondents and also ranked as the top reasons for defection. Areas for future research are also
considered.
Practical implications – By understanding and anticipating poor service delivery, managers can
regard these complaint categories as critical market research information. In addition, such
information may help managers anticipate customer needs. They can re-structure service experiences
and train employees to avoid problem behaviors and actions.
Originality/value – While past research has focused on end-user customers and their
dissatisfaction, this research considers the opinions of consumers who are trained in, and work in,
customer service.
Keywords Call centres, Problem based learning, Quality management, Customer service management,
Customer satisfaction
Paper type Research paper

Managing Service Quality
Vol. 18 No. 6, 2008
pp. 610-622
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0960-4529
DOI 10.1108/09604520810920095
Introduction
Numerous studies have considered the positive correlation between customer
dissatisfaction and complaint behavior (Goodman and Ward, 1993; Goodman and
Newman, 2003; Folkes, 1984; Singh, 1990a, b; Singh and Howell, 1985; Singh and
Wilkes, 1996; Kim et al., 2003; Davidow, 2000, 2003; Lemmink, 2005). In the service
industry, in particular, the importance of complaint management is linked to profit and
firm longevity (Stewart, 1998; Tax and Chandrashekara, 1992). Onyeaso (2007)
suggests service managers can leverage their organizational performance through
superior complaint management programs.
While managing complaints has been found to improve customer service and
retention, studies have not examined the value of being proactive by identifying and
preventing major issues. Eliminating sources of the most common complaints may be
the most cost-effective way to increase customer satisfaction and reduce complaint Assessing poor
behavior. Eliminating complaints may also prevent the most extreme actions of quality service
dissatisfied customers – no longer purchasing a company’s products or services
(defection).
The purpose of this study is to explore the variables most often associated with
customer dissatisfaction and to discern which variables result in customer defection.
Identification of these variables can aid managers as they develop strategies to prevent 611
their occurrence. While past research has focused on end-user customers and their
dissatisfaction, this research considers the opinions of consumers who are trained in
and work in customer service. What can be learned about poor service quality from
customer service representatives (CSR) who serve customers and address complaints
on a daily basis? Perhaps employees who provide customer service on a regular basis
provide unique insights into common customer complaint variables.

Dissatisfaction and customer defection

Customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction is derived from experience with a service
encounter and the comparison of that experience to a given standard. Diaz and Ruiz
(2002, p. 118) define consumer satisfaction as “an affective reaction to an incident
during the dispensing of a service”. Complicating the level of satisfaction is that
customers may perceive a virtually identical service encounter in a variety of different
ways.
The relationship between customer defection and profitability has been studied
(Heskett et al., 1994). Lovelock et al. (2001) found when customers are dissatisfied with
a service, they may do nothing, complain to the service organization, take overt action
with a third party (i.e. the Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, or an
industry trade association) or they may simply defect, never to return. These findings
are also supported by Voorhees et al. (2006) research.
A retail customer dissatisfaction study by the Retailing Initiative at Wharton and
the Verde Group of Toronto, found 31 percent of shoppers with a bad experience told
friends, family and colleagues. While dissatisfied customers may not go out of the way
to share their problems with the retailer, they do tell the story of their problem service
encounter to others. The dissatisfaction study also found if 100 people had a bad
experience, a retailer stands to lose between 32 and 36 current or potential customers.
Additionally, complaints are often embellished as the story spreads and this
embellished version of the bad experience has an even greater impact on shoppers
not involved in the problem (Beware of Dissatisfied Customers . . ., 2006). With the
ever-growing popularity of the internet, the TARP Company’s research found 4 percent
of satisfied customers post their feeling on web sites and blogs and 15 percent of
unsatisfied customers post their comments (Goodman et al., 2000) in this
“word-of-mouse” complaining.
Bodey and Grace (2006) agree customers differ in their attitudes toward engaging in
complaint behavior. Goodman (2006) found that complaint rates appear to be declining
in all business sectors due to growing cynicism by customers that complaining does
not do any good or it is not worth the trouble.
A repeat purchaser who frequents the same provider over time has different
experiences because services are inherently variable. However, Soderlund and Julander
(2003) found one way for the provider to manage the variation is to target variables
MSQ that act as “forgivers” in reducing the negative impact of service variability.
18,6 Alternatively, studies have not focused on the variables that cause customers never to
use a service provider again. Identifying and subsequently addressing these variables
may be of significant benefit to managers.
The growth of the service sector has placed increased emphasis on customer
dissatisfaction issues. America, like much of the developed world, is predominately a
612 service economy. Surveys indicate customers often feel disrespected and mistreated by
a number of retailers, airlines, banks, and hotels (University of Michigan Business
School, 2001). Brady (2000) found a decline in the level of respect given to customers
and their experiences. This is disturbing since Brechbuhl (2004) found services
represent the single largest economic opportunity for revenue and profit growth. Some
organizations, however, still view customer service activities as unavoidable overhead.
Managing customers is more critical today, particularly given the competition from
on-line service providers (Kim et al., 2003).

Methodology
The unique perspective of customer service representatives
If customer service is a key to business success, it is critical to determine service
problems and work to correct or eliminate them before customers defect. This study
surveys employees of call centers to assess their perceptions of customer service. These
call center employees provide customer service and assist customers daily. In their
jobs, these customer service employees experience a wide range of situations and
varying emotions from customers.
Johnson (2005) agrees call center employees and other service employees often deal
with the problematic behavior of unpleasant encounters with customers. These include
customer anger, frustration, dissatisfaction, and a range of negative emotions, which
are all encountered on almost a daily basis Thus, they are uniquely positioned to
articulate which service experiences are “non-forgiving”. Since these employees have
received numerous hours of training in customer service and are evaluated on their
own service delivery process, they were chosen to offer their unique perspective on
poor quality service. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to learn about customer
complaints from those most trained to deal with them as part of their job function – the
call center employee. By understanding their perspective and perceptions it should be
possible to offer suggestions to industry to improve service quality delivery processes.

Research setting and respondents

Customer service representatives in a Fortune 500 Carpet Company were recently
surveyed over a six-month period. The employees were located in two separate North
Georgia call center headquarters for the company and each center fielded orders from
English-speaking customers throughout the world. Respondents included the
company’s call center employees responsible for both order taking and order-related
customer service issues for inbound order-entry calls (originated by the customers –
largely retailers and/or distributors).
Respondents were 83 percent female. The majority of respondents were in the 31 to
40 age group category. The age distribution was: 25 percent (age 18-25); 39 percent (age
26-40); 31 percent (age 41-60); 5 percent (age 61 and over). Of the respondents, 37
percent of the respondents had completed high-school; 49 percent had attended college,
while 12 percent had a college degree. The age and educational profiles of the Assessing poor
respondents match those in the USA in general, and they are considered a somewhat quality service
representative sample of consumers in the general population.
Of the respondents, 82 percent were full-time employees; 52 percent have been
employed for two years or less in the call center. Additionally, 24 percent were
employed from three to six years, and 24 percent were employed seven years or more in
the call center. All employees had recently implemented performance standards. These 613
customer service employees are rated on some 23 standards per call and a sample of
their calls are randomly selected and evaluated by their supervisor. Employees must
meet standards of performance during a two-month probationary period to be
employed in the call center customer service position.

Data collection
Given the exploratory nature of this study, a simple two-question survey was
developed and administered to employees during a two-hour company-training
seminar on customer satisfaction led by external consultants. The following two
questions were provided to respondents on large index cards:
(1) Think about your own experiences as a customer and list three examples of
poor customer service on the index card provided. Do not include your name.
(2) Considering these three examples, place a star by the item that would cause you
to choose another service provider.

Research authors were present to answer questions from respondents about the survey
instrument and the study. Although 137 respondents completed the surveys, six
respondents were eliminated – as they were new hires – with no customer service
experience beyond their initial classroom training.

Affinity diagram development and interpretation

Affinity diagrams were used to group and classify the collected responses from the
index cards. Affinity diagrams are a popular text clustering technique used to
categorize a large number of seemingly disparate comments (Dobrzynski, 2007;
Levesque and Walker, 2007; Plain, 2007; White et al., 2002; Mango, 2006). The affinity
diagram methodology was chosen due to its importance as an interpretative,
qualitative approach to research, allowing for investigation and emergence of multiple
contextual variables.
The objective of the methodology is to utilize the qualitative data for explanatory
purposes and to generalize findings in support of theory based on a distillation of the
various respondent comments. The clustering of issues helps draw inferences from the
data collected. Thus, the goal is to better understand categories of service failures and
identify the service failures that result in customer defection.
The data were collected and independently analyzed by two researchers and two
research assistants. All have experience in quality management and current customer
satisfaction literature. The researchers summarized, grouped, and clustered the
comments by key words and phrases. Through the iterative process, major variables
were identified.
MSQ Results
18,6 Table I provides representative comments from each of the categories derived from
grouping the data using the affinity methodology. Respondent comments reflect 11 key
categories of dissatisfaction with service encounters. They are:

614 Category Sample comment

1 Rude employees Showing an attitude of indifference

Poor attitude No beginning or ending greeting
Treated like my business is not importance
Not saying “thank you”
2 Slow service Service provider takes too much time
Long lines at the checkout
Putting me on hold
Server forgot about us
3 Employees socializing/not paying Cashier was busy talking to the bagger and
attention to customers didn’t greet me
Talking on the phone to a friend and ignoring me
as a customer
Talking on the phone while trying to ring up my
purchase
Not giving me their full attention
4 Overall poor accommodations No follow through on an order
Not accommodating me
No live person to talk to
Can’t find anyone to help you or ask questions
5 Lack of training/lack of knowledge Not trained on how to solve a problem
Poorly informed staff
Being transferred many times
Customer service’s answer is “I don’t know”
6 Service failures Lack of accurate information
Not getting what I ordered
Being charged the wrong amount
Getting the wrong item
7 Poor quality Poor quality
No quality of service
Faulty products
Defective merchandise
8 Being rushed or hurried by a pushy Feeling rushed
associate
Impatient people
Trying to give me something I didn’t ask for
Being pushed around
9 Product availability Products on menu were not available
No stock available
Backordered
Advertised product not present
10 Appearance/cleanliness Not clean
Table I. Dirty restrooms
Sources of customer Employee’s uniform not clean
dissatisfaction and Bug in food
sample comments 11 Prices Too expensive
 (1) rude employees/poor attitudes; Assessing poor
(2) slow service; quality service
(3) employees socializing/not paying attention to customers;
(4) overall poor accommodation;
(5) lack to training/lack of knowledge;
(6) service failure; 615
(7) poor quality;
(8) lack of patience;
(9) product availability;
(10) appearance/cleanliness; and
(11) prices.

Sample comments are provided in Table I to further explain and clarify each
category.
Table II shows the frequencies within the 11 service categories and further classifies
each category as either qualitative or quantitative. The qualitative variables may be
more difficult for managers to improve since customer experiences vary as do the
customer’s subjective interpretation of the service encounter.
The largest category of customer dissatisfaction (24 percent) was rude employees
and poor employee attitudes. The next most frequently reported categories were
employee socializing or not paying attention to customers (17 percent) and overall
service failures (17 percent).
Table III is derived from the follow-up survey question which asked respondents to
indicate which dissatisfaction category would cause the respondent to terminate their
business with the service provider (i.e. defect to a competitor). Rude employees and
poor attitude ranked as the category most likely to end the business relationship
followed by overall poor service. Interestingly, the top four categories (rude
employees/poor attitudes; overall poor service; employees socializing and not paying
attention to customers; and slow service) were noted most often as service problems by
respondents and also ranked as the top reasons for defection.

Discussion and conclusions

Managing and improving the quality of products, services, and the accompanying
delivery process can be proactively used to reduce the switching and defection
behavior of customers. This improvement in customer retention and satisfaction can be
directly seen in the bottom-line business performance. From the customer service data,
key categories of service failure have been identified and subsequently ranked. The
most severe failures are key. These extreme failures, as perceived by the customer
service employee sample, can be used to predict customer defection. More importantly,
addressing these areas before customers enter the service system can reverse the
defection thus improving customer retention.
The contribution of this study is two-fold. First is the unique perspective of
customer service employees regarding service. Previous studies have surveyed actual
customers immediately after their service failure or have relied solely on
customer-completed comment cards and similar feedback (phone calls, e-mail, etc.).
 18,6

616
MSQ

Table II.

classification
and category
Frequency of reporting
Number Percentage Number indicating they Percentage indicating Qualitative or
reporting the reporting the would never return due they would never return quantitative
Category problem problem to the problem due to the problem category

1 Rude employees/poor attitude 115 24 60 45 Qualitative

2 Slow service 101 20 12 8 Quantitative
3 Employees socializing and not paying 64 13 23 17 Qualitative
attention to customers
4 Overall poor service 101 20 27 17 Qualitative
5 Lack of training or lack of employee job 40 8 4 3 Quantitative
knowledge
6 Mistakes 36 7 10 8 Quantitative
7 Poor quality 13 3 2 1 Qualitative
8 Being rushed/associate being pushy 11 2 0 0 Qualitative
9 Product availability 6 1 0 0 Quantitative
10 Appearance/cleanliness 5 1 2 1 Qualitative
11 Prices 3 1 0 0 Quantitative
Totals 495 100 130 100
 Assessing poor
Rank as a problem
that would cause a quality service
Rank as a customer never to
Category problem return

Rude employees/poor attitude 1 1

Slow service 2 4 617
Employees socializing and not paying attention to customers 3 3
Overall poor service 4 2
Lack of training or lack of employee job knowledge 5 6
Mistakes 6 5
Poor quality 7 7 (tie)
a
Being rushed/associate being pushy 8
a
Product availability 9
Appearance/cleanliness 10 7 (tie)
a
Prices 11
Table III.
Note: aWhile the issue or category was rated as a problem, it would not cause the customer to never Ranking of customer
return to the product or service provider service problems

Second, the findings also highlight the “soft side” of customer service. These soft-side
categories of problem service, like rude employees with poor attitudes or employees not
paying attention to customers, are more likely to cause customers to defect to a
competing service provider. The study does validate that the soft side of customer
service is typically more important than the hard side of service.
Bougie et al. (2003) found customers may experience anger and other undesirable
emotions when waiting for service, dealing with unresponsive or impolite
employees, and a host of other behaviors. Bitner et al. (1990) found avoidable
service failures include the unavailability of a service, slow service, or errors in
delivery (Bitner et al., 1990). In his study of the hospitality industry McCole (2004)
agreed the avoidable breakdowns often result in switching behavior and he
classified industry failures using the eight reasons for customer switching
developed by Keaveney (1995). These include pricing (high price, price increases,
unfair pricing and/or deceptive pricing); inconvenience (location or hours and/or
wait times); core service failure (service mistakes, billing errors and/or service
catastrophes); service encounter failures (uncaring, impolite, unresponsive and
unknowledgeable staff); responses to service failure (negative responses, no
response, and/or reluctant response); competition (found better service elsewhere);
ethical problems (cheating, and/or conflict of interest); and involuntary switching (or
the unavoidable breakdown).
In another categorization of poor service (Johnson, 2005) found the characteristics of
poor service were just the opposite of excellent service and included: not delivering
what was promised, being impersonal, not making any effort, and not addressing
problems or questions. In a service encounter, Kinna (2005) suggests there are a
number of factors that influence or drive customer satisfaction and retention. Technical
factors include speed, efficiency, availability, and accuracy while interpersonal factors
include courtesy, knowledge, and confidentiality. Environmental factors include both
convenience and comfort.
MSQ The findings of this study, in particular, validate the work of Kinna (2005) in her
18,6 study of customer service. She found factors influencing customer satisfaction and
retention and categorized them as technical (speed, efficiency, availability, and accuracy);
interpersonal (courtesy, knowledge, and confidentiality) or environmental (convenience
and comfort). In Table II, the findings of this research show technical factors including
“slow service” (i.e. speed); “employees socializing and not paying attention to customers”
618 (i.e. efficiency); “being rushed or associate being pushy” (i.e. availability) and “mistakes”
and “overall poor service” (i.e. accuracy) were indeed validated.
Interpersonal factors of poor service quality were also included by the customer
service employees polled. “Rude employees and poor attitude” corresponds to Kinna’s
(2005) variable of courtesy. Similarly “lack of training or lack of employee job
knowledge” corresponds to knowledge. Interestingly, issues of confidentiality were not
identified by the call center employees as a key category of poor service quality.
Environmental variables further identified by Kinna (2005) correspond to this study’s
findings of “appearance and cleanliness”. The customer service employees polled
identified additional issues of product availability, poor quality, and prices. These
could be classified as intrinsic product and service delivery features. In addition, these
findings are important because they not only identified the categories of service failure
but they also ranked the severity of the service encounter failure which can guide
practitioners in service businesses as they work to improve the service delivery process
and adjust employee training.
These research findings also point to the categories of avoidable and unavoidable
groupings of service failures identified by McCole (2004). The call center employees
identified product availability, poor quality, and prices as categories of poor service
quality. Interestingly, these intrinsic product and service delivery features seem to
influence customers’ perceptions of the overall quality. Product availability is an
inventory and ordering or scheduling issue that management could easily address.
Prices may be beyond the control of management and service delivery personnel (and
classified as unavoidable issues), but poor product quality should be reported to
manufacturing plants and to raw material vendors within the supply chain. Poor quality
services point to errors and omissions in the service delivery process. Benchmarking the
service delivery of competitors is recommended as a way to improve processes.

Managerial implications
The findings can be used to separate the avoidable and the unavoidable service
failures, allowing managers to focus and correct the avoidable breakdowns. These
findings also validate most of the problem service categories identified in prior
customer service and quality research.
Use of the rankings can aid managers in directing attention to those particular areas
of service failure that need the most attention. For example, if a manager knows
customers really do not like being treated in a rude manner and this behavior is most
likely to keep a customer from returning, particular attention should be given to this
aspect of employee training. Employees should be rewarded for treating customers
with care, attention, and respect. Role playing involving scenarios with angry
customers in a variety of service delivery situations should be developed and used for
employee screening and on-going training. Benchmarking comparison of excellent
customer service responses versus inappropriate or rude customer service responses
could also yield important training information. Scripted responses might be Assessing poor
developed; however, companies should ensure their delivery sounds genuine and does quality service
not appear memorized or rehearsed.
The rankings are important for managers as they work to utilize their resources in
the best and most cost-effective way. Like the Pareto 80-20 rule, if the large majority of
your customers agree customer service personnel were rude, addressing this issue may
eliminate most of a company’s complaints and customer defections. Thus, customers 619
may not perceive a long wait time or see mistakes, prices or lack of product availability
as severe as they might have, provided they are treated in a professional, courteous
manner.
Table II classified the categories of poor service quality as either qualitative or
quantitative. The qualitative issues may take more resources (time, money, training,
discussion) with employees to improve. For example, if an employee is told they have
been rude or have a poor or pushy attitude, management should explain the details of
this encounter and what behaviors the employees exhibit and how they can be
changed. Moreover, if an issue is considered more quantitative, it may be more clearly
resolved or settled faster or in an easier manner.
For example, if customers perceive slow service as an indicator of poor service
quality, managers can establish service standards based on time. Procedures can be
developed to determine an acceptable period of time to perform a particular task. Also,
process improvements can be implemented that reduce service flow or streamline
service delivery processes. Even standardization of services can reduce the delivery
time.
If service failures can be seen as opportunities, organizations can gain the maximum
benefit from customer feedback. Onyeaso (2007) found changes in customer
dissatisfaction explain changes in complaints and found dissatisfaction leads to
both current and future complaints. By addressing the reason for dissatisfaction
(before it occurs), it stands to reason that managers could eliminate or reduce customer
complaints. Working to eliminate key customer dissatisfaction triggers is important
for improving satisfaction with future service experiences.
In addition to the application of the findings of this study for managers for their use
in improving service delivery, the study also has an added benefit for the respondents.
The researchers reviewed the findings with the respondents. Interestingly, the
respondents evaluated customer service encounters the same way their own customers
assess them. Having those who deliver customer service evaluate customer service
may also improve the manner in which they interact with customers.

Areas for future research

Future studies should extend the findings by surveying a larger and more varied
respondent group. Additional studies are also needed to confirm the 11 categories that
emerged from the affinity groups and to support the judgments in the coding process.
In an effort to be more meaningful to managers, future research should repeat this
work focusing on unique service industries or business segments. Studies in various
industries could develop a ranking of importance by industry and could be used to
assess customer retention and defection rates. Additional study is needed to validate
these finding using other customer service employees. Additional qualitative studies
could further define the 11 customer service dissatisfaction variables to gain a depth of
MSQ understanding. For example, what behavior does a rude employee with a poor attitude
18,6 exhibit that would cause a customer to defect? Such refinement could provide more
practical and constructive information to service managers.

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Further reading
Wirtz, J. and Mattila, A.S. (2004), “Consumer responses to compensation, speed of recovery and
apology after a service failure”, International Journal of Service Industry Management,
Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 150-66.
MSQ About the authors
Marilyn M. Helms is the Sesquicentennial Chair and Professor of Management at Dalton State
18,6 College in Dalton, GA. She works closely with the area community, speaking on quality,
entrepreneurship, and other management topics as well as conducts seminars, and training
programs. She teaches production and operations management classes as well as classes in
quality management and entrepreneurship. She is the author of numerous business articles and
writes a monthly column for the Dalton (GA) Daily Citizen newspaper. She holds a doctorate
622 degree from the University of Memphis (Tennessee) and was a Fulbright scholar at the
University of Coimbra, Portugal. Her research interests include international entrepreneurship,
quality, and strategic planning. Marilyn M. Helms is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: mhelms@daltonstate.edu
Donna T. Mayo is Dean of the School of Business Administration at Dalton State College. She
holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Alabama. Donna has published numerous
scholarly and applied works in a variety of journals and books including Journal of Marketing
Theory and Practice, Journal of Business Research, and Journal of Internet Commerce. Her
current research interests include e-commerce, entrepreneurship, and customer relationship
marketing.

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