Svafa Gronfeldt

Customer Oriented Behaviour Svafa Gronfeldt

It is believed that service delivery through full utilisation of human resources will become the major tool for competitive advances in the service industry in the coming years and the importance of customer orientation for the success of service organisations has been emphasised in the academic and applied literatures. The purpose of this thesis is to examine an explicit behavioural perspective where the focus is on the extent to which employees engage in direct behaviours specifically designed to benefit customers. This study examines empirically the nature, impact and development of employee customer oriented behaviours. The findings include a step-by-step approach to continuous improvement of service quality and the role of service training programmes, employee selection and managerial implications are discussed.