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Article
Publication date: 11 July 2016

Benjamin P.W. Ellway

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the important question of what is wrong with interactive voice response (IVR) system service by expanding a spatially informed…

519

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the important question of what is wrong with interactive voice response (IVR) system service by expanding a spatially informed conceptualisation of virtual navigation which recognises the experience of movement within and through space.

Design/methodology/approach

First, previous research on IVR systems is reviewed to highlight key themes to a service audience. Second, the metaphorical aspects of language used by the popular and trade press to describe IVR systems is examined. Usability and design issues are identified from previous research as a basis from reinterpreting them from a spatial perspective of navigation.

Findings

Both figurative and conceptual spatial metaphors are used to describe the IVR system as an enclosed physical space, within which customers enter, feel stuck, get lost, or try to escape from. The usability issues of human memory, linearity, and feedback, can be reinterpreted from a spatial perspective as a basis for explaining confusion and frustration with IVR systems.

Research limitations/implications

Since the paper is conceptual, further research is needed to empirically investigate different types and features of IVR systems. The possible influence of age and culture upon the spatial nature of experience is especially interesting topics for future study.

Practical implications

The paper identifies the absence of space as an inherent limitation of IVR systems. It subsequently recommends that firms should provide spatial resources to support customer use of IVR systems, which is supported by the recent emergence of visual IVR.

Originality/value

The paper introduces the broader literature on IVR systems to the service field as a basis for raising awareness about this ubiquitous technological component of telephone-based service delivery. It applies and develops a highly abstract conceptual perspective to examine and interpret the representation and experience of IVR systems, as a basis for explaining the confusion, frustration, and dislike of them.

Details

Journal of Service Theory and Practice, vol. 26 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2055-6225

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Article
Publication date: 10 June 2014

Benjamin P.W. Ellway

Because the voice-to-technology (V2T) encounter remains under-theorised, the purpose of this paper is to overcome this gap by investigating customers use of the interactive voice…

1284

Abstract

Purpose

Because the voice-to-technology (V2T) encounter remains under-theorised, the purpose of this paper is to overcome this gap by investigating customers use of the interactive voice response (IVR) system and “the customer journey” through the call centre service system.

Design/methodology/approach

From an interpretive study of a UK call centre, the metaphorical aspects of language used to represent the service process are analysed, accompanied by an examination of how the servicescape dimensions of spatial layout and signs are constituted in the call centre service process, and the resulting implications for virtual-aural navigation.

Findings

Despite no physical movement, customers represent their experience of navigating “through” the service process in spatial terms. Therefore, understanding precisely how servicescape dimensions are reconfigured within the virtual-aural setting of the call centre is necessary to appreciate customer experience of V2T but also voice-to-voice (V2V) encounters. The call centre servicescape lacks a spatial representation of layout and signs that would conventionally support navigation and purposeful movement.

Research limitations/implications

Despite observing live calls, direct interaction with customers was not possible. The paper was based upon a single case study, and the hermeneutic focus on understanding and meaning meant that the study did not emphasise the quantification of phenomenon. Therefore, further research on virtual navigation is required.

Practical implications

Problematic V2T encounters compromise the quality and efficiency of service provision. A visual representation of the IVR system may possibly support V2T encounters, while encouraging customer service advisors to act as “guides” during V2V encounters may reduce problems emerging from V2T encounters.

Originality/value

First, an original theorisation of the customer experience of the V2T encounter is provided through the theoretical notion of spatialisation metaphors. Second, a preliminary conceptualisation of the call centre servicescape is developed, which shows how spatial layout and signs are reconfigured and represented in this virtual-aural setting.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 25 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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Article
Publication date: 7 September 2018

Christoph Breidbach, Sunmee Choi, Benjamin Ellway, Byron W. Keating, Katerina Kormusheva, Christian Kowalkowski, Chiehyeon Lim and Paul Maglio

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the history and future of service operations, with the goal to identify key theoretical and technological advances, as well as fundamental…

4142

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the history and future of service operations, with the goal to identify key theoretical and technological advances, as well as fundamental themes that can help to imagine the future of service operations in 2050.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the service operations literature was undertaken to inform a discussion regarding the role that technology will play in the future of service operations.

Findings

The future of service operations is framed in terms of three key themes – complexity, orchestration, and elasticity. The paper makes three contributions to the service science literature by: reviewing key themes underpinning extant service operations research to frame future trajectories of service operations research; elaborating a vision of service operations in 2050 based on history and technology; and outlining a research agenda for future service operations.

Practical implications

The case of service automation is used to provide an illustration of how the three themes converge to define future service operations, and in particular, to show how technology is recasting the role of the firm.

Originality/value

Service operations in the next 30 years will be very different from what it was in the past 30 years. This paper differs from other review papers by identifying three key themes that will characterize and instill new insights into the future of service operations research.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 29 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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Article
Publication date: 20 March 2020

Benjamin Piers William Ellway and Alison Dean

This paper uses practice theory to strengthen the theoretical relationship between customer engagement (CE) and value cocreation (VCC), thereby demonstrating how customers may…

637

Abstract

Purpose

This paper uses practice theory to strengthen the theoretical relationship between customer engagement (CE) and value cocreation (VCC), thereby demonstrating how customers may become engaged and remain engaged through VCC practices.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a problematization approach to identify shared assumptions evident in service-dominant logic (SDL) and CE research. Practice theory, as a higher-order perspective, is used to integrate the iterative and cyclical processes of VCC and CE, specifically through the theoretical mechanism of habitus.

Findings

Habitus acts as a customer value lens and provides a bridging concept to demonstrate how VCC and CE are joined via sensemaking processes. These processes determine how customers perceive, assess, and evaluate value, how they become engaged through VCC, and how their experience of engagement may lead to further VCC practice. The temporally bound experiences, states, and episodes are accumulated and aggregated through an enduring customer value lens comprised of habituated dispositions, interests, and attitudes.

Research limitations/implications

This work responds to calls for research to strengthen the theoretical link between VCC and CE and to take account of customers' lived realities and their contextualized experiences. A key suggestion for future research is the use of a rope metaphor to stimulate thinking about the complex, temporally unfolding, and interrelated processes of VCC and CE.

Practical implications

The customer value lens and CE rope are introduced to simplify the complex, abstract, theoretical research on VCC and CE for a nonacademic audience. To understand how customers' value lenses are formed and change, and how a CE rope is strengthened, firms, service designers, and practitioners need to understand sensemaking processes through customer narratives and to use platforms and feedback to support and trigger sensemaking.

Originality/value

This paper provides a theoretical mechanism to explain the iterative and cyclical nature of VCC and CE processes and how accumulation and aggregation occur in these processes. In doing so, it demonstrates that CE occurs by virtue of, and is typified by, sensemaking processes that reproduce and shape a customer's habituated value lens, which perceives, assesses, and determines VCC and thus provides a basis for further customer engagement.

Details

Journal of Service Theory and Practice, vol. 30 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2055-6225

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 4 April 2016

Benjamin Ellway

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer involvement in call routing affects the internal operations of the call centre service system by examining customer…

931

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer involvement in call routing affects the internal operations of the call centre service system by examining customer usability problems with the interactive voice response (IVR) system and the practices of agents used to redirect incorrectly routed calls.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative case study combined direct observation of live calls through sit-bys with agents and semi-structured interviews conducted with coaches and managers within 13 separate teams across all four functional areas of a call centre operation.

Findings

Customer use of the IVR system involved effort, capability, and arrival forms of customer-induced variability, which produced incorrect call inputs into the call centre. Shared norms and attitudes concerning knowledge, IT use, and responsibility for different call types within teams were associated with redirecting practices which lead to the problematic rerouting of calls. Problems with call routing and rerouting negatively affected operational efficiency and undermined customer satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is based upon a single case study so further research is required to examine how problems identified are manifest in call centre operations of different size and complexity. The qualitative approach develops rich insights but these findings would benefit from a quantitative focus in the future.

Practical implications

The customer experience of IVR systems should be continually monitored to identify usability problems and ensure effective design, while call centre management should attempt to increase teams’ awareness of and ability to successfully redirect incorrectly routed calls.

Originality/value

The paper conceptualises the mutual influence of macro-level service system design and the micro-level behaviour of customers and agents upon each other. In practice, formal design decisions such as input uncertainty, decoupling, and interdependence patterns are continually reproduced or modified. Shared attitudes and norms of teams and their behavioural influence upon agents’ call handling practices are identified as a cause of coordination problems in call centres service systems. Internal rerouting by agents is also identified as a crucial operational process and important area for future research.

Details

International Journal of Operations & Production Management, vol. 36 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3577

Keywords

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Article
Publication date: 6 May 2014

Benjamin Piers William Ellway

The purpose of this paper is to examine the existing conceptualisation of quantity and quality in call centres as conflicting or contradictory, and through qualitative analysis…

1684

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the existing conceptualisation of quantity and quality in call centres as conflicting or contradictory, and through qualitative analysis, demonstrate that quantity and quality may not necessarily operate as a trade-off.

Design/methodology/approach

Existing literature is reviewed to show how quantity-quality has been conceptualised to date, followed by an analysis of quantity-quality manifestations based upon an in-depth field study of work and service in a large and complex call centre operation. Advisors’ work practices were observed during their interactions with customers, which provided rich insights into the nature of live calls and service provision in 13 different teams, supplemented with informal semi-structured interviews with team managers, coaches, and centre managers.

Findings

The paper demonstrates that quantity and quality operate as a trade-off when the unit of analysis is the individual advisor or individual call fragment. However, if the entire customer enquiry is examined, quantity and quality are manifest differently: emphasising quality may also simultaneously support efficiency; favouring quantity may not only undermine quality but also ultimately circumvent efficiency gains.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is based upon a single case study so further research is required to investigate whether findings concerning quantity-quality are manifest in other call centres, particularly of differing size and complexity.

Practical implications

Call centre management must recognise the negative consequences of focusing upon quantity, the potential benefits of instead emphasising quality, and also acknowledge the limitations of conventional quantitative and qualitative measures. Management should also consider attempting to foster and improve relations between teams and functions within call centres.

Originality/value

The paper provides a qualitative study of quantity and quality in call centres. Quantity and quality are examined beyond the conventional unit of analysis of the individual advisor or call, to explicate interdependence between past, current, and future actions and events involved in customer enquiries. Thus, quantity and quality are analysed in terms of the immediate focus during call handling and the longer run consequences for the efficiency and effectiveness of service provided by the call centre operation.

Details

Managing Service Quality, vol. 24 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0960-4529

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