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In many contemporary service organizations, service teams or service units are the main engines used to deliver key services to customers, client or patients. However, it remains unclear how teamwork mechanisms (i.e. the ways team members work together) influence customer service outcomes, and whether these relationships vary across different service contexts. To advance knowledge on the nature of teamwork in service teams and to set an agenda for further work in this area, there is a need to integrate and synthesize findings across the diverse literature on service teamwork. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

Using a meta-analytic approach, the authors analyzed a substantial pool of relevant effect sizes (a total of 372 effect sizes from 82 studies, with 14,291 service teams/units) to examine the effects of affective, behavioral, cognitive, motivational as well as perceptual teamwork mechanisms on customer service outcomes. The authors also investigated two key service context variables (service climate and service type) as boundary conditions on these effects.

The authors found that cognitive teamwork mechanisms were more strongly positively associated with customer evaluative outcomes than other mechanisms, whereas motivational and perceptual teamwork mechanisms had stronger associations with financial outcomes. Further, four of the five teamwork mechanisms demonstrated stronger correlations under a high service climate. The strength of the correlations between the teamwork mechanisms and customer service outcomes also exhibited different patterns when considered for different service types.

As with all meta-analysis, the quality of the primary studies influences the quality of the insights obtained from summarized effects. As most studies are cross-sectional design, the relationships examined in this paper cannot be interpreted causally. The authors cannot rule out the possibility of reverse causality, for example, reciprocal effects of customer service outcomes on teamwork dynamics due to the reciprocal feedback loop between customers and service providers.

The results hold important practical implications for enhancing customer evaluation and financial performance. First, the overall findings point to the need for employers to emphasize on certain types of teamwork training in order to encourage employee collaboration within service teams. For instance, service organizations could plan team building activities for service teams to promote trust, strengthen interpersonal bonds and improve problem-solving.

The results of this study provide an integration of previous research on service teamwork and fill two important gaps in the knowledge: (1) which aspect of teamwork is more important in determining customer service outcomes? And (2) does the effect of teamwork on customer service outcomes differ across different service contexts?

Prior work has examined antecedents and behavioral outcomes of satisfaction in an offline setting but few studies explore whether the findings hold for increasingly important online settings. This paper extends the prior work to explore the antecedents of e‐satisfaction and the relations between e‐satisfaction and two new behaviorial outcomes related to an online setting; customers' stated purchasing behavior (i.e. conversion) and actual browsing behavior (i.e. stickiness). Using a sample of 145 predominantly multi‐channel retail firms, the paper highlights two main results. First, existing models that examine the antecedents and consequences of satisfaction in the offline setting, also apply to an online setting. Second, Web site characteristics had a significant impact on all three types of behavioral outcomes, while Web site customer service was a significant driver of only retention/referral outcomes. Further, Web site customer service may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieving favourable outcomes in online settings.

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the importance of employees to the success of service firms, research into how well frontline service staff understand service remains scarce. This study aims to investigate what constitutes good customer service from the viewpoint of frontline service employees and to explore gender differences in particular.

The data were collected from 876 frontline employees across a wide range of service industries. An automated text analysis using Leximancer explored general and gender‐specific patterns in employees' customer service understanding.

Irrespective of gender, frontline service staff share the perception that the pillars of good customer service are listening skills, making the customer happy, and offering service. Males have a more functional, outcome‐oriented interpretation of customer service; females focus more on the actual service interaction and emotional outcomes.

By acknowledging gender‐based dissimilarities in the customer service understanding of frontline service employees, the efficiency of recruitment and training processes will be enhanced.

This study contributes to limited work on service models of frontline staff and shows that gender can explain some differences. This study also adds another dimension to the understanding of gender effects in services, beyond its influence on customers' quality perceptions and behaviours. The results are important for services marketing research and for managers in charge of recruiting and training frontline service staff.

Customer service conversations are becoming increasingly digital and automated, leaving service encounters impersonal. The purpose of this paper is to identify how customer service agents and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) applications can provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in customer service. The authors offer a conceptual framework delineating how text-based customer service communication should be designed to increase relational personalization.

This paper presents a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI and integrates the extant research to inform the development of the proposed conceptual framework. Using social information processing theory as a theoretical lens, the authors extend the concept of relational personalization for text-based customer service communication.

The conceptual framework identifies conversation styles, whose degree of expression needs to be personalized to provide a personal touch and improve the customer experience in service. The personalization of these conversation styles depends on available psychological and individual customer knowledge, contextual factors such as the interaction and service type, as well as the freedom of communication the conversational AI or customer service agent has.

The article is the first to conduct a systematic literature review on conversation styles of conversational AI in customer service and to conceptualize critical elements of text-based customer service communication required to provide a personal touch with conversational AI. Furthermore, the authors provide managerial implications to advance customer service conversations with three types of conversational AI applications used in collaboration with customer service agents, namely conversational analytics, conversational coaching and chatbots.

Although the role of emotions in buyer–seller exchanges is important, it remains understudied, especially in the business-to-business selling context. This paper aims to provide insights into the role of the salespeople’s ability to appraise emotions (EA ability) and its effects on job-related outcomes in a transaction-oriented environment.

Multi-source data were gathered from 152 salespeople working for a financial service firm. Customer service and sales performance ratings were reported by supervisors. Hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling using AMOS.

The study finds contrasting effects of EA ability on sales performance in the firm’s transaction-oriented environment. On the one hand, EA ability motivates better salesperson customer service, which then increases their sales performance. On the other hand, EA ability enhances emotional exhaustion, which detracts from sales performance.

Sales managers should consider the ability of new hires to appraise emotions when determining their fit with the job and the organization. Training programs that develop salesperson emotional abilities should be comprehensive as it may be detrimental to be high in EA ability without the skills to regulate or use emotions.

The study is one of the first to consider the effects of emotional abilities in the context of a transaction-oriented environment. By focusing specifically on EA ability, the study provides greater understanding of the influences of the individual components of emotional intelligence, rather than salesperson’s overall capacity for emotional intelligence.

The purpose of the paper is to explore the research on the personality trait of customer orientation (CO) and consider how it may be applicable to customer service work in libraries.

The paper reviews business research literature on CO and relates it to library science literature on customer service.

CO is a measurable personality trait that is shown to predict customer service behaviors in service employees. Research also shows that CO is associated with customers’ perceptions of service quality.

Libraries should prioritize CO in their hiring, training and recognition processes.

CO is a well-researched personality trait in the business literature. The original contribution of this paper is to report the research on customer orientation, relate it to similar concepts in librarianship and suggest ways libraries can integrate an awareness of CO in their human resources processes.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to test the direct influence of servant leadership (SL) on an organization’s serving-driven capabilities (S-DC). Second, to test the indirect effect of SL on employee customer-service behaviors and identification with their branch. Third, to determine the direct effect of an organization’s S-DC on employee customer-service behaviors and identification with the branch. Thus, the authors provide evidence of how SL influence serving-driven interaction capabilities that are later deployed to execute customer-oriented behaviors.

Survey data were obtained from a sample of 36 bank branches of one bank in the Middle East. Employees evaluated their manager’s SL behaviors, the six S-DC and their identification with the organization. In turn, managers assessed their employees on customer-service behaviors. Partial least squares path analysis was used to model the relationships.

Results indicate servant leaders’ behaviors are example, motivator and determinant of an organization’s S-DC. Employees not only adopt the S-DC by imitation but also as a mean to reciprocate the leader: serve your customers like the leader serves you. Other results and implications for managers are presented.

The study is of a cross-sectional nature therefore a causal effect of SL on S-DC cannot be determined. Second, the study is limited to one bank although several branches were randomly sampled. Third, the evaluations of the S-DC have been done by the employees rather than customers.

The S-DC concept provides ample opportunities for managers to enhance their interactions with employees and customers to improve their performance by identifying which capabilities to develop. Specifically, interactions that promote ethical, empowering, developmental relationships and that encourage genuine two-way communication and responds to individual needs.

The study is original in testing the mediating effect of a S-DC. The focus on individual and organizational capabilities is relevant because they have been touted as among the most important factors to explain the differences of company performances and competitive advantages

To identify the risk of poor performance measurement including the fact that executives can easily develop bottom‐line myopia where performance is judged solely on monthly or quarterly numbers, to the exclusion of all other indicators of performance. The paper also identifies why relevant non‐financial measures, remain in the realm of more talk than action and what can be done about it.

Looks at various measurements, both financial and non‐financial, that are made within the business environment.

An information system needs a set of rules and procedures to govern the collection, analysis, and distribution of this information. Intangibles and subjectivity is a casualty of current performance when there is excessive reliance on financial or other dated objective data. Narrowing down, define, and then managing a few critical performance indicators essential to improvement. Use specific quantifiable objectives.

Anyone wanting an organization to function as a cohesive unit will need to identify key performance measures. Anything can be measured. What is more important is to measure relevant and specific things. Look at your inputs, process and outputs, and identify ways of measuring those things relevant to your ultimate objective of your group.

Serves as a reminder that anything can be measured. Highlights the importance of measuring those things relevant to your ultimate objective in order to achieve that objective.

This paper integrates the findings of the articles included in the special issue (SI) on frontline employee (FLE) research. Articles included in this SI systematically review multiple research domains, including employee and customer engagement, FLE vulnerability, customer mistreatment, service teamwork and service encounters; provide instructions on effectively conducting meta-analyses and discuss the practical applications of FLE research. This paper also provides future directions for FLE scholarship with a focus on theoretical/methodological rigor and relevance.

This is a conceptual paper that integrates and critically evaluates extant research and provides directions for future scholarship.

An integrative framework of extant FLE research is proposed consisting of situational predictors, psychological mechanisms, attitudinal/behavioral outcomes and boundary conditions/moderators. Further, three main areas for future scholarship are recommended including examining the transformative effects of technology on FLE work, focusing on decent work for FLEs and conducting practically relevant and impactful research.

This paper provides reflections, integration and future directions for scholarship based on systematic reviews of key domains of FLE research, a primer for conducting systematic reviews (specifically – meta-analysis) and practitioner perspectives on extant research.

While, supply chain resilience (SCRES) continues to be a dominant topic in both academic and business literature and has gained more attention recently, there is limited knowledge on SCRES capabilities specific to business functions. The purpose of this paper is to identify and investigate capabilities shared between supply, operations and logistics that are most important for SCRES.

To address this gap, the authors followed a multi-method research approach. First, the authors used the grounded theory method to generate a theoretical framework based on interviews with 51 managers from five companies in automotive SCs. Next, the authors empirically validated the framework using a survey of 340 SC professionals from the manufacturing industry.

Five significant capabilities emerged from the qualitative study; all were significant in empirical validation. This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES.

This research advances the knowledge of SCRES as it informs managerial decision-making by identifying capabilities common to supply, logistics and operations that impact SCRES. In addition, the findings of this research help managers better allocate resources among significant capabilities.