FRONTLINE EMPLOYEE
GENERATION OF IDEAS FOR
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
IMPROVEMENT
Frontline employee’s perspective from
B2B service sector
Zuzanna Mazurek | Student number: 11375310 Submitted on 23th June, 2017, version: final Word count: 17.464 (excluding references and appendix) MSc. Business Administration: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Track Amsterdam Business School First supervisor: Dr. Wietze van der Aa Second reader: Dr. I. Maris-de Bresser
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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
This document is written by Student Zuzanna Mazurek who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Statement of originality ... 1 Table of figures ... 2 Abstract (183 words) ... 3 1. Introduction ... 3 2. Literature review ... 5 2.1. Front-line employees ... 52.2. Frontline employees’ idea generation for service innovation ... 7
2.3. Customer knowledge creation ... 15
2.4. Customer experience in the context of B2C and B2B ... 16
2.5. Frontline employee’s knowledge in the domain of customer experience ... 18
2.6. Conceptual framework ... 19
2.7. Summary of literature review ... 20
3. Research Design ... 21
3.1. Research sample ... 21
3.2. Data collection ... 23
3.3. Data analysis ... 25
4. Results ... 25
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4.2. Deductive part: evidence to 9 proposition based on theoretical background ... 29
5. Discussion and Conclusion ... 41
5.1. Main findings and theoretical implications ... 41
5.2. Limitations ... 45
5.3. Managerial implications ... 45
5.4. Conclusion ... 45
6. Note ... 46
7. References ... 46
Appendix 1. Semi-structured interview... 53
Appendix 2. Summary of articles used in literature review ... 54
Appendix 3. Interview transcripts (RI1-RI10) ... 66
Appendix 4. Overview of additional sources used to build descriptions of companies ... 123
Appendix 5. Code book ... 124
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Conceptual framework ... 19Figure 2 Presentation of companies in terms of size and culture, based on research interviews ... 23
Figure 3 Reward for generated idea, Quarterly Newsletter (Company 1) ... 26
Figure 4 Word cloud, based on 10 interviews with frontline employees ... 29
Key words: frontline employees (FLEs), ability to read customer’s needs, service innovation, idea generation, experience economy, experience-centric services, experience design
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ABSTRACT (183 WORDS)
This thesis aims at exploring antecedents of idea generation for customer experience (CX) improvement by frontline employees (FLEs) in B2B service companies. It is an exploratory research that is based on 9 propositions build deductively. Data for the research was collected in form of in-depth interviews with FLEs using elements of critical incident technique (CIT). Main findings are the following: FLEs claim that they discover ideas by chance, but they admit that they might subconsciously test-drive value of the service provided, sources of inspiration for ideas stem from knowledge related to customer, practice, service and other knowledge (e.g. private interests), but customer knowledge is necessary in order to generate ideas that meet customer’s needs. Furthermore, FLEs who generate ideas for CX improvement have high ability to read customer’s needs and high level of cognitive empathy. According to FLEs, partnership relationship with customer help them to read their needs. When developing an idea, FLEs seek support and validation from their colleagues. Last but not least, FLEs who generate ideas for CX improvement do not need theoretical knowledge on CX, but observational knowledge is helpful.
1. INTRODUCTION
In service dominant logic, value is co-created by customers and employees (Lusch et al., 2007). In the process of co-creation frontline employees (FLEs) collect information about the service encounter and can assess what could be improved to deliver superior value (Engen et al., 2015). It is quite common nowadays that service companies ask frontline employees to provide ideas for service innovation (Yang et al., 2016). For example, Singapore Airlines collects a lot of ideas for service improvement from its frontline employees – flight attendants. This company developed such features as: SMS check-in and ‘Book the Cook’ – an option to choose your meal before getting on board (Lages et al., 2012). Tata Global Beverages also supports its FLEs to generate ideas and organises every year a competition for the best idea. Those competitions are a win-win situation for both parties: a company sources free ideas and FLEs get rewarded and gain new competencies (Smedley, 2011). Another way of facilitating frontline employees to share their ideas is organization of a special meeting with FLEs to learn about their perspective. This can be exemplified by a case of Fortune Motors (an automobile service firm in Taiwan) researched by Shang et al. (2008). In that case, Fortune Motors’ management realized that the customer growth decreased so they decided to learn about the roots of the
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problem. They asked frontline employees about their perspective. Frontline employees were enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge. The issue mentioned by many of them was the inequality of service level across different franchises, which led to different customer experiences. For example, some customers were served very quickly, whereas others had to wait very long without any information about the expected time needed to fix the car. The team designated to that project examined the information from FLEs and indeed that was the main cause of customer dissatisfaction (Shang et al., 2008).
Companies like Harley Davidson, Mayo Hospitals and Walt Disney focus on delivering superior experience to their customers to achieve competitive advantage (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). This trend has been described in 1998 by Pine and Gilmore in Harvard Business Review as an ‘experience economy’. In experience economy companies go beyond what is expected from them and provide exceptional experience to their customers and thus, start competing in terms of experience rather than price. An example presented in Pine’s article is the main character of the famous movie Taxi. The character – a taxi driver – manages to create superior experience for his clients and thus, collects more tips than competition (Pine et al., 1998). The clear role that FLEs can play in idea generation for customer experience (CX) in B2C markets led me to cogitation how FLEs in B2B service markets generate ideas for customer experience improvement. Answering that question is crucial for any company from B2B sector, that expects its employees to generate ideas for CX improvement. Therefore, my research question is as follows: What are the antecedents of idea generation for customer experience improvement by frontline employees in B2B service companies? This study will contribute to the service innovation research in general, but specifically to companies from B2B service industry that are aiming to develop superior experience proposition. According to research conducted by Accenture, 86% of executives from B2B companies state that customer experience provided during service plays important role in their strategic priorities. That report underlined that it is changing customer’s behavior that drives companies to innovate in terms of customer experience (Wollan et al., 2010). This annual report shows how important customer experience in B2B markets is and that the understanding of changes in customer’s behavior plays major role in designing an experience that meets client’s needs. The topic of my research meets all the criteria for ‘worthy topic’ defined by Tracy (2010). It is relevant, timely, significant and interesting (Tracy, 2010).
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• What kind of cues do FLEs use to read customer’s needs? (Proposition 4 in detail) • What knowledge do FLEs need to generate ideas for CX? (Proposition 1)
• Are ideas generated by chance or because of cognitive thinking? (Proposition 2) I personally find this topic very relevant for my professional development, as I am planning to pursue career in innovation consulting and simultaneously work on my own start-up that will be an experience-centric service. Thus, I have the most valuable type of motivation – intrinsic motivation – to explore that topic. However, I am also aware that high quality research will result in successful graduation.
This thesis starts with a literature review. Following topics are reviewed: frontline employees, FLEs’ contribution to idea generation, customer knowledge creation, customer experience in the context of B2C and B2B, and FLEs knowledge in the domain of CX. Afterwards, I present the methodology used to investigate the topic. Next section is designated to results. First part of that section discusses companies that participated in the research, second part shows evidence to 9 propositions. The following section ‘Discussion and conclusion’ includes theoretical and managerial implications and research limitations. The semi-structured interview used in the research, transcripts of interviews, an overview of other sources used in the research and the code book can be found in the appendix.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Front-line employees
To start with, I would like to define who a frontline employee is. Frontline employees (FLEs) are those employees, who are in steady contact with customers (Karlsson, 2015). They are the ones who usually are involved in service delivery, and in the lense of service dominant logic (SDL) they co-create value with customers (Lusch et al., 2007). Thus, they possess knowledge about customers that managers (who are not directly involved in contact with customers) might not have. In my research, I will consider employees that are directly in contact with customers as FLEs. To picture that statement, I present following examples:
Table 1 Examples of frontline employees in B2C and B2B contexts No. Company example from
service industry
Customers Frontline employees
1 High School B2C – students Teachers, building’s
management, cleaning personnel
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2 Airline B2C – people who travel
by plane
Flight attendants, personnel at the airport, customer service 3 Advisory company B2B – other companies Consultants, customer service 4 Real estate management
company
B2B – other companies Portfolio analysts, transition coordinators
There has been a debate among researchers whether frontline employees participate in the innovation process or only in some stages. The results of several studies show different results, even contradictory. Karlsson (2015) concludes that front-line employees contribute throughout the new service development (NSD) process, regardless the phase, which is also in line with Akesson et al. (2016) findings. This contradicts result of Melton et al. (2010) that front-line employees contribute only in the implementation phase. Akesson et al. (2016) research highlights the importance of early involvement of such employees to projects. Earlier involvement implies that the employee can really influence the result of the project, not only implement the imposed solution (Karlsson, 2015). In the article ‘NSD Processes and Practices in Experimental Services’ Zomerdijk et al. (2010) also underlines the importance of engaging line employees. It is important for the sake of understanding customer’s needs, as front-line employees are the ones who observe customers and have the best insights about their needs (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). Front-line employees play a major role in the creation of experiences for customers and the final evaluation of the service depends highly on the quality of service provided (Bettencourt et al., 1996). Zomerdijk et al. (2010) also find empirical support for the hypothesis that the development of experience-centric services requires cross-functional teams and involvement of frontline employees. 33% of interviewed design agencies and consultancies involves clients’ FLEs in the new service development process. The reason for the collaboration with FLEs is their exclusive knowledge about customer’s needs. What is more, experimental service providers underline the role of frontline employees and agree that innovation may come from anywhere. Most of the companies have departments that are responsible for designing new services, but the phenomenon of ‘silent design’ is often observed. Silent design refers to ‘design that is carried out by individuals who are not called designers and would not consider themselves to be designers’ (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). In the past, researchers believed that companies should contact directly customers to gain insight about their needs rather than ask employees to describe what they think customers need (Akesson et al., 2016).
Karlsson (2015) identifies passive and active front-line employee involvement. Passive refers to a system, in which employees are frequently informed about the process of service innovation (for example in form of weekly meetings with managers), but they do not have many
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opportunities to speak up. Whereas active involvement means that FLE can express their opinion during face-to-face meetings and contribute knowledge (Karlsson, 2015).
Sundbo (2009) identifies six tracks to innovate in experience economy. One of the listed tracks is the ‘intrapreneurship track’, which can be exemplified by an attendant at the museum that develops a new way of informing visitors (Sundbo, 2009). Intrapreneurship can be defined as “entrepreneurship within existing organizations” and can be divided into 4 categories: 1) new business venturing, 2) innovativeness, 3) self-renewal and 4) proactivity (Antonic et al., 2001). This dimensions reflect the objective of an intrapreneurial act. New business venturing refers to a venture within an existing organization that aims at entering new business areas that are somehow connected to current business field, innovativeness – the category that I focus on in that thesis – concerns development of new products or services, self-renewal refers to organizational change and strategy shift, and last but not least proactivity, which means that the organization is proactively competing with other companies from the same market (Antonic et al., 2001). Intrapreneurship is a proven factor that positively influences company’s performance in terms of growth and improvement (β=0,52) (Felicio et al., 2012)
Following Karlsson (2015), Akesson et al. (2016) and Zomerdijk et al. (2010) in the view that early involvement of FLEs in innovation processes is important, I decided to focus my research on the first part of innovation process: idea generation.
2.2. Frontline employees’ idea generation for service innovation
Service innovation when compared with manufacturing innovation got little research attention. Researchers have been mostly focused on technological innovations (Hertog et al., 2010). Services are challenging to study because of their low level of standardization and high level of intangibility (Hertog et al., 2010). A definition of service innovation that I will follow in my thesis was introduced by Hertog et al. (2010):
‘A service innovation is a new service experience or service solution that consists of one or several of the following dimensions: new service concept, new customer interaction, new
value system/business partners, new revenue model, new organizational or technological service delivery system’.
Bigger companies, compared with start-ups, usually use a formal process of innovation, in which they develop new products or services in a formalized way. The process of innovation through new product development (NPD) or new service development (NSD) consists of several stages. Some researchers present those processes as a sequence (Alam et al.,2002;
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Cooper, 2008; Karlsson, 2015), but others claim that it is more a continuous cycle of iterations (Stevens et al., 2005). Cooper (2008) introduces the term of “The Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process”, which is one of the most cited by researchers models of new product development process (NPD), but can also be applied to new service development (NSD). The major difference between NPD and NSD processes is that product companies rely heavily on their R&D departments, whereas service companies involve frontline employees (Yang et al., 2016). However, there are only two NSD models available, that are based on empirical research: 1) Bowers (1987) and 2) Scheuing et al. (1989) (Alam et al., 2002). Bowers (1987) presents a suggestion of a model of NSD for hospitals, it consists of 8 consecutive steps:
1. ‘Develop a business strategy’, 2. ‘Develop a new services strategy’. 3. ‘Idea generation’,
4. ‘Concept development and evaluation’, 5. ‘Business analysis’,
6. ‘Service development and evaluation’, 7. ‘Market testing’,
8. ‘Commercialization’ (Bowers, 1987).
The other NSD model mentioned above was created by Scheuing et al. (1989) and consists of 15 different stages: “formulation of new service objectives, idea generation, idea screening, concept development, concept testing, business analysis, project authorization, service design and testing, process and system design and testing, market program design and testing, personnel training, service testing and pilot run, test marketing, full scale launch and post launch review “ (Scheuing et al., 1989; cited in Alam et al., 2002).According to Alam et al. (2002), those models lack an important stage – formation of a cross-functional team. Thus, when Alam et al. (2002) investigate NSD process that is customer-oriented, they include that stage. The result of their study is a subjective importance of 10 NSD stages assessed by 36 managers from 12 different companies in a 1-5 scale, in which 5 was the most important. A below presented table shows the results.
9 Table 2 Importance of NSD stages, Alam et al. (2002)
No. Name of the stage Mean
importance
1 Strategic planning 2,1
2 Idea generation 4,7
3 Idea screening 4,1
4 Business analysis 3,2
5 Formation of cross-functional team 3,6
6 Service design and process/system design 3,5
7 Personnel training 1,9
8 Service testing and pilot run 2,4
9 Test marketing 1,7
10 Commercialization 3,4
According to 36 managers, idea generation phase is the most important in the NSD process (M=4,7). Second most important stage is idea screening (M=4.1) and third, formation of cross-functional team (M=3,6). This implies that internal collaboration, also with frontline employees, is needed to design services that are customer-oriented.
Both in NSD and NPD process idea generation stage is always present and sometimes is also called ideation phase. Idea generation is linked to creativity, that can be defined as ‘the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain’ (Amabile, 1996). Idea generation is also a part of so called ‘fuzzy front-end’ of innovation (Toubia, 2006). There are two trends in the literature concerning idea generation: group and individual idea generation. One of the most popular and successful methods of group idea generation is brainstorming (Toubia, 2006), however many researchers claim that people tend to be more creative when working by themselves because factors as fear of evaluation and free riding are eliminated (Diehl et al., 1987). FLEs generate ideas for improvement of the service based on knowledge they create during providing service (Karlsson, 2015). Some ideas are brand new, but FLEs can also add and elaborate on ideas already suggested by managers (Karlsson, 2015). Karlsson (2015) identifies three types of knowledge gained by FLEs: (1) ‘customer knowledge’, (2) ‘product knowledge’, and (3) ‘practice knowledge’. Customer knowledge refers to the insights that employees have into the customer’s needs. As Karlsson (2015) states some front-line employees ‘are able to see things from their [customer’s] perspective’. Product knowledge is gained both through direct interaction with customers and at the back-office. It is related to the physical attributes of the product – for example how it could be improved in terms of technology. In this research, I will change the name of that type of knowledge from product to service knowledge, so that it matches the topic of the research. Last, but not least, practice
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knowledge refers to information about how experience co-creation occurs. Front-line employees are the only ones in the organization, who have knowledge about practices (in other words typical procedures) and what kind of value is created by them, thus they directly influence value proposition.
In my thesis, I would like to take the perspective of the organization and focus on ideas that are generated by employees and are developed to that stage that they are ready to be shared with the management of the company through idea management program. This is important because as Levitt (2002) says: ‘Ideas are useless until used’. Therefore, idea generation in the case of my research means not only discovering an idea but also developing it till the stage in which the idea is ready to be shared with the management.
According to Akesson et al. (2016) front-line employees test-drive value propositions, which is explained as ‘different ways frontline employees create, test, and experiment with different, novel and useful ways to integrate resources into value propositions’. Akesson et al. (2016) identifies three ways of test-driving: cognitive, practical, and discursive and explains their meaning:
• Cognitive test-driving refers to a process in which employees think of different resource integration possibilities to draw new value propositions. For example, after a service encounter a frontline employee reflects on the value provided,
• Practical test-driving is the activity of trying out value propositions to examine whether the current value proposition is ideal,
• Discursive test-driving is what Akesson et al. (2016) explains as talking or communicating with customers in order to learn what could be changed in the current value proposition (Akesson et al., 2016).
Findings of that research show that in the stage of idea generation it is cognitive-dominant test-driving that mainly delivers value (Akesson et al., 2016). Described by Akesson et al. (2016) test-driving leads to novel solutions to already existing and new problems.
To sum up theories regarding FLEs’ idea generation presented above, Karlsson (2015) states that FLEs generate ideas based on three types of knowledge: customer, practice and service knowledge, whereas Akesson et al. (2016) show that in the phase of idea generation frontline employees are involved in cognitive test-driving, which means that they engage in thinking about different possible value propositions. Since customer experiences are closely linked to customers themselves, I would like to propose that it is customer knowledge that plays the most
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important role in idea generation for customer experience improvement out of those three types identified by Karlsson (2015), thus customer knowledge will be the first antecedent of a discovery of an idea for CX improvement. Therefore, I would like to present a following proposition:
Proposition 1 - Customer knowledge has positive influence on the possibility that a FLE will discover an idea for CX improvement.
Based on evidence shown by Akesson et al. (2016) that in the phase of idea generation employees engage in cognitive test-driving I would like to present a proposition that ideas for CX improvement are generated in result of cognitive test-driving and not by chance. The rival proposition here would be that ideas for CX improvement are generated by chance, not because of cognitive process, in which an employee engages in analysing the current value of service provided.
Proposition 2: Ideas for CX improvement are a result of cognitive test-driving and not a chance, which means that an employee engages in analysing value of service provided. Schulze et al. (2008) analysed the influence of socialization to create knowledge for idea generation in context of fuzzy front-end of new product development. Socialization refers to informal interaction that leads to creation of new tacit knowledge. This interaction can occur between members of an organization when working together in the same environment or during informal social meetings, that can happen even outside work (Schulze et al, 2008). Schulze et al. (2008) argue that nowadays, most of ideas are not the result of work done by a single person, but a group effort. The finding of their study show that socialization is positively related to the idea generation. It affects idea generation in two ways: ‘by stimulating sparks and by taking them further’ (Schulze et al., 2008). Binnewies et al. (2007) claims that during the creative process there is idea-related communication. This communication refers to both sharing the idea, but also to collecting knowledge and seeking support. The finding of Binnenwies et al. (2007) research show that idea-related communication is positively related to idea validation. Since perceived customer’s needs are highly subjective I would like to propose that idea generator seek support and validation from their co-workers when developing ideas for CX improvement, which has a positive effect on idea generation. More formally:
Proposition 3: Seeking support from colleagues positively influences idea generation for CX improvement.
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Many researchers focus in their studies on motivational aspects of FLE’s idea generation. Results of their studies indicate following drivers of motivation to generate ideas: global motivation (Cadwallader et al., 2010), job satisfaction (Lages et al., 2012), organizational support for bottom-up innovation (Kesting et al., 2010), task autonomy (Oldham et al., 1996), task complexity (Oldham et al., 1996) and job self-efficacy (Tireney et al., 2002). A brief review of those motivation drivers can be found below. Since this topic has been researched before several times, I would like to control that variable in my research by sampling those frontline employees, who already generated some ideas for customer experience improvement.
Table 3 Drivers of motivation; literature review summary
Author Year Title Journal/publisher Empirical/ conceptual
(E/C)
Short summary of the most important
input Cadwallader, S., Jarvis, C. B., Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L. 2010 Frontline employee motivation to participate in service innovation implementation. Journal of Academic Marketing Science E Cadwallader et al. (2010) investiges the influence of employee's global, contextual and situational motivation on idea generation. They show that global motivation determines contextual and
situational motivation, thus it is important to find employees with high levels of global motivation. Kesting, P., Ulhoi, J. P. 2010 Employee-driven innovation: extending the license to foster innovation Management Decision
C The main finding of that research highlights that it is worth to involve all employees in the innovation process, however this process should be well managed. Lages, C.R., Nigel F.P. 2012 Key Drivers of Frontline Employee Generation of Ideas for Customer Service Improvement Journal of Service Research E Lages (2012) identifies drivers of idea generation for customer service innovation. The most imporant factor according to the findings is ability to read customer's needs, but there are also other drivers as job satisfaction etc.
13 Oldham, G. R., Cummings, A. 1996 Employee Creativity: Personal and Contextual Factors at Work The Academy of Management Journal E This quantitative research shows that employees are the most creative when their task is complex and challenging and when they work in a supportive, but non-controlling environment. Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M. 2002 Creative Self-Eficcacy: Its Potential Antecedents and Relationship to Creative Performance. The Academy of Management Journal E The evidence presented in that article shows that creative self-efficacy (belief that one is capable of creating something) has a positive influence on creative performance.
Cadwallader et al. (2010) base their research on three types of motivation: global, contextual and situational. Global motivation is linked to enduring characteristics of an employee, such as personality traits. An employee can be for example ambitious, a self-starter (Cadwallader et al., 2010). Thus, global motivation is difficult to influence by the company. Consequently, a company should start with hiring candidates with desired personal traits, because once hired it will be difficult to change the personality of the employee (Cadwallader et al., 2010). Contextual motivation refers to attitude towards one part of the life, for example: work or family. Last but not least, situational motivation is what an employee feels about one project, activity or task at work (Cadwallader et al., 2010). Situational motivation depends highly on a) task autonomy and b) role clarity (Cadwallader et al., 2010). Global motivation determines contextual and situational motivation in that way, that an employee with high global motivation is more likely to score high at contextual and situational motivation (Cadwallader et al., 2010). One way to test global motivation is The Global Motivation Scale (Guay et al. (1999), cited in Cadwallader et al. (2010)). Some of the statements used in that scale to measure global motivation imply that a person that scores high in global motivation does things because he or she enjoys making interesting discoveries and acquiring new knowledge (Cadwallader et al. (2010).
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Job satisfaction can be defined as how well a person feels on the job. High level of job satisfaction positively influences employee’s creative performance. Especially since employees that are satisfied with their jobs are more focused on customer’s needs and feelings. They also show their gratitude by being more involved, which also leads to more active idea generation and willingness to improve the service (Lages et al., 2012). Job satisfaction (.16, p < .05) is the second most important driver of idea generation for customer service (after ability to read customer’s needs (.54, p < .01)) according to research conducted by Lages et al., 2012). Kesting et al. (2010) suggest that a key factor to enhance idea generation among employees is management support. An employee when presenting an idea for process improvement also implies that existing process is flawed, and thus it is always linked with negative exposure (Kesting et al., 2010). When idea generation is supported by the management, this exposure becomes less negative (Kesting et al., 2010). An organization can facilitate FLEs’ idea generation through an employee suggestion system (ESS). Such systems have been already tested for many years and are proved to be a lucrative source of innovation if well designed (Fairbank et al., 2001). In ESS rewards play the major role in motivating employees to participate. First evidence of rewarding an employee for idea generation comes from 1928. It was Bank of America that offered its creative employees traveller’s checks (Fairbank et al., 2001). Kesting et al. (2010) names two preconditions for organizational culture that supports idea generation among FLEs: (1) a formal ‘licence’ that will allow FLEs to spend some part of their everyday worktime on idea generation, and (2) mentoring. The second one is considered as the most important factor influencing employee initiatives (Kesting et al., 2010).
Task autonomy (also called personal discretion) can be defined as the degree to which an employee decides himself or herself how to execute the task (Shalley, 1991). Oldham et al. (1996) show that there is positive and significant relation between non-controlling supervision and employee’s creative performance rated by supervisors (.28, p < .05). The effect of job design on employees’ creative performance is positive when the job can be described as complex, non-routine, with high level of autonomy, significance and skills required. When an employee is excited about completing tasks at work, he/she is more likely to think creatively, whereas simple and repetitive work will lead to habitual thinking (Oldham et al., 1996). Creative self-efficacy defined as ‘the belief one has the ability to produce creative outcomes’ predicts creative performance (Tierney et al., 2002). As the strongest predictor of creative self-efficacy appears job self-self-efficacy, which was defined by Tierney et al. (2002) as ‘an employee’s view of his or her capacity to conduct the overall job’.
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2.3. Customer knowledge creation
There are three types of communication between FLEs and customers that in my opinion can deliver insights into customer’s needs: (1) written communication, (2) verbal communication (real life, telephone, and computer mediated), and (3) non-verbal communication. To start with, first and second type of communication focuses mainly on the content of a massage. However, non-verbal cues that customers send out can have more meaning than words they say (Puccinelli et al, 2013). Therefore, they are important sources of information about customer’s needs. Puccinelli et al. (2013) claims that there are different levels of ability to control cues that we are sending. For example, it is easier to control what we say than what face expression we have. However, the most difficult to control is our body language. Another non-verbal cue that shows human feelings is paralanguage. The focus of paralanguage is on how something is being said, not what is said (Fatt, 1998). Fatt identifies two groups of cues that can be read from paralanguage: voice qualities – articulation, rhythm, tempo and pitch range, and vocalisations – laughing, crying, vocalized pauses like ‘um’, ‘huh’ (Fatt, 1998). Reading customer’s needs involves listening to and observing customers, sometimes it is even the interplay of verbal and non-verbal communication that provides the most important information (Fatt, 1998). Based on above presented arguments I would like to propose that:
Proposition 4: Paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal signals from customers will positively influence the ability to read customer’s needs.
Lages et al. (2012) present a set of key drivers to increase frontline employee idea generation for customer service improvement. The results show that idea generation for customer service improvement is driven by three main factors: reading customer’s needs (.54, p < .01), job satisfaction (.16, p < .05) and affective organizational commitment (.26, p < .01). Following Lages et al. (2012) I will consider reading customer’s needs, which can be defined as an ‘employee’s desire to pick up on customers’ verbal and nonverbal communication’ (Donovan et al., 2004) the most important antecedent of idea generation for customer experience improvement. Therefore:
Proposition 5: Ability to read customer’s needs will positively influence the likelihood of a discovery of an idea for CX improvement.
According to Lages et al. (2012) FLEs who listen to customers are more likely to create ideas for service improvement and thus, it is suggested that companies should select employees in the recruitment process based on candidate’s ability to read customer’s needs.
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Homburg (2009) identifies factors that influence FLEs’ accuracy of perceived customer’s needs. Some of positive factors are: FLE’s cognitive empathy and length of relationship with a customer. Age discrepancy will have a negative effect on accuracy of perceived customer’s needs (Homburg, 2009). Empathy according to Oxford Dictionary can be explained as ‘the ability to imagine how another person is feeling and so understand their mood’. Homburg (2009) indentifies two types of empathy: emotional and cognitive. Emotional refers to empathetic concern, and cognitive empathy can be defined as understanding other person’s problems or needs (Homburg, 2009). Cognitive empathy is also concerned as “perspective taking” (Homburg, 2009). I decided to incorporate perspective-taking (also called ‘getting into customer’s shoes’) and use it as the proxy to learn if a FLE has cognitive empathy.
Proposition 6 Employee’s cognitive empathy will have a positive influence on his/her
ability to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 7 Length of the relationship will have a positive influence on employee’s ability to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 8: Age discrepancy between the employee and customer will negatively influence employee’s ability to read customer’s needs.
2.4. Customer experience in the context of B2C and B2B
Researchers present many definitions of customer experience. Disney Institute, for instance, explains customer experience as a sum of all interactions between a customer and a company (Jones, 2016). Meyer et al. (2007) define customer experience as ‘internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company’. An important term in service design is a customer journey, that consists of many touch points that all are meaningful for customer experience’s assessment - starting from the first moment, when a customer learns about a company, product or service to use of purchased product or service (Jones, 2016).
To achieve superior customer loyalty and promote differentiation many companies pursue customer experience strategy (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). Researchers of that strategy focus mainly on industries where experience plays the most important role – for example entertainment or hospitality, but few focus on industries in which experience is not in the core (Candi et al., 2013). A taxonomy of innovation organizations within experience economy is described by Sundbo in the article: ‘Innovation in the experience economy: a taxonomy of innovation organisations’. There are two types of companies that belong to experience economy. First,
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where experience is the offering – ‘the primary experience sector’ (e.g. theatre, jazz clubs, cinemas, wellness centres, tourist attractions, advertising agencies, festivals etc.) and second, where experience design is a tool to drive image of the company. Such services where experience is not the main offering belong to ‘the secondary experience sector’. Some examples of such companies can be banks, airlines, consulting companies that have superior customer experience when compared to their competitors (Sundbo, 2009). Zomerdijk et al. (2011) use a term of ‘augmentation with experience staging’ referring to companies that do not have experience in their core, but run projects that aim at delivering superior experiences to their customers regardless the utilitarian nature of their offering. Augmentation with experience staging brings dividends in terms of attracting new customers (Zomerdijk et al., 2011). Another empirically tested advantage of experience staging is increased profitability. Even though, one could expect that the costs of running experience design projects are financially demanding, the
investment pays off quickly (Zomerdijk et al., 2011).
Candi et al. (2012) add that experience staging may influence the customer at three different stages of interaction: presales, purchase and consumption.
In B2C markets, experience-centric services focus on the experience that customers co-create at each touch-point, rather than just at functional value (Zomerdijk et al., 2011) and that they engage customers to create an emotional, physical, intellectual or spiritual connection with the service (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). According to Berry et al. (2002) companies should pay equally much attention to innovation in terms of emotional experience as to management of functionality of the service provided (Berry et al., 2002). Experience design can be defined as creation of such services, in which the experience plays the major role in value proposition (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). Zomerdijk et al. (2010) define six characteristics of experience-centric services: 1) ‘Designing a series of service encounters and cues’, 2) ‘Sensory Design’, 3) ‘Engaging Customers through front-line employees’, 4) ‘Designing the dramatic structure of events’, 5) ‘Managing the presence of fellow customers’, and 6) ‘Closely coupling backstage employees to frontstage experience’ (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). B2B companies follow B2C companies’ experience staging strategy (Mayer et al., 2007). For both B2C and B2B the aim of that strategy is to provide a superior customer experience proposition, however in B2B a ‘good experience is not a thrilling one but one that is trouble-free and hence reassuring to those in charge’ (Meyer et al., 2007). A B2B service delivers a good experience when the service is cost-benefit balanced, easy to use and evolves alongside the client’s desires (Meyer et al., 2007). What is more, well designed service should encompass both basic (such as checking a price, asking a
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question) and most complex customer experiences (e.g. placing a very expensive order) (Meyer et al., 2007). Furthermore, well designed services should also be able to deal with customer’s dissatisfaction.
One more interesting issue concerning both B2C and B2B experience-centric services is the measurement of experience level. It is very challenging, because every customer might have a different experience, as the experience is the combination of what is given by the company, customer’s personality (Pine et al., 1998), previous experience, market conditions (Meyer et al., 2007). Consumers both consciously and unconsciously compare new experiences with previous ones, they also build their expectations based on previous experiences (Meyer et al., 2007). The topic of experience level’s measurement is relatively new in the academic research, however Chiuhsiang et al. (2015) in the article ‘An integrated model of service experience design improvement’ present a framework that enables to assess which areas of the service experience need to be improved. Chiuhasiang et al. (2015) identifies 5 factors of experience in his framework: 1) emotional design, 2) brand trust, 3) convenience, 4) user relations, and 5) action experience. Cases in that study were based on four stores from the same chain, where customers filled out a survey to give an assessment of each factor. Analysis of the surveys provided information about the factors that were delivering satisfying experiences and factors that needed improvement (Chiuhsiang et al., 2015).
Meyer et al. (2007) state that many companies invest in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems believing that they can be used to collect knowledge and understand customers. However, it should be underlined that CRM systems in opposite to CEM (Customer Experience Management), collect data about what is known about a customer (e.g. history of purchases, inquires, complaints), but does not track customer’s subjective thoughts about the service provided (Meyer et al., 2007). CEM data can be collected at each touch point by sending out a survey to customers, observing them or running a “voice of customer” research.
2.5. Frontline employee’s knowledge in the domain of customer
experience
Tierney et al. (2002) found partial support for the positive relation of education level and creative efficacy (one’s belief that he/she is able to perform creatively). Creative self-efficacy is significantly related to creative performance (Tierney et al. 2002).
FLEs get ideas based on what they already know and what they learn from customers, co-workers and external sources (business trips, trade fairs, observing competitors etc.) (Engen et
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al., 2015). As Amabile (1996) wrote: ‘Expertise is the foundation for all creative work’. Based on above presented arguments I would like to propose that the knowledge regarding CX has a positive influence on the process of idea generation for customer experience improvement. As suggested by Engen et al. (2015), FLEs can learn about CX during workshops organized by the company, from books, internet, competition observation or from personal life – when being a customer of other services themselves. Therefore, more formally:
Proposition 9: Knowledge in the domain of CX has a positive influence on the likelihood of a discovery of an idea for CX improvement.
2.6. Conceptual framework
Based on the propositions suggested in previous sections, I present a conceptual framework. Each number on the arrow connecting two concepts represents a corresponding proposition.
Figure 1 Conceptual framework
Proposition 1 - Customer knowledge has positive influence on the possibility that a FLE will discover an idea for CX improvement.
Proposition 2: Ideas for CX improvement are a result of cognitive test-driving and not a chance, which means that an employee engages in analysing value proposition of service provided.
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Proposition 3: Seeking support from colleagues positively influences idea generation for CX improvement.
Proposition 4: Paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal signals from customers will positively influence the ability to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 5: Ability to read customer’s needs will positively influence the likelihood of a discovery of an idea for CX improvement.
Proposition 6: Employee’s cognitive empathy will have a positive influence on his/her ability
to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 7: Length of the relationship will have a positive influence on employee’s ability to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 8: Age discrepancy between the employee and customer will negatively influence employee’s ability to read customer’s needs.
Proposition 9: Knowledge in the domain of CX has a positive influence on the likelihood of a discovery of an idea for CX improvement.
2.7. Summary of literature review
B2B companies similarly to B2C companies strive to improve their customer experience (Mayer et al., 2007). Customer experience in B2B context involves, however, slightly different approach, as a good experience in that context is not a thrilling but a trouble-free one (Mayer et al., 2007).
It is often underlined that for the success of the service innovation process it is inevitable to involve frontline employees from the very beginning (i.e. from the idea generation phase) (Akesson et al., 2016; Karlsson, 2015; Zomerdijk et al., 2010). According to researchers, FLEs interact directly with customers, and thus possess knowledge on customers that managers might not have (Zomerdijk et al., 2010). Creation of customer knowledge requires both listening and observing customers, thus paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal signals sent by customers positively influences customer knowledge creation (Fatt, 1998). The core insight that I found the most useful is what Lages et al. (2012) present in their research. Out of all drivers of FLEs idea generation for customer service improvement, the most important one is the ability to read customer’s needs. Based on that information and the results of other articles I drew the conclusion that the ability to read customer’s needs is required to generate ideas for customer experience improvement. According to researchers, it is easier to read needs of customers that
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FLEs know for longer time, but more difficult when age discrepancy is present (Homburg, 2009). Furthermore, FLEs cognitive empathy positively influences the ease of reading customer’s needs (Homburg, 2009). What is more, basing on Amabile (1996), expertise in the domain of idea generation target is essential, thus I propose that a FLE needs a certain level of knowledge regarding CX to generate ideas in that domain.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
In order to define research question for my thesis I reviewed several articles from the ABS list. As a consequence, research question and propositions were formulated, which is in line with deductive research. Because this study is of exploratory nature I decided to use qualitative research. What is more, the focus is on experiences and reading other’s needs – both topics are difficult to quantify.
3.1. Research sample
The non-probability, critical and snowball (in case of interviewee 7) sampling was used to find interviewees that participated in the research. Interviewees are FLEs that meet following criteria:
• They generated at least one idea for customer experience improvement in their organization and shared that idea with management through some kind of an idea management program or in case of smaller companies, through direct conversation with the management,
• The idea generated concerned customer experience improvement of the organization they are working for,
• The interviewees are motivated to generate ideas for customer experience improvement for the company they work for,
• The employees are so called frontline employees (FLEs) which means that they are in direct contact with customers and thus, have the possibility to learn about customer’s needs.
One interviewee is not typical frontline employee (such as customer service employees), but an employee of a marketing department, however he is in direct contact with customer daily as well during events and workshops. Due to time constraint, I decided to consider that employees as suitable for my research. All interviewees are idea generators for customer experience improvement in their organization. I decided to interview only successful idea generators, as
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only they can share their experiences and share what helped them develop those ideas. Thanks to existing culture that supports bottom-up innovation, all of them shared those ideas with the management of the company. A table presented below summarizes data about conducted research interviews. Table 4 Respondents Research interview abbreviation Company abbreviation
Interviewee’s position Nationality
RI1 C1 Transition Coordinator Polish
RI2 C1 Real Estate Portfolio Analyst Polish
RI3 C1 Corporate Accountant Polish
RI4 C2 New Business Developer Polish
RI5 C3 Marketing Coordinator Swiss
RI6 C3 Lean Expert Swiss
RI7 C4 Logistics Analyst German
RI8 C5 Customer Service/Security Swiss
RI9 C5 Customer Service Swiss
RI10 C5 Internet Shop Employee Swiss
RI11 C5 Head of Department – Customer Service German
RI12 C6 Head of Project Management German
In total, 12 interviews were conducted, but only 10 are used to find evidence to propositions. RI11 and RI12 were rejected because of following reasons: interviewee 11 is a head of department and thus has no direct contact with customer and in the case of RI12 – the company did not provide enough support for idea generation, thus the interviewee had some ideas but was not motivated enough to share them with the management. The company selection method is appropriate for my research, it consists of a wide range of sector in order to be able to generalize the results. The aim of the study is to learn about antecedents of idea discovery for CX improvement, thus it is necessary to control external variables like managerial support for bottom-up innovation (Eisenhardt, 1989). Companies that participated in the research are:
• B2B service companies, • From non-hedonic sectors,
• With supportive culture for bottom-up innovation (employee suggestion system (ESS) or any other initiative motivating FLEs to generate ideas is present) so that it is possible to select those employees, who submitted ideas for customer experience improvement. Each company has a culture that supports its employees to generate and share ideas. As a proxy to deduct that a company has such a culture I consider existence of an idea management,
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employee suggestion system, idea box or any other related to idea generation initiative. In company 4, there is no such an initiative, but the interviewee claims that the company supports its employees to generate ideas and that her idea is considered important. A chart that is presented below, shows what types of companies are included in the research. Three companies can be classified as smaller, kind of start-up companies and two other companies are big and have more corporate workplace culture. Every circle on the chart represents one company. In every circle, there is an abbreviation of the company (presented in table above) and in the brackets, number of interviewees conducted with employees from respective companies.
Figure 2 Presentation of companies in terms of size and culture, based on research interviews
In order to choose suitable interviewees, I mostly contacted the manager of idea management or employee suggestion system in a company and asked him or her to select suitable employees for my research. This way I could interview employees who are successful idea generators in the field of customer experience.
3.2. Data collection
In order to collect data, I conducted open-ended question interviews with frontline employees that successfully generated ideas for customer experience improvement and shared them within their respective organization. Because those ideas were generated in the past and thus, it was impossible to observe those behaviors, the best option to gather data was to conduct interviews (Patton, 2002). The sub-structured interview guideline can be seen in the appendix. The semi-structured interview is suitable for that research because it allows for a flexible approach, in
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which the interviewer can ask questions suitable the situation. Additionally, elements of ‘critical incident technique’ were used (Flanagan, 1954). As Flanagan (1954) states ‘the critical incident technique is essentially a procedure for gathering certain important facts concerning behaviour in defined situations’. In the case of this research, the defined situation is the process of idea generation for customer experience. The interview guideline consists of questions that address that process and encourage the interviewee to reflect on his or her experiences, describe his or her behaviour and reactions to certain situations. The questions that refers to CIT are as follows: ‘Can you describe how did you discover that idea? What was the inspiration? When you saw that room for improvement did you discuss it with other employees? Was it helpful? Did they help you develop your idea? Support you?’ Another definition of critical incident technique was presented by Chell et al. (1998): ‘The critical incident technique is a qualitative interview procedure which facilitates the investigation of significant occurrences (events, incidents, processes, or issues) identified by the respondent, the way they are managed, and the outcomes in terms of perceived effects. The objective is to gain understanding of the incident from the perspective of the individual, considering cognitive, affective and behavioral elements’. Each interview was recorded, and transcribed as soon as possible. If the interview was conducted in any other language than English (RI1, RI2, RI3, RI4, RI9, and RI10), the interview was translated to English and then, cited in the part of results in that language. Eight out of twelve interviews were conducted via Skype, the remaining four interviews during a face-to-face meeting (C5).
Interviews had different length according to how much time an interviewee had. The longest ones lasted around 1 hour, but the shortest interview was only 30 minutes. Additionally, company C5 provided documents concerning idea management and continuous improvement program applied in the organization, which is used for triangulation. In qualitative research, there are no rules concerning the amount of data that should be gathered. The researcher should continue collecting data until the point of data saturation is reached (Saunders et al., 2009), which was achieved with ten interviews.
In total, around 40 companies from Poland, the Netherlands and Switzerland were contacted, only 7 responded, but 2 responses were negative. At the end, companies: C1, C2, C3, C5, C6 were enlisted thanks to personal network in Poland and Switzerland. Company C4 was an effect of so called snowball sampling, as the interviewee was recommended by other interviewee from company C3.
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To strengthen internal validity I base my research on 9 propositions and use a conceptual framework. Requirements for external validity are met through detailed description of sampling technique and participation of companies from different sectors, which makes the results of the study more generalizable. For the reliability of the study, I attach transcripts of the interviews and computer-supported tool (nVivo) was used to analyse data and organise it into a code book (also in the appendix) (Yin, 2003).
3.3. Data analysis
In critical incident technique, it is data collected from interviews that is researched by content analysis (Gremler, 2004). Themes in the data should be categorized by the researcher deductively – based on theoretical models – or based on inductive interpretations (Stauss et al., 1992). All data collected is analysed by thematic analysis, in which themes become categories for analysis. I used two out of five presented by Yin (2003) analytics techniques for analysing qualitative data: pattern matching and cross-case synthesis. To categorize data in themes I used computer-assisted tool – nVivo 11. The code book can be seen in the appendix.
4. RESULTS
This section presents data collected in the research. For the part that describes companies that participated in my research I used various information sources: research interviews, documents provided by companies and internet sources. For the part that focuses on answering the propositions, 10 interviews with frontline employees were used.
4.1. Description of companies and tools for idea generation applied
Company 1First company is a multinational company that is a leader in real estate services. The branch that participated in the research is responsible for data management of rent agreements and accounting regarding the portfolio. This branch delivers services to both internal and external clients (Website 1). It is located in Warsaw, Poland and employs around 350 full-time employees.
The company uses a Business Process Excellence (BPE) program, which includes idea management platform. One interviewee (an idea champion) from that company describes the process of idea management in her own words as following: ‘Someone comes up with an idea, suppose it is someone from the transition team and I get an email notification that this and that
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person has reported an idea of such a title. There is a message: Click to see it. I then check it, I look at this idea, I read what is going on, I meet if it is necessary with the originator to better understand the idea. I may still consult it with a manager if it seems to me that this is perhaps an idea from an area that is already in a global corporate strategy. Then, we do not duplicate it. But once I have all the necessary information I decide whether the idea is to be implemented or not. And let’s suppose here, it is not going to be implemented, I change on this platform the status to ‘cancelled’ and I add a comment about what is causing it. But I still see the originator to explain to him and not discourage use of the platform. For the second scenario, where the idea is accepted by me, another notification goes to the supervisor of this person to find out if he or she agrees that the person will engage in the idea execution, because it will be related to some time. She will have to devote herself to realization. Or that the supervisor can verify whether this idea actually makes sense.’ (RI1) In the case of that company, idea owners are rewarded at an official event with a gift basket (RI1). Ideas are certified in a scale from one to three stars according to pre-determined 4 criteria on savings, for example saved time or money (RI1, RI2).
Figure 3 Reward for generated idea, Quarterly Newsletter (Company 1)
All interviewees from that company are also a part of BPE team and they are so called idea champions, which means that they are partly responsible for the process of idea selection (RI1, RI2, RI3).
Company 2
Company 2 is a polish based software house that builds web and mobile applications for business clients. The company is based in Warsaw and employs around 30 people. The company provides workshops and advisory services to start-ups (Website 2). As the respondent from the company underlines, the company has a very agile organizational culture and a friendly atmosphere (RI4). The company has a semi-formal type of idea management. Ideas are both collected via Trello (https://trello.com/) – an application based on Kanban project
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management paradigm – and via personal contact with the management of the company. The respondent himself does not use Trello, as according to him that initiative is more oriented at ideas for operational issues, not strategic ones (RI4). The interviewee claims that his ideas are of more strategic nature and thus, he speaks about them directly with the management. He states that his company has no formal way of giving feedback, CEO decides whether ideas are selected or not. Feedback is given occasionally and there are no official feedback rules.
Company 3
Company 3 is Swiss start-up that employs around 20 people. The company delivers advisory services in the field of Lean Management. One of the core competencies of the company is organization of workshops for other companies to learn more about Lean Management (RI5). The company itself has a very interesting program for facilitating idea generation. Each employee from the back-office spends one hour a day improving the business (RI5, RI6). During that hour employees can both generate ideas or work on already proposed ideas (RI5). What is more, all employees (including lean experts – considered as front-office) meet once a month for a so-called Kaizen workshop (RI6). The interviewee described those workshops as following: ‘We ask ourselves every month and all the lean experts they bring in their examples: ‘You know, that and that happens there’, ‘You know, this customer wants this and that’ and ‘This customer wasn't satisfied because of this and that’. So, they share all their experience at this time. All the experts prepare themselves, they have a short presentation of their best ideas and what they heard on the customer side. So, every expert has about 10 minutes to bring in his ideas on what should be changed in our products. Every month we have that, but it's just maybe 8 people with 10 minutes, so it's 80 minutes of one day. If there is time we try to develop a product during that workshop, but usually it's afterwards.’ (RI6) In this company, there are no rewards for generating ideas, but as one interviewee states: ‘I think the reward is that you are able to generate ideas.’ (RI5) Neither idea selection nor feedback is organized in a formal manner. One interviewee claims that there are different people who can select an idea, but there is no rule who does it – it depends only on the willingness of these people (RI5).
Company 4
This company is European leader in 4th party logistics solutions. 4th party logistics means that the company itself is based on no assets, but acts as a contractor, it designs and operates best solutions for its clients based on its experience and know-how (Website 3). The company is based in Switzerland and according to the website, employs 200 logistics specialists in Europe,
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but the respondent claims that she works in a very small company (RI7). Even though there is no formal way of idea management in the company, the respondent states that they sometimes organize internal meetings to discuss ideas for improvement. What is more, she believes that idea generated by her are considered important by the management and that if the idea is good it will be implemented (RI7). There are no rewards that are given to idea owners in that company, the respondent claims that the motivation for idea generation comes from the willingness to improve the business ‘The motivation was that the daily contact to the customer gets easier. That they also trust us, that they have more reliability towards us, that they know that we are working for them, that we are always trying to improve the business.’ (RI7)
Company 5
This governmental institution provides services to both internal clients and external clients (both private and business clients) (Website 5). The main competences of that office are very diverse but in general, can be classified into two categories: 1) buildings and 2) logistics. In the first category, there are services related to managing the portfolio of buildings that belong to the government and investing in new ones, in the second category: procurement and selling publications (Documents). Publication are sold through an Online-Shop, some of them are printed-on-demand and are targeted at both private and business clients (RI11).
This office uses a formal way of sharing ideas that is based on two programs: Idea Management and Continuous Improvement (Documents, RI11). Each generated idea is submitted through a predetermined form that includes the contact details to the idea generator and details of the idea. According to the document that was provided by the head of the department that I interviewed, there are formalized criteria for determining whether a new initiative should be handled through Idea Management or Continuous Improvement program (Documents). Both programs offer a formalized way of idea selection and financial rewards (Documents, RI8, RI9, RI11). Every idea regardless if selected or not is rewarded with small financial contribution (Documents, RI8, RI11). The criteria for rewarding selected ideas are clear, the size of the reward depends on the scale and scope of the idea (Documents, RI11). Feedback on ideas that were not selected is not mandatory, but a possibility (Documents, RI11).
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4.2. Deductive part: evidence to 9 proposition based on theoretical
background
Figure 4 Word cloud, based on 10 interviews with frontline employees
Proposition 1 - Customer knowledge has positive influence on the possibility that a FLE will discover an idea for CX improvement.
To start with, all the interviewees claim that there is no formal process of saving knowledge on customer’s experiences within their respective organization. Some of them mention such measures as customer satisfaction surveys or CRM (Customer Relationship Management). However, not a single organization applied CEM (Customer Experience Management). In the first company (C1), interviewees claim that there are no formal procedures for creating knowledge on customers, however all the interviewed employees document information on customers in their own way. Interviewee from RI2 claims that she takes personal notes on customer’s experiences, other interviewees (RI1, RI3) save e-mails that contain information that might be useful for future ideas. This can be evidenced by following quotes, that are answers to a question if the respondent takes notes on customer experiences or uses an official platform (for example CEM) for that.
• ‘I am writing such things, I gather different kinds of feedback. If I see that something is more useful or even positive things where the customer is satisfied – I like to have such things. It is rather personal, I do not log it anywhere.’ (RI1) – the interviewee describes how she takes notes on customer’s experiences, which is her own initiative,
