دانلود رایگان مقاله کارمند سرویس معتبر استفاده از زبان کارکنان خدمات برای تجربه خدمات معتبر

abstract

This study analyzes how service employees' language use influences the authenticity of a service. The extant service literature on language use remains exclusively focused on the customer's perceptions of first language use in direct communication. Shifting the focus to the service employee, this paper posits that language could exert a wider influence, contributing both to how customers perceive the authenticity of the service and the entire service experience. Analyzing language use in service encounters, the paper addresses this research gap in the literature from the perspective of the service employee. In many service settings, authenticity is an important part in customers' construal of their experience. The study analyzes how service employees in British pubs outside the UK may use English with local customers who frequent these pubs to get a taste of Britain and British culture, contributing to the service literature by introducing a typology to align the service employees' language use with authenticity to strengthen the customer experience. The paper further contributes to service theory by extending the understanding of service sabotage by showing how, why, and in which circumstances service employees may use a language switch to sabotage the customer experience. Finally, the study extends the extant human resources literature on the effects of allowing service employees to be themselves to show that this managerial practice not only benefits the service employees also results in a more authentic customer experience.

5. Discussion

The current service literature on language use focuses almost entirely on the customers, and only addresses situations in which customers want to use their own first language. This paper extends this line of research both by looking at service employees and on situations in which customers may wish to practice their second language. The findings in this regard represent three main contributions to the field of service research, particularly to the field of language use in service contexts. Addressing language use from the perspective of the service employee, the first contribution consists of adding to the extant service literature by uncovering a continuum of different motivations for language use in service encounters, rather than the relatively clear-cut picture in previous studies. The second contribution consists of analyzing service employees' language switch, identifying the different kinds of situations in which the service employee decides to switch language as well as the underlying reasons behind this switch. The third contribution looks at service employees' language use from an HR perspective. The findings extend the extant literature on authentic service employees by combining this managerial practice with how service employees themselves perceive customer reactions. The findings show that allowing service employees to be themselves not only makes their work more enjoyable, as the extant HR literature reports, but that service employees also perceive that customers receive a better and more authentic service experience.