With the continuing unstable domestic and international economic situation, companies are requiring measures to increase competitiveness and the methods are, in turn, evolving. In particular, call center companies that are operated based on customer s...
With the continuing unstable domestic and international economic situation, companies are requiring measures to increase competitiveness and the methods are, in turn, evolving. In particular, call center companies that are operated based on customer service are trying and doing their best both in providing special services for enhancing customer satisfaction and in searching for human resource management methods to look for comparative advantages. With this trend, the role of frontline employees, who directly communicate with customers and are evaluated by the customers for their performance, are growing ever important. The significance of the call center expands as the The companies are competing. Thus, each company is paying greater attention to the call center representatives.
Therefore, this study understands that the ability of call center representatives directly affects the customers and the profit of the company. With quality customer service provided by the call center representative, existing customers are actively managed and their loyalty to the company is also managed. Ultimately, the study took a keen interest in the emotional Intelligence of each representative who plays a core role in marketing and attracting new customers. Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to perceive one’s own emotions as well as another's and control and use it. It was considered that these factors would be effective in preparing strategies for customer service ability enhancement. This study identifies the effect of emotional quotient on job performance and organizational citizenship behavior, which is defined as actions outside of normative roles in the organization. Also, the study aims to prove the effect of emotional Intelligence on the rapidly developing IT utilization ability in relation to job performance.
To do so, a theoretical research framework was proposed to identify the emotional Intelligence of call center representatives on job performance regarding organizational citizenship behavior and IT utilization ability. Based on theoretical background, a research model and related hypotheses was proposed.
For the empirical validation, 608 samples were collected from inbound and outbound call center representatives in major life insurance companies and property insurance companies in South Korea. Some major findings of this study from the empirical analysis and test are as follows:
Firstly, it was proved that emotional Intelligence has a statistically significant effect on both organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. However, organizational citizenship behavior did not have a significant effect on job performance.
Secondly, the effect of emotional Intelligence on job performance was greater when it interacted with IT utilization ability rather than the variable alone by itself.
An additional study held in-depth focus group interview(FGI) with 3 groups of professional call representatives (categorized by experience) who operate in and outbound calls. Three variables, emotional intelligence, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and IT utilization skill, were selected and it was observed how these variables affect the job performance of in and outbound call center representatives. The importance of the relationship between the variables and the key factors in the future direction of improvement of the call center representative organization was analyzed.
As a result, it was found that service career (3 months, 3 years, 10 years) had a significant effect on the key factors that affect the organization - emotional intelligence, IT utilization skill, and OCB. Especially for OCB, it was considered relatively less important to the new employees, while it greatly affected the job performance, rate of settlement, and sustainment of the working life for those with longer experience. Also, the result of the interview for each variable differed by the service career. Emotional intelligence, IT utilization skill, and OCB were more significant for the representatives with longer experience than for those with shorter experience. And the level of intimacy of their relationship with job performance was in proportion to the years of service.
Thus, to secure stability for the call center representatives and enhance their job performance continually, the importance of emotional intelligence and IT utilization skill shall be reflected in the operation process actively. In particular, in order to lead a organization with outstanding culture, a management system shall apply OCB from the recruitment process.