Thesis

CHAPTER TWO

UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMER SERVICE AND CUSTOMER MAREKETING RELATIONSHIP THEORIES

2.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter will present detailed theoretical discussions on development in the customer service, relationship marketing and customer retention and their implications in the banking industry. This chapter will elaborately focus on reviewing literature relating to the subject matter.

2.2. Conceptualizing the customer

The growing prominence of service industries in advanced economies has increased the need to better understand the role of the customer as a significant actor in the world of work. This is because service work entails a complex three-way interaction among management, workers and customers (McCammon and Griffin 2000, Frenkel, Korczynski, Shire, and Tam 1999). In service work the customer is not one-step removed from the organization but enters into the workplace through direct contact with workers and it is this direct contact that makes service work unique. The interaction between front-line service workers and customers has been described as ‘the moment of truth’ (Frenkel, et al 1999: 6), the point at which lasting impressions about the organization can be made. For this reason customer service is seen by management as “as one of the key terrains of competitive advantage or disadvantage for the firm” (Korczynski 2002: 2). This focus on customer service strategy has resulted in increasing expectations being placed on customer service workers.

Researchers from a diverse range of academic disciplines have turned their attention to service work, in order to understand the consequences of this increased focus on the ‘customer’. Drawing on Rosenthal et al’s framework, this section highlights a range of metaphors and images of the customer that populate the academic literature.

2.2.1 The Customer as King

In the ‘Customer is King’ literature the customer is imagined as an “autonomous, self-regulating and self-actualizing individual actor” (du...