Role of Internal Marketing Practices in the Service Recovery Performance of Call Center Employees

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the internal marketing philosophy is applicable to call centers operating in Pakistan. This study attempted to investigate the role of internal marketing practices assess through internal communication (Huang & Rundle-Thiele, 2014), employee rewards (Boshoff & Allen, 2000), employee training (Boshoff & Allen, 2000), and employee empowerment (Yavas, Karatepe, Avci, & Tekinkus, 2003) on the service recovery performance (Boshoff & Allen, 2000) of call center employees working in inbound telecom call centers. Primary data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from 15 telecom call centers located in three major cities namely Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad. A simple random sampling technique was implemented to collect data from 318 male and female respondents. Results showed that internal communication, employee rewards and employee training were positively linked with service recovery performance, while a nonsignificant relationship was found between employee empowerment and service recovery performance. Results revealed that internal marketing practices influence toward frontline employee’s service recovery performance. Findings suggested that the call centers operating in the Asian region, especially, in Pakistan, should focus on internal marketing practices to enhance the service recovery performance of the frontline employees.