Empowerment in call centers and customer satisfaction

Purpose Call center is a large and growing sector worldwide and is facing important human resource management (HRM) and service challenges. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of structural empowerment (SE) and psychological empowerment (PE) on customer satisfaction (CS) through employee job satisfaction (JS) at a call center in Portugal. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected by means of a survey handed over personally to 267 employees at the call center of a telecommunication company. This was then linked to their respective net promoter score (CS) provided by the call center. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used as analytical tools. Findings SE affects PE, and both have a positive impact on JS. Empowerment impacts CS: SE positively affects CS mediated by PE; and PE affects CS mediated by JS. Practical implications This study emphasizes the importance of the use of organizational practices of SE in call centers to achieve two important organizational outcomes: employee JS and CS. Originality/value This study tests a process model involving two domains, HRM (employee side) and service delivery (customer side), which are traditionally dealt with separately in the context of call centers. This helps to understand how HRM polices are connected to CS. Although some of these relationships have been studied separately in different contexts, the research offers a strong methodological design by linking employee perceptions of empowerment with data provided by the firm on CS.