MIT Sloan Management Review Fall 2019

12 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW FALL 2019 SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU

REFERENCES

1. See, for example, L.A. Bettencourt, “Cus-
   tomer Voluntary Performance: Customers as
   Partners in Service Delivery,” Journal of Retail-
   ing 73, no. 3 (1997): 383-406; and B. Schneider
   and D.E. Bowen, Winning the Service Game
   (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1995).


2. A.B. Eisingerich, S. Auh, and O. Merlo, “Acta
   Non Verba? The Role of Customer Participation
   and Word of Mouth in the Relationship Be-
   tween Service Firms’ Customer Satisfaction
   and Sales Performance,” Journal of Service
   Research 17, no. 1 (2013): 40-53.


3. Our research spanned seven types of
   service organizations (e-commerce, airlines,
   financial services, legal services, hospitality,
   retail, and information technology) across four
   continents (North America, Europe, Asia, and
   Australia). Interviews were analyzed using
   NVivo data analysis software. We also incorpo-
   rated ethnographic insights from the airline
   industry at the front-line and senior executive
   levels, based on years of professional experi-
   ence in the industry. The research team
   included a longtime flight attendant for a
   global Asian airline and a recently retired
   senior executive at a major U.S. airline.


4. E.L. Deci, R. Koestner, and R.M. Ryan,
   “A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments
   Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on
   Intrinsic Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 125,
   no. 6 (November 1999): 627-668.


5. Research shows that front-line employees
   whose compensation is linked to customer
   participation initiatives experience higher levels
   of job-related stress and dissatisfaction and are
   more likely to leave the company within the
   next six months. See B. Benjamin, P. Gochyyev,
   E. Sopadjieva, et al., “Learning Before Earning:
   How to Incentivize Frontline Employees to
   Deliver Great Customer Experiences,” white
   paper, Medallia Institute, New York, 2016,
   https://go.medallia.com.


6. K. Blanchard and C. Barrett, Lead With LUV:
   A Different Way to Create Real Success (Upper
   Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education,
   2011).


7. A. Song, “Call Center Workers’ Right to Hang
   Up on Unruly Customers,” Nov. 17, 2017, http://
   koreabizwire.com.


8. The campaign included videos that were made
   available in the public domain, such as “I Am Your
   Energy,” YouTube video, 2:50, GS Caltex, Aug.
   23, 2017, https://youtu.be/mr7p_cmH2H8.


9. Email exchanges with Gregg Saretsky on
   June 28, 2018, and July 10, 2019.

Reprint 61111. For ordering information, see page 4.

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2019. All rights reserved.

FRONTIERS

playing sound bites taken from a social
media campaign launched by energy firm
GS Caltex, which featured abusive cus-
tomers followed by the voice-over, “You
are about to be served by my beloved
mum/father, daughter/son. ... Please talk
to her/him nicely.”^8

5. Treat external and internal partici-
   pation as equally important. Despite the
   challenges and complexities of using
   customer input, we think deciding not to

use any would be the wrong solution. In
particular, positive customer feedback can
enrich managers’ insight into how em-
ployees are performing. In our study, for
example, we encountered service provid-
ers such as lawyers who were extremely
well liked by their clients. However, they
felt unappreciated and alienated from
the business when it seemed managers
focused mainly on the billable hours that
were racked up at the end of the month. If
these managers had also considered what
clients had to say, they could have gained
a more nuanced understanding of who
their biggest rainmakers were and moti-
vated those employees to build on their
strong customer relationships.
This argues for a balanced approach
that blends customers’ outside view with
employees’ internal perspective. WestJet,
a discount Canadian airline, provides a
good example. When the company was
considering starting a new regional airline,
then-CEO Gregg Saretsky thought it

would be valuable to solicit input from

both customers and employees. I n addi-

tion to conducting market research and

holding meetings with community leaders

in cities across Canada, WestJet leadership

held town-hall-style meetings where em-

ployees were invited to express their views.

Ultimately, more than 90% of employees

backed the new venture. Saretsky attrib-

uted the employee support at least partly

to their sense of feeling valued. The key

to getting things right, Saretsky told us,

is ensuring “that employees have enough

information, a formal vehicle to provide

input, and a feedback loop that apprises

them of the actions that resulted from

their — and their customers’ — input.”^9

MANAGING FRONT-LINE employees

in ways that help companies establish

profitable customer relationships can be

challenging. Although organizations want

workers to support company goals and put

the interests of the business ahead of their

own, managers’ efforts can easily backfire

if they disregard employees’ needs. The

guidelines we have put forward can help

companies strike a productive balance.

Omar Merlo is an assistant professor of mar-

keting, Andreas B. Eisingerich a professor of

marketing, and Hae-Kyung Shin a research

associate at Imperial College Business

School in London. Robert A. Britton is an

adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Comment on this article at http://sloanreview

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Avoiding the Pitfalls of Customer Participation (Continued from page 11)

A social media campaign launched by

GS Caltex featured sound bites from

abusive customers followed by the

voice-over, “You are about to be served

by my beloved mum/father, daughter/

son. ... Please talk to her/him nicely.”