Interactive Quality in Ethiopian Telecom’s Service Encounters: A Dyadic Perspective

Abstract

Purpose - This research primarily assesses interactive quality in the service encounters of Ethiopian Telecom from the customer and contact personnel perspectives. Research design, data, and methodology - After reviewing the literature on service encounters and interactive quality, two separate questionnaires and structured personal interviews were conducted to collect the opinions of 400 customers and 100 employees of Ethiopian Telecom. The researchers used convenience sampling; the responses, measured on a five-point Likert-type scale, were analyzed through chi-square tests conducted on SPSS 17.0. Results - Regarding the outcome expected by customers, encounter effectiveness is very low. Regarding accessibility and materiality, the corporation's personnel are freely accessible, relatively well-dressed, and have access to sophisticated office equipment and physical facilities. Finally, with regard to agent satisfaction, the telecom's contact employees are shown to gain little professional satisfaction from service encounters. Conclusion - The study clearly presents the areas in which interactive quality strongly affects both telecom customers and employees; this will help the corporation take corrective action. This is of utmost contemporary importance for both practitioners and researchers.