Providing Customer Service Research Articles

Factors Influencing Switching Behavior of Telecom Customers in Saudi Arabia

Since the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), customers of telecom service providers have been switching between service providers in high rate in Saudi Arabia. This imposed a challenge for telecom service providers to know the reasons of such phenomena and try to minimize it. In this research paper, we studied the variables that affect the customer’s decision to stay with or switch current telecom service provider in Saudi Arabia. The analysis of data shows that the most significant variable is offers and prices.

Factors Influencing Switching Behavior of Telecom Customers in Saudi Arabia

Since the introduction of mobile number portability (MNP), customers of telecom service providers have been switching between service providers in high rate in Saudi Arabia. This imposed a challenge for telecom service providers to know the reasons of such phenomena and try to minimize it. In this research paper, we studied the variables that affect the customer's decision to stay with or switch current telecom service provider in Saudi Arabia. The analysis of data shows that the most significant variable is offers and prices.

In-Depth Analysis and Systematic Literature Review on Risk Based Access Control in Cloud

Security in Cloud is one of the most foremost and critical feature, which can ensure the confidence of the Scientific community on Cloud environment. With the dynamic and ever changing nature of the Cloud computing environment, static access control models become obsolete. Hence, dynamic access control models are required, which is still an emergent and underdeveloped domain in Cloud security. These models utilize not only access policies but also contextual and real-time information to determine the access decision. Out of these dynamic models the Risk-based Access control model, estimates the security risk value related to the access request dynamically to determine the access decision. The exclusive working pattern of this access control model makes it an excellent choice for dynamically changing environment that rules the cloud’s environment. This paper provides a systematic literature appraisal and evaluation of risk-based access control models to provide a detailed understanding of the topic. The contributions of selected articles have been summarized. The security risks in cloud environment have been reviewed, taking in the account of both Cloud Service Provider and Cloud Customer perspectives. Additionally, risk factors used to build the risk-based access control model were extracted and analyzed. Finally, the risk estimation techniques used to evaluate the risks of access control operations have also been identified.

Prediction of customer’s perception in social networks by integrating sentiment analysis and machine learning

Understanding the customer behavior and perception are important issues for motivating customer satisfaction in marketing analysis. Customer conversation with customer support services through social networks channel provides a wealth of information for understanding customer perception. Therefore, in this paper, a hybrid framework that integrated sentiment analysis and machine learning techniques is developed to analyze interactive conversations among customers and service providers in order to identify the change of polarity of such conversation. This framework aims to detect the conversation polarity switch as well as predict the sentiment of the end of the customer conversation with the service provider. This would help companies to improve customer satisfaction and enhance the customer engagement. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is measured by extracting a real dataset that expresses more than 5000 conversational threads between a customer service agent of an online retail service provider (AmazonHelp) and different customers using the retailer’s twitter public account for the duration of one month. Different classical and ensemble machine learning classifiers were applied, and the results showed that the decision trees outperformed all other techniques.

The impact of perceived service quality on customers’ repurchase intention: Mediation effect of price perception

The Internet service sector is characterized as highly competitive, so Internet service providers have to seek ways to offer high-quality services to customers. This study measured the impact of perceived service quality on the repurchase intention of customers with the mediating impact of customers’ price perception. Data were gathered by surveying 405 customers of Internet service providers in Amman (Jordan) using the snowball sampling technique; the questionnaire was shared through social medias. Data were analyzed using factor analysis, regression, path analysis, and structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that service quality factors represented by perceived service quality significantly affect customers’ repurchase intention and price perception (p-value is less than 0.05). Furthermore, price perception partially mediates the relationship between perceived service quality and customers’ repurchase intention, with an estimated power of 0.136. Thus far, the mediating variable that explains and predicts the relationship between perceived service quality and customers’ repurchase intention has been overlooked in the extant literature. Therefore, this study employs the role of price perception as a mediator variable. In addition, it provided an accurate assessment of customers’ perceptions of service quality of Internet providers in Amman (Jordan).

To Be or Not to Be …Human? Theorizing the Role of Human-Like Competencies in Conversational Artificial Intelligence Agents

ABSTRACT Driven by the need to provide continuous, timely, and efficient customer service, firms are constantly experimenting with emerging technological solutions. In recent times firms have shown an increased interest in designing and implementing artificial intelligence (AI)-based interactional technologies, such as conversational AI agents and chatbots, that obviate the need for having human service agents for the provision of customer service. However, the business impact of conversational AI is contingent on customers using and adequately engaging with these tools. This engagement depends, in turn, on conversational AI’s similarity, or likeness to the human beings it is intended to replace. Businesses therefore need to understand what human-like characteristics and competencies should be embedded in customer-facing conversational AI agents to facilitate smooth user interaction. This focus on “human-likeness” for facilitating user engagement in the case of conversational AI agents is in sharp contrast to most prior information systems (IS) user engagement research, which is predicated on the “instrumental value” of information technology (IT). Grounding our work in the individual human competency and media naturalness literatures, we theorize the key role of human-like interactional competencies in conversational AI agents—specifically, cognitive, relational, and emotional competencies—in facilitating user engagement. We also hypothesize the mediating role of user trust in these relationships. Following a sequential mixed methods approach, we use a quantitative two-wave, survey-based study to test our model. We then examine the results in light of findings from qualitative follow-up interviews with a sampled set of conversational AI users. Together, the results offer a nuanced understanding of desirable human-like competencies in conversational AI agents and the salient role of user trust in fostering user engagement with them. We also discuss the implications of our study for research and practice.

Implementation of a Digital Payment Processing System Using Spring Boot Interceptor Patterns via Swift Messages

Abstract: A financial transaction is an agreement, or conversation, entered between a purchaser and a dealer for the trade of an asset for virtual processing of payments. E-cash (digital money) is the crucial fee way in digital exchange, this is seen as the same as coin in the real world. A financial transaction is one wherein there is some kind of pastime that modifies the rate of the property, liabilities, or owner's fairness of a business enterprise. The ones styles of transactions are - component transactions which includes a buyer and a seller, and that they usually include cash in some way. The aim of this work was to develop a systematic ordering, comprehensive and classification of issues in the area of financial services. Spring Boot is used for the implementation of the product and it is developed with the help of swift messaging standard for easier transitions and efficient transactions. A customer will subscribe for the service which is provided by the customer service provider. The customer will have to pay the monthly fees for that service. It will be automatically debited from the bank account. The work of this project is for the customer to review the billing amount and also request for billing date extension and request for bill cancellation if needed. The complete process is divided into two parts which are inbound and outbound. There will be a queueing process which picks the customer the query and processes it one by one. The customer will initiate a query and after all the verification and validation the response will be sent to the customer.

The Relationship Marketing Performance Evaluating in Financial Services Sector of Project Management

In any economy, the financial sector is interpreted as the driving force in the process of achieving growth through the appropriate and optimal allocation of resources to productive economic sectors. Financial institutions are defined as customer service providers. The generalization of the obtained results to the whole statistical population is the last step in this research. The research is a survey that can provide data on attitudes, feelings, beliefs, past behaviors, recorded behaviors, and the recognition of the acquisition of personal characteristics. Considering that the services available in commercial banks are relatively the same and it is difficult for most banks to differentiate these services from competitors, therefore, many banks around the world have tended to use the relationship marketing approach. The concept of relationship marketing was first mentioned in the American marketing literature in a 1983 article by Barry, who considered relationship marketing as a strategy for attracting, retaining, and strengthening customer relationships. This means that if the bank’s reciprocal relationships increase by 1 unit, it is 95% likely that the value of customer satisfaction with financial services will increase by 0.663 units. Factor loads also have a very good quality in explaining their construct because they have a value of more than 5%. On the other hand, the value of the t significance coefficient for the relationship between the variables of the bank’s reciprocal relationships and customer satisfaction with financial services is 8.471 at the 95% confidence level, which is more than 1.96, indicating the importance of the bank’s reciprocal relationships on customer satisfaction with financial services. To evaluate the sixth hypothesis that “the bank’s reciprocal relationships affect customer satisfaction with financial services,” factor load and significance coefficient obtained from structural equation modeling were used. Considering the path coefficient related to this hypothesis, it can be concluded that the bank’s reciprocal relationships with the value of 0.663 affect customer satisfaction with financial services.

Penerapan Etika Bisnis dan Tanggung Jawab Pemberi Kerja Dan Hak Karyawan Terhadap Kinerja Karyawan

In its implementation, the principles of business ethics in an organization and customer service are very related, such as when provudung services to customers, ethics must be used. Tjis is intended to create a good relationship between customers at PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia. In principle, business atehics is everything about guiding norms for a company in making decision, with the intention that good relation between the company and stakeholders are maintained, of course must use the rules that have been in effect. PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia has been good in carrying out its duties so that customers feel satisfied and fulfilled with the wishes expected by customers, both from service and banking ethics. Problems that occur at this time are deviations in terms of providing excellent service, namely there are multiple positions or commonly referred to as overlapping work in a work unit, for example customer service provider not only serves customers who come to convey various kind of complaints, but also does some work, and the work that shuold be done by the back office such as administering credit completeness and credit contract. So that more or less will reduce the excellent service that a customer service should do with a small example, ignoring basic service concept such as smiles, greetings wich are often referred to 3S. The method used in writing journals about the application of business ethic and employer responsibilities and employee rights to employee performance is a descriptive research method, because this study aims to only describe the facts as they are and describe the fact on the object under study. Irredularities commited by PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero),.Tbk, which are contary to the principles of business ethics in this company, namely in terms of providing excellent service, there are multiple positions or commonly referred to as overlapping work in unit. PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero),.Tbk need to be reviewed again regarding the duties and function of each position. It’s just that there are very few deviations that occur because this in a work unit in this company there is an overlapping position.

Rancang Bangun Fitur Chatbot Customer Service Menggunakan Dialogflow

The quality of providing customer service channels is very influential on customer satisfaction. To keep customer satisfaction, it is necessary to have a good interaction from customer service to the customer. In this case, PT Dian Prima Jayaraya is one of the companies that utilize Solo's application product as a medium for customer service. The development of the Solo application makes the application's features more complex and makes it difficult for users to do activities in the application. Customer service has a role in accommodating questions and answering difficulties experienced by users. The number of incoming questions is quite large, so that the existing customer service team cannot answer. Ignored or unanswered questions can lower the level of customer satisfaction. Therefore, we need a system that can help optimize customer service in a Chatbot to minimize unanswered customer questions. A chatbot is a service powered by rules and artificialintelligence, which the user interacts with through a chat interface. The Chatbot will be built on an iOS prototype application and use the NLP (Natural Language Processing) platform, namely Dialogflow. This platform will process and scan every question given by the customer.

Automated Testing of Session Border Controller in Simulated Production Environment

Abstract: A Session Border Controller plays a crucial role in Unified Communications, Contact Centre Modernization and Cloud communication Services. Therefore, testing the functionality of SBC is extremely critical to the modern communication infrastructure. Testing various call scenarios through the SBC by manually making call through devices is cumbersome, timeconsuming and error-prone. Session Border Controller (SBC) devices sit in between a lot of traffic in a service provider or VoIP infrastructure and thus testing the SBC to see if all most relevant call scenarios are tested is a must in today’s production SBC environment. To enable an automated tested approach, we have simulated the setup of a real production environment SBC and tested the calls using SIPp scripts to test all the relevant VoIP call scenarios. This paper covers a methodology on how to test Session Border Controllers to be robust and reliable to be deployed in enterprise and service provider customers. This paper demonstrates how to make these simulated calls using automated scripts using an XML (eXtensibke Markup Language) based scripting tool called SIPp. To verify these tests, an opensource and free packet sniffer like Wireshark is used to follow through and check if all the intended calls have taken place. In this paper, we perform thirteen of the most relevant SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) calls by running scripts at the endpoints of our setup. The proposed approach of testing SBC makes the overall process of testing easier through automating via scripts and also allows a novice with basic understanding of the Session Initiation Protocol to test and debug issues related to the SBC faster

The straw that breaks the camel's back: service provider vulnerability to customer incivility

PurposeUncivil customer behaviour is a concern for service providers and can result in increasing vulnerability for them or their customers. This paper aimed to investigate the interactional link between customer incivility and service provider retaliation and job outcomes. Furthermore, power distance orientation and gender were investigated as potential moderators between customer and retaliation incivilities.Design/methodology/approachFive hypotheses were examined empirically through structural equation modelling. Overall, 679 (356 males and 323 females) service providers recruited across three countries, namely Australia (N = 233), Singapore (N = 199) and the Philippines (N = 247), were surveyed online.FindingsThe results indicated that incivility caused work exhaustion, which negatively impacted job satisfaction. Power distance orientation moderated the association between customer and retaliatory incivilities, leading to exhaustion and dissatisfaction with one's job. Importantly, the results also revealed that the female service providers with a higher power distance tend to instigate incivility compared to their male counterparts.Originality/valueBy incorporating both conservation of resource and negative spiral incivility theories, this study provided an integrated and cohesive explanation for both the direct and interaction effects between customer incivility, retaliatory incivility and work outcomes. In addition, the finding that emotional exhaustion promoted job dissatisfaction highlighted the importance of examining the former's role especially among the female service providers with a higher power distance as they may be less able to restrain their retaliatory behaviours during uncivil incidents. Several practical solutions aimed at reducing the vulnerability encountered by the mistreated service providers were proposed.

The Effect of Proactive Personality, Work-Life Balance and Work Engagement on Turnover Intention

This study aims to seek the determinant of turnover intention in non profit organizaiton. The transfer of employees is an important issue in the organization that management must consider. Efforts to deter this valuable employee are essential. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between proactive personality, work-life balance, and work involvement to the turnover intention, which is gender moderated. This research is expected to add information at the theoretical and scientific level of organizational management and positive managerial implications for the management of profit or non-profit organizations. The data are collected in this study using a survey method with an online questionnaire sampled 210 respondents and the hypothteses are analyzed using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) method This study found that proactive customer service providers were first engaged in their work and showed a low turnover intention. Also, the intention will be low if the work-life balance of the employees is high.

Role of Effective Leadership on Empowerment, Effective Communication, and Motivation in Customer Service

Customer service is the act of supporting customers of a business that can break a business or generate profit in the competitive environment with growing customers’ expectations. Regarding the critical role of customer service to differentiate between businesses, it is considered as one of the top considerations in businesses. However, there is a range of key factors that are tied to the success of a customer service provider in offering quality customer service that will eventually lead the business through exceeding or falling short in responding to customers’ expectations. Besides, businesses are prone to face some challenges in the employment of customer services that are required to be addressed. This paper aims to discuss the importance of customer service and the establishment of an efficient customer service strategy in business considering different influential factors that affect offering quality customer services. It also explains challenges that businesses may face in providing amazing customer services and how to address them.

Identifying Competencies for Leisure and Hospitality Curriculum in a Rural Region

This case study describes how competencies that are common across entities that operate in the leisure and hospitality industry in North Central Idaho were identified. The leisure and hospitality industry is crucial to the economy of many rural regions with scenic surroundings. Tourists’ satisfaction, however, depends on their experiences with frontline staff in the industry and service encounters are among the significant factors for customer satisfaction. Developing curriculum that leads to the proper training of frontline customer service representatives is important. A groupware process using workers in the leisure and hospitality sector was used to identify duties, tasks, general knowledge, skills, and attitudes for a guest relations agent. Issues and future trends were also identified. Results show half of the duties referenced essential interaction with customers, such as communicating to support customers and team, providing customer service, providing product/service/organization information, and providing customer assistance for local and regional activities. Trends and issues also point to the need to be prepared for factors such as outbreak of disease that may affect the operations in the sector.

A survey on providing customer and public administration based services using AI: chatbot.

A chatbot is emerged as an effective tool to address the user queries in automated, most appropriate and accurate way. Depending upon the complexity of the subject domain, researchers are employing variety of soft-computing techniques to make the chatbot user-friendly. It is observed that chatbots have flooded the globe with wide range of services including ordering foods, suggesting products, advising for insurance policies, providing customer support, giving financial assistance, schedule meetings etc. However, public administration based services wherein chatbot intervention influence the most, is not explored yet. This paper discuses about artificial intelligence based chatbots including their applications, challenges, architecture and models. It also talks about evolution of chatbots starting from Turing Test and Rule-based chatbots to advanced Artificial Intelligence based Chatbots (AI-Chatbots). AI-Chatbots are providing much kind of services, which this paper outlines into two main aspects including customer based services and public administration based services. The purpose of this survey is to understand and explore the possibility of customer & public administration services based chatbot. The survey demonstrates that there exist an immense potential in the AI assisted chatbot system for providing customer services and providing better governance in public administration services.

Customer Relationship Proneness: Is It Important for Customer Loyalty?

Abstract. As customer satisfaction and loyalty are crucial elements in increasing company profits, companies must strive to establish good relationships with customers, including in mobile services. Opinions in previous research differ regarding the effect of customer extroversion on satisfaction toward impacting customer loyalty. The present study provides related input and potential solutions. It employs relationship marketing theory with the mediating variable of customer relationship proneness (CRP) added in, testing previous research and ultimately not finding a significant relationship between customer personality (extroversion) and customer satisfaction. Data was obtained via the survey method and structural equation modeling (SEM). The questionnaire serving as the main instrument of data collection is measured by a Likert scale, having been administered to 140 customers of mobile service providers. The findings have practical implications for identifying the effects of personality on customer satisfaction and obtaining customer loyalty in mobile services. This information can better enable mobile service providers to target and retain customers. Keywords: Conscientiousness, extroversion, customer relationship proneness, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty

Emotions' influence on customers’ e-banking satisfaction evaluation in e-service failure and e-service recovery circumstances

The growth in electronic banking platforms resulted in the unintended effect of minimising the customer-service provider physical interactions that were instrumental in managing negative emotions emanating from service failure. This study investigates the influence of emotions related to e -service failure and e -service recovery strategies on customer satisfaction. Cross sectional data was collected from 433 e -banking customers using a structured, respondent administered questionnaire. Respondents were randomly intercepted as they moved out of personal service platforms of four selected banks. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. Emotions were found to have a direct positive influence on customers’ e -banking satisfaction evaluation during e -service failure and e -service recovery. Research was conducted in Marondera, an agro-based emerging town geographically located in Mashonaland East province of Zimbabwe. The generalisation of the study findings in Zimbabwe may be enhanced by extending the study to other cities. During the formulation of e -service marketing strategies, bank managers are encouraged to consider the influence of emotions on customers’ e -banking satisfaction in order to enhance the effectiveness of e -service recovery initiatives. The findings of this study contribute to efforts towards effective management of emotions related to e-service failure and evaluation of e-service recovery strategies, a study area which remains under researched in Zimbabwe's banking sector.

Self-Set learning goals and service performance in a gig economy: A Moderated-Mediation role of improvisation and mindful metacognition

Drawing on goal-setting theory, the current research examines whether the indirect relationship between self-set, rather than assigned or participative, learning goals and an Uber driver’s service performance is positive and significant in an emerging work context, namely, the gig economy. In this regard, we hypothesized that there is a positive, significant relationship between self-set learning goals and a driver’s improvised ways to provide customer service. Building on metacognitive practice, we further hypothesized that a gig driver’s mindful metacognition positively moderates the relationship between improvisation and service performance. The overall hypothesis tested is that the indirect relationship between self-set learning goals and a gig driver’s service performance via improvisation is positive and significant, and this relationship is positively moderated by mindful metacognition. Data were collected from 149 gig drivers. Ordinary least squares regression-based path analyses revealed support for these hypotheses.

Value co-creation in the B2B context: a conceptual framework and its implications

ABSTRACT This study aims to bring a renewed focus on Value Co-Creation (VCC) between an organisation (service provider) and its customers in the business-to-business (B2B) context. From the literature review, a conceptual framework of factors affecting VCC was developed by adding Customer to the Technology-Organisation-Environment framework (T-O-E). The enhanced Customer-Organisation-Technology-Environment (C-O-T-E) framework was empirically investigated from the focal firms’ perspectives using semi-structured interviews with seventeen executives from knowledge-intensive service organisations. The research captured a total of sixteen factors affecting VCC and highlighted co-conception for competition as a new form of co-creation, where the customer-service provider’s long-term relationship positively enables a competitive strategy. These findings have significant implications for how service providers achieve competitive advantage in a challenging B2B marketplace.