顧客轉換身分為前線服務人員之探索性研究

Changing from A Customer to A Frontline Service Employee：An Exploratory Study

翁宛婷

指導教授 ： 王貞雅

國立清華大學/科技管理學院/服務科學研究所/碩士(2013年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2013.00480

摘要

本研究主要是在探討顧客轉換身份為前線服務人員之原因及類型。近年來，顧客轉換身分為前線服務人員(Customer-Frontline Employee)的情形日漸增加，像是在薰衣草、星巴克、誠品等企業當中，有一定比例的前線服務人員是由顧客身分轉換而來。這些員工可以幫助企業了解顧客心中對於雇主品牌(Employer Branding)的想法。根據過去文獻研究，雇主品牌可以吸引到相對較有潛力的員工；顧客若在服務體驗的過程當中感受到越正面的雇主品牌，其成為前線服務人員時，亦會展現較高工作投入(Job Engagement)。因此，探討此議題有助企業瞭解並設計吸引潛在員工之政策。
　　基於過去對此議題的研究甚少，本研究採取探索性質性研究。研究對象為15名符合「在求職時，因過去的服務體驗，進而擔任該企業的前線服務人員」情境設定之觀光餐飲業前線服務人員，透過問卷初步暸解其就業考量因素及工作態度，再進行深度訪談探究其就業考量因素、工作態度及服務體驗經驗。將訪談記錄進行質性分析歸納與討論之。
　　本研究提出顧客轉換身分之前線服務人員就業可能因素及其工作投入狀況，更進一步將員工劃分為四大類型。實務上可瞭解顧客、潛在員工對於企業的想法，亦可提供此類型員工工作表現狀況，讓企業、人資單位作為招募、規劃雇主品牌之參考；而學術上除了將服務體驗納進前線服務人員工作選擇因素探討，亦提供對此類型員工之了解。

關鍵字

工作選擇 ； 服務體驗 ； 顧客轉換之前線服務人員 ； 工作投入 ； 質性研究

並列摘要

This study primarily seeks to explore the antecedents and types of people who changed from a customer to a frontline service employee, which is referred as a “customer-frontline employee” in this study. In recent years, many companies started to hire customer-frontline employees. For example, among enterprises such as Lavender Cottage, Starbucks, and Eslite, a proportion of frontline service employees came from customers, who could help companies to understand the employer branding (means to be understood as the set of distinctive images of a prospective employer, which are manifest in the minds of the target groups) in the customer’s mind. The existing literature indicated that employer branding could attract potential employees, and those employees usually have higher job engagement. Therefore, probing into this issue is beneficial for businesses to design the strategies to attract more potential employees.
There was little research on this topic of customer becoming frontline employees, so this study took the exploratory research. Fifteen hospitality frontline employees who used to look for the frontline service jobs in the company they were once customers, were interviewed. The methodology started with understanding the reasons of their job choice and work attitude via questionnaire, and then explored their employment considerations, work attitude and service experience by in-depth interviews. Lastly, results were generalized and discussed after the qualitative analysis of verbatim. The aim of this research is to explore the phenomenon of customer-frontline employee through the exploration, description, and classification of the types and antecedents of changing from the customer to a frontline employee. There are also some findings about the job engagement of those customer-employees. .
The findings provide several implications for researchers and managers. From a managerial perspective, this study provides human resources department some ideas about the design of the recruitment program, and employer branding. From the academic perspective, realized why the customer-frontline employees cause of choosing jobs by taking the “service experience” into account.
Keywords：job choice；service experience；customer-frontline employee；job engagement；Qualitative Research

參考文獻

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