Profesor Dieter Zapf ( University of Frankfurt, Germany ) , will present a seminar on "The psychology of service organisations: Interacting with customers and clients", during his visit at the University of Valencia.
Seminar titlle: The psychology of service organisations: Interacting with customers and clients. September 14-19 2008, Salon de Grados. Faculty of Psychology. University of Valencia.
All the practical sessions have been supported by a grant from Banco Santander Central Hispano and Spanish Agency of Innovation and Science, MICINN).
Seminar titlle: The psychology of service organisations: Interacting with customers and clients
Abstract
In recent years, antecedents and consequences of service work have received increased attention in work and organizational psychology. As in any other job, service workers have to carry out work tasks requiring some kind of goal-setting, planning and feedback processing. However, at the same time, the social interaction with customers or clients is part of the job. Many organizations are "customer-oriented" and the service workers in these organizations have to behave accordingly. This is often a source of stress but can at the same time be a source of motivation and satisfaction. In the seminar antecedents and consequences of service work will be discussed from various perspectives (customer, service organization, and service employee): (1) Problems of service work from the customers' perspective: How do customers experience service failure, what specific problems do they report and what strategies do service organizations use to recover from these service problems? (2) The linkage of service climate and customer satisfaction; (3) The concept of emotional labour, its antecedents and consequences. Emotional labour has been defined as the regulation of organizationally-desired emotions regarding customer interactions. Service goals such as customer orientation require the display of positive (customer oriented) emotions, even if they are not actually felt (emotional dissonance). Emotional dissonance has been shown to have positive consequences for customers at the expense of the service provider. (4) Consequences for Human Resource Management.
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