Local and Non-Local Speaker Perception

Numerous studies point out at the increasing customer dissatisfaction with offshored call centers originating from the communication deficiencies (Compass, 2007;

Sharma et al., 2009). Research indicates that customers tend to be less satisfied when interacting with offshored call centers and consequently with non-local speakers (Sharma et al., 2009). As confirmed by the statistical analysis, local and non-local speaker are perceived differently in the same situation. Even though it was supposed that service provided by non-local speaker is perceived more negatively compared to the one conducted by local speaker, data confirmed opposite. Questionnaire included 4 items concerned with service quality perception (satisfaction with complaint handling - S1, solution was customer-friendly - S2, likeliness of future purchase - S3, overall good service impression - S15). Comparing means for all items, non-local speaker received more positive evaluation compared to the local. Nevertheless, difference was not significant for any item. Wang et al. (2009) note that customer satisfaction is strongly affected by the service outcome. Looking for overall scores for perceived service quality, it can be noted that customers were in common not satisfied with this service. All 4 items received relatively low evaluation ranging from 2.73 to 3.60. In this scenario, even though AGENT solved customer´s problem, she advised

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the solution bringing additional effort to client (writing a description of why book is returned). Subsequently, in this regard, the research´s finding (relatively low perceived service quality) is in accordance with Wang et al. assumption.

Review of the literatures indicated two types of qualities customers perceive. To recall, the technical quality is the process outcome, what customers receive as the result of service. Functional quality embraces the service course, how customers receive the service. As Grönroos (2007) notes to reach high customer satisfaction both functional and technical qualities should be excellent meaning that customer receives a great service in a great way. In this scenario, the service quality was considered as rather low by respondents (4 items measuring service quality perception received relatively low evaluation varying from 2.73 to 3.60). These 4 items (satisfaction with complaint handling - S1, solution was customer-friendly - S2, likeliness of future purchase - S3, overall good service impression - S15) measured predominantly technical quality, the level of service itself. Instead, components concerned with functional quality, the way how service was delivered (such as, satisfaction with the AGENT - her politeness and helpfulness) scored higher values (means ranging from 4.2 to 5.3), therefore, functional quality of service was perceived as higher compared to the technical one.

Since the scenarios were identical, the finding of higher perceived service quality in the service conducted by non-local speaker may indicate that customers may possess higher expectations towards service provided by a local speaker. While Barker and Härtel (2004) states out clients have lower expectations towards the quality of service provided by AGENT with different cultural and ethnic background. This assumption is supported by means AGENT´s scored for following items. When stating “I believe

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that Customer Care person did her best to help me”, non-local AGENT was awarded higher scores (5.36 compared to 3.57 for local speaker” but when respondents were asked next to evaluate statement “I believe that other Customer Care person would serve me better” they were predominantly of opinion that other than this non-local AGENT would help them more (3.57 versus 3.39 for local speaker). Therefore, it can be recommended that the provided service may be perceived as sufficient when conducted by non-local speaker but expectations towards service provided by local speaker are to some extent higher and thus, customers were not satisfied with this concrete service encounter. Nevertheless, in the terms of service quality perception, the differences in means were rather small and not statistically significant. Thus, no other conclusions can be drawn apart from the fact that in this concrete situation there were no significant differences in the service quality perception for the local and non-local speaker.

Sharma et al. (2009) state out that non-local speakers are often perceived as less competent. In this research, even though there were no significant variations in terms of service quality perception, the perceived competence was significantly different.

When designing questionnaire, it was intended to include one item directly measuring competence (perception of AGENT´s competence, S5) and one item to evaluate trustworthiness (poor connection as excuse, S13). According to Pearson´s test these items negatively correlate on the significant level (r = .002). T-test rejected null hypotheses in both cases and it was recommended that non-local and local speaker was assigned different level of competence with non-local speaker being perceived as less competent. On the similar note, non-local speaker was perceived also somewhat less trustworthy. In this research, trustworthiness was connected with the need for repeating sentences which AGENT explained by poor phone connection. Respondents

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were asked to evaluate whether they perceive poor connection as a true reason for this situation or could the problem have been caused by AGENT simply does not understanding them. In case of the non-local speaker people predominantly believed that the poor phone connection was just an excuse and AGENT did have problems with understanding all what customer said. Nevertheless, this item is very dependent on the concrete context. Even though the differences in competence and trustworthiness were confirmed in this concrete scenario, they are subject to variation in dependence to the sketched situation. Additionally, as noted in pilot study findings, presence of non-local speaker did not seem to impact on the company´s reliability and trustworthiness as it rather affected customer´s opinion of employee.

It has been recommended that accent forms obstacle in communication and as a result raises likelihood of misunderstanding (Stringfellow et al., 2008). Based on this recommendation, gained data was tested for the difference in level of perceived misunderstanding during the call. Even though customers perceived slightly higher risk of misunderstanding when interacting with non-local speaker (means 3.17 and 3.51 for reversed S11 “There was a high probability of misunderstanding during this call”), t-test recommended retaining null hypothesis meaning that there were no significant differences in this regard. One explanation for this result may be the scenario itself where the customer´s problem was solved. Since client received clear answer to his/her problem, this may have affected the level of the perceived misunderstanding during the call. It would be interesting to see whether significant differences in perception would be obtained when manipulating with the scenario so that customer´s problem is not solved.

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As proved, customers are aware of service being located abroad they become more critical towards the interaction outcome (Sharma et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2009). In this scenario customers were no aware of service being located abroad prior to interaction. Nevertheless, it has been recommended by hypothesis that when interacting with non-local speaker, customers are more likely to suppose that call center is located outside of country (H1). Consequent empirical analysis has proved that there are significant differences in connecting presence of local and non-local speaker with offshored call centers (Means for reversed S14 “I think that call center is located outside of the country” were 3.82 and 4.42 for non-local and local speaker respectively). However, higher likelihood of supposing that call center is being located abroad when interacting with a non-local speaker seems to be rather intuitive.

Taking into account only local speaker´s presence in call center, customer has no reason assuming that the service is offshored. Since pilot study findings indicated rather low awareness of offshoring Customer Cares abroad, it can be recommended that it was presence of this statement in the questionnaire which affected respondent´s opinion about the call center being offshored.