Chapter 4. Results
4.4 Tests on Hypotheses
This section presents the data for testing the hypotheses on service quality with satisfaction and three behavioral intentions (repurchase, word of mouth, and price premium). The client respondents are first asked to recall their memory of the last experience using conference interpreting service. Based on that experience, the respondents are asked to choose on a seven-point scale to reflect their opinions on the service quality perception, satisfaction level, and willingness to repurchase, recommend, and pay premium.
Respondents are also asked to give their reasons of their ratings. A follow-up question on price premium was then asked to learn the maximum premium acceptable to the respondents.
Four hypotheses are here to be tested:
H1: Positive perceptions of the interpreting service quality will result in satisfaction of the clients using conference interpreting service.
H2: H2: Positive perceptions of the interpreting service quality will increase clients’ repurchase willingness.
H3: Clients will be more willing to recommend the interpreting service provider if their perceptions of the service quality is positive.
H4: Clients will be more willing to pay price premium if their perceptions of the interpreting service quality is positive.
20 client samples gathered are used for SPSS’ correlation analysis to test on the hypotheses, and the results are compiled in Table 4.7. The results show that the correlations of “quality perception of the last service encounter” with “satisfaction level on the service encounter” (.984**), “willingness to repurchase” (.815**), “willingness to recommend”
(.910**), and “willingness to pay price premium” (.522*) are all significant. The four
hypotheses are thus confirmed.
Table 4.7 Results of Correlation Analysis on 4 Hypotheses
H1 Satisfaction level on this
service encounter
Out of 20 client respondents, 2 declines to answer this question, saying that they are unable to decide, as the use of budget in their organization has to comply with certain regulations. Out of 18 responses to this question, 7 (38.9%) can accept price premium between 20-30%, 6 (33.3%) can accept 10-20%, and 3 (16.7%) can accept over 30% of price premium. (Table 4.8) Some respondents from the government sector explained why they
cannot go over certain percentage by saying that though as much as they would prefer to stay with the same practitioners of satisfying quality, they are confined by the government’s regulations and requirements on service purchase.
Table 4.8 Price Premium Acceptable
% of price premium
acceptable Frequency Effective %
Effective
> 0% 2 11.1
> 10% 6 33.3
> 20% 7 38.9
> 30% 3 16.7
Total 18 100.0
Missing Values 2
Total 20
Source: Compiled by this study.
4.5 Validity Test on the Questionnaires and Instruments
Validity tests on the two versions of questionnaires and their dimensions were performed to verify the validity of the instruments. The results (Table 4.9) show that Cronbach’s Alpha value of the two versions of questionnaires and their dimensions are mostly higher than 0.7, except for Service Delivery of Practitioner version (close to 0.6).
This confirms the validity of the questionnaires and instruments used in this study.
Table 4.9 Validity Test Results
Questionnaire Dimensions Number of
Statements Cronbach's Alpha
Client version 31 0.913
Service Delivery 13 0.800
Service Product 13 0.916
Satisfaction/ Behavioral
Intention 5 0.937
Practitioner
version 26 0.835
Service Delivery 13 0.588
Service Product 13 0.862
Source: Compiled by this study.
4.6 Gap Analysis
One of the objectives of this study is to learn if there are gaps between the clients’
expectation on service quality of conference interpreting and the practitioners’ perception of clients’ expectation. T-tests were conducted on the results of the two data sets to verify if significant differences exist. Table 4.10 shows the results of the test. No item is found with significant difference between client and practitioner data sets, suggesting the gap between clients and practitioners does not exist in the data sets of the survey in this study.
Table 4.10 T-Test Results D1_When a client has a problem, excellent
interpreters will show a sincere interest in solving it.
5.80 1.105 5.71 1.724 -0.201
D2_Excellent interpreters will provide the services at the time they promise to do so, including being on time. best interest at heart and respond to unexpected situation with an understanding mind.
6.15 .813 5.65 1.057 -1.635
D6_Excellent interpreters will understand the specific communication objectives of their clients and help achieving such objectives.
6.30 .801 5.94 1.249 -1.020
D7_Excellent interpreters will never be too busy to respond to clients' requests
6.10 .968 5.53 1.231 -1.578
Table 4.10 T-Test Results (continued)
well-prepared with the domain knowledge to understand well the context of the
conference.
6.70 .571 6.41 .870 -1.208
D12_Excellent interpreters will greet with clients before and after the conference and take the initiative to understand clients' demands.
5.60 1.188 5.65 1.498 .107
D13_Once an assignment is confirmed, an excellent interpreter will take the initiative in requesting conference information or reference material.
6.45 .686 5.71 1.572 -1.811
P1_The delivery is consistent with the meaning of the original message.
6.55 .686 6.71 .588 .735
P2_The delivery is coherent and makes sense by itself.
6.25 .851 5.88 1.317 -1.023
P3_The delivery includes the details and nuances of the original message.
5.15 1.226 4.88 1.453 -.608
P4_The delivery extracts the essential and leave out the trimmings.
5.90 1.447 5.24 1.200 -1.504
P5_The delivery uses the correct terminology in the field of conference subject.
6.40 .754 6.24 .752 -.663
P6_The delivery uses the appropriate style that fits the conference settings.
5.95 .887 5.88 1.054 -.212
P7_The delivery is fluent without hesitations or unnecessary pauses.
6.05 .887 6.12 1.054 -.212
P8_The pronunciation of the delivery is (close to) native accent.
6.10 1.021 5.53 1.231 -1.542
P9_The delivery is grammatically correct. 5.70 1.129 5.12 1.166 -1.540
Table 4.10 T-Test Results (continued)
Service Quality Statements
Client Practitioner
T value Mean
Standard
Deviation
Mean
Standard
Deviation P10_The voice of the interpreter is pleasant
to the ears.
5.20 1.322 5.12 1.054 -.207
P11_The delivery is (close to) simultaneous with the original message.
6.05 .759 5.47 1.068 -1.923
P12_The delivery is rhythmic and with right intonation.
5.75 1.118 5.41 .870 -1.013
P13_The delivery is convincing to the audience.
5.70 1.081 5.53 .874 -.521
Source: Compiled by this study.
Chapter 5
Discussions and Conclusions
This study started with the objectives to 1) understand how clients in Taiwan evaluate conference interpreting service by learning their quality expectation; 2) understand how conference interpreters in Taiwan perceive clients expectation of service quality, and if there is any difference from clients’ expectation; 3) develop a client-centric service quality model and assessment instrument of conference interpreting; and 4) verify the impact service quality has on client satisfaction and behavioral intentions in the context of conference interpreting. The following sections will discuss the findings answering to these objectives and the conclusions.
5.1 Service Quality Expectations
The results of this study answer to the question asked in the 1994 conference, “What do clients want?” (Schlesinger, 1997). The answer is, fortunately, not too far from what experienced conference interpreters have already known: this study finds no gap (statistically significant difference) existing between the client expectation of interpreting service quality and the interpreters’ perception of it. However, disagreements are found on the weightings of certain service quality attributes.
The T-test on the service quality scores of clients and practitioners data sets finds no significant difference between the two, denying the existence of service quality expectation gap between Clients and Interpreters. This indicates that the interpreters’ perceptions of clients’ service quality expectation are similar to clients’ own expectation. However, in reading this finding, one should note that the interpreters in the dataset are experienced ones (with an average interpreting experience of 11.8 years).
At the same time, though differences with statistical significance were not found, disagreements on interpreting the service quality attributes and their weightings have been observed between the results of the two data sets. The following sections will discuss the findings on the two service quality dimensions, comparison between client and practitioner results, and the findings different from the previous literature.
5.1.1 Service Delivery
On Service Delivery (functional quality) dimension, the study finds that clients and interpreters share common recognition of the most and least important quality attributes.
The rankings of the 13 attributes based on the means of the two datasets are the same for the No.1, No.2, and No.13:
No.1: Excellent interpreters will provide the services at the time they promise to do so, including being on time.
No.2: Excellent interpreters should be well-prepared with the conference subject to understand well the context of the conference.
No.13: Excellent interpreters should have education backgrounds or working experiences relevant to the conference subject.
However, their opinions disagree in two areas. First, interpreters assumed clients have higher expectation on image-related factors, such as politeness, outfit/looks, and poise, yet clients have comparatively less concern over these factors, as they think the factors have little to none impact on conference interpreters’ performance.
Second, interpreters assumed clients would not expect so much on “interpreting experiences on subjects relevant”, “responsiveness to clients’ requests”, and “initiative to communicate”, while clients think differently. Clients think the later two factors show if the
interpreters have proactive attitude towards the assignment; if the interpreters do not response in-time or take the initiative to communicate, clients would wonder how much the interpreters care for the assignments.
The fact that the clients care less about tangible, image-related quality attributes but value more the intangible quality attributes, such as “attitude” and “communication”, suggests their expectation on interpreting service quality is induced via the “central route”, as described in the ELM model. The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM) is a dual process theory of how attitudes are formed and changed, the model defines two processing routes: central and peripheral. When a person's opinion or attitude is formed through diligent consideration, he or she is likely to follow the central route to persuasion.
In the central route, individuals carefully consider the elements of the message in order to determine whether its proposal makes sense and will benefit them in some way. An attitude formed via the peripheral route does not occur because the individual has considered the pros and cons, but because the object is associated with positive or negative cues (Petty, Cacioppo, & Scumann, 1983).
Taking the “central route” in forming the expectation on interpreting service quality means the clients’ opinions on interpreting service quality result from their diligent consideration of what are central to the true merits of the service. Therefore, tangible quality attributes would have comparatively less impact on their evaluation of the service quality. For interpreters to manage better client relationship, it is important to learn what are considered (by the clients) the “true merits” of conference interpreting service. The results of this study give the interpreters some ideas on what these “true merits” can be.
As for “interpreting experiences on subjects relevant”, several client respondents
mentioned that it is an important qualification indicator for them to identify the right interpreters to work with. The study also finds clients of different industries view the attribute, “educational background or working experiences relevant to the conference subject”, differently. Clients of medical, bio-tech, and law related fields are more likely to give heavier weights to this attribute than clients of other fields.
The responses on the above mentioned qualification criteria suggest that, while most clients understand interpreters are mostly language experts with no other professional backgrounds, they expect, at least, the interpreters to have interpreting experiences on relevant subjects, serving as a quality assurance reference of their interpreting quality in the assignment. Clients of some professional fields, such as biotech, medical, and law, would prefer interpreters with relevant professional backgrounds or working experiences, so that the learning curve of the interpreters on the domain knowledge can be minimized.
When asked for recommendations on additional quality attributes that should be put into the list, responses of clients and interpreters also show different focuses: interpreters’
comments center on inter-cultural capability and language proficiency, while clients’ have a much diversified coverage, including domain knowledge of conference subjects, attitudes and flexibility, language proficiency, smoothly using interpreting equipment, and health condition of interpreters on the conference day. This shows clients value various factors that have direct impact on interpreters’ interaction with clients and interpreters’ performance on the conference day, in addition to language proficiency.
Both the comments and ratings suggest that interpreters need to look beyond interpreting and language expertise and consider conference interpreting quality from broader aspects, particularly the aspect of attitudes, communication, and flexibility.
5.1.2 Service Product
On Service Product (technical quality) dimension, the study finds that clients and interpreters are even more in sync than on service delivery. Not only that they share common recognition of the most and least important quality attributes, their ratings on the items show similar trend. The rankings of the 13 attributes of the two datasets are the same for the No.1, No.2, and No.13:
No.1: The delivery is consistent with the meaning of the original message.
No.2: The delivery uses the correct terminology in the field of conference subject.
No.13: The delivery includes the details and nuances of the original message.
This result confirms again the ultimate position of “sense consistency with original message” even in clients’ perspective. The attribute also ranks No.1 in Bühler’s (1986) study on interpreters and Kurz’ (1989) on users. The importance of “correct terminology”
recognized by the respondents in this study (No.2) is higher than that in Bühler’s, Kurz’, Moser’s (1995), and Vuorikoski’s (1993, 1998) (No. 3). This finding resonates with the high relevancy found of “terminology” in the client satisfaction survey of DG Interpretation, European Commission (see 2.3.4). Moreover, 23% of clients who give positive comments on their last service encounter mention “correct terminology” as one major reason behind satisfaction and their positive behavioral intentions. This clearly shows that “correct terminology” is, in particular, a major quality concern of clients than of other actors (interpreters and audiences) in conference interpreting.
Two findings that show obvious disparity from the previous studies are on
“pronunciation/accent” and “completeness”. “Pronunciation/accent” ranks No. 4 in the clients’ results and No. 6 in the practitioners’. Yet, this attribute was not even in the top 5 in the previous studies on users, and some studies did not even include it in the list for testing
(Kurz 1993; Vuorikoski 1993, 1998; Kopczynski, 1994; Moser, 1995). Though there might be various reasons behind such difference, the fact that the clients (in this study) view this attribute highly reflects what Garzone (2002; p. 118) had put it when explaining why some formal quality attributes, which are considered unimportant by interpreters, might be given more weights by users, as they “not only make the interpretation more pleasant to follow, but are also perceived as indicators of the interpreter’s competence”.
On the other hand, “Completeness” ranks top 2 (Kopczynski, 1994; Moser, 1995) or within top 5 (Kurz 1993) in the previous studies, and it ranks No.13 in this study. As mentioned in chapter 4, clients’ opinions on “essential” are distinctive from one another:
some consider interpretation that simply extracts the essentials is a failed performance, while others noted that a delivery extracting the essentials and making sense by itself is a successful delivery, as it gives the audience a clear picture of the messages speakers try to deliver. An insight can be learned from the above findings: clients want effectively communicative interpretation, be it a delivery extracting the essential or with more details.
This also suggests the importance of understanding clients’ communication objectives, as it would define whether interpreting the essentials or completeness of the message is considered more effective.
5.1.3 Conclusions on Service Quality
The average mean of Service Delivery dimension (5.97) is higher than that of Service Product dimension (5.90) and with a lower standard deviation (0.96<1.05), suggesting clients hold higher expectation for Service Delivery (with a higher consensus) than for Service Product. This finding indirectly supports Grönroos’ (1984) notion that:
“functional quality is more important to the perceived service than the technical quality, at least as long as the latter quality dimension is on a satisfactory level.”
The notion is also supported by the comments made by clients on the reasons behind their positive/negative quality perception, satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and negative/positive behavioral intentions. Out of 12 positive comments made, functional quality is mentioned 7 times (58%), and 3 out of the 7 times, functional quality is mentioned in the absence of technical quality. When technical quality is addressed in those comments, it is not referred to as excellent performance in all aspects, but good in one or two quality attributes (i.e. fluency, terminology, etc.). Moreover, in all the 7 comments where functional quality is mentioned,
“attitude” is mentioned. On the other hand, the negative comments focus solely on technical quality. This implies that a “satisfactory level” of technical quality in conference interpreting is the prerequisite to positive quality perceptions and satisfaction of clients, but beyond that level, functional quality starts to play a vital role.
This study has been the first empirical study on client expectation regarding both the functional and technical quality attributes of conference interpreting. Functional quality in conference interpreting settings has been overlooked perhaps because conference interpreting cases (at least in Taiwan) mostly come from agents, and the responsibility of interaction with the clients is thought to be on the agent’s shoulder; therefore, interpreters pay less attention to the details of the functional quality. However, in a highly competitive market as it is today, interpreters who wish to advance their business beyond the network of agents should acknowledge the significance of functional quality, particularly the attributes related to attitude, communication, and flexibility.
5.2 Service Quality, Satisfaction, and Behavioral Intentions
This study finds that the perceived service quality of conference interpreting has a highly positive correlation with client satisfaction, repurchase willingness, and word of mouth. Its correlation with price premium is also positive, though not as highly as the other three constructs. These findings signify the critical role service quality plays in clients’
decision making process and imply that, to ensure client retention and gain referrals, conference interpreters need to deliver satisfactory service quality in terms of both technical and functional quality.
Comments of clients on reasons behind their positive/negative quality perception, satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and negative/positive behavioral intentions provide additional insights on quality perception. Several quality attributes are highlighted as major contributors to the positive comments, including:
Technical quality: fluency (most mentioned), terminology (most mentioned), essentials , accents, prosody, fidelity
Functional quality: proactive attitudes (most mentioned), initiative to communicate (most mentioned), cooperative, friendliness
On the other hand, negative comments focus solely on technical quality, including:
fidelity (most mentioned), synchronicity, fluency, terminology, and cohesion. Looking through the above lists, the key quality attributes contributing to quality perception and satisfaction of clients can be identified, which supports the notion made by Garzone (2002, p. 119), “although...elements such as style, choice of register, prosody, fluency et. are not considered essential, these elements do in fact have a marked impact on the norms users apply when they evaluate real performances”.
Responses on acceptable percentage of price premium suggest rewards over satisfying service quality: as much as 72% of clients responding to the question are willing to pay price premium, ranging 10-20%, for interpreters whose service quality perceived is satisfying;
some of them cannot afford more due to government purchase requirements. 17% of the respondents are willing to accept over 30% price premium for those interpreters they have worked with for some time, mainly because the interpreters deliver consistent satisfying service quality, while at the same time, their knowledge about the clients’ business grows deeper.
The above findings are encouraging for interpreting community’s endeavors in quality assurance, and can be leveraged in the promotion of quality management in this profession.
However, the focus of quality management should, as repeatedly stated throughout this chapter, go beyond technical quality and starts with functional quality and others.
5.3 Application of Service Quality Instrument of Conference Interpreting
As an attempt to answer the calls for a service quality measurement instrument of
As an attempt to answer the calls for a service quality measurement instrument of