BOUNDARY-SPANNING ROLES

• Frontline service employees are referred to as

boundary spanners because they operate at
the organization’s boundary.

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 Who are these boundary
spanners? What types of people
and positions constitute critical
boundary-spanning roles?

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 Examples
• In industries such as fast food, hotel,
telecommunication, and retail, boundary
spanners are generally the least skilled,
lowest-paid employees in the organization.

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• They are order-takers, front-desk employees,
telephone operators, store clerks, truck
drivers, and delivery people.

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• In other industries, boundary spanners are
well-paid, highly educated professionals—for
example, doctors, lawyers, accountants,
consultants, architects, and teachers.

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 Emotional Labor
• Beyond the physical or mental skills needed to
deliver quality service. In general, boundary-
spanning service employees are expected to
align their displayed emotions with
organizationally desired emotions via their use
of emotional labor

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Example
• Such labor includes
delivering smiles, making
eye contact, showing
sincere interest, and
engaging in friendly
conversation with people
who are essentially
strangers and whom they
may never see again.

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• A frontline service employee who is having a
bad day or is not feeling just right is still
expected to put on the face of the
organization when dealing with customers.

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 Example
• One of the clearest examples of emotional
labor is the story (probably apocryphal) of a
flight attendant who was approached by a
businessman, who said, “Let’s have a smile.”
“Okay,” she replied, “I’ll tell you what, first you
smile and then I’ll smile, okay?” He smiled.
“Good,” she said, “now hold that for 15
hours,” and then walked away.

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 Sources of Conflict
• Frontline employees often face interpersonal
and interorganizational conflicts on the job.
Their frustration and confusion can, if left
unattended, lead to stress, job dissatisfaction,
a diminished ability to serve customers, and
burnout.

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Sources of Conflict - Person/Role Conflict

• Sometimes there is a conflict between role

requirements and the self-image or self-
esteem of the employee.

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 Example
• In Israel, most buses are operated by one man, the
driver, who is also responsible for selling tickets. No
trays are installed in buses for the transferring of
bus fare from passenger to driver, and the money is
transferred directly. Bus drivers often complain
about the humiliating experience of having to
stretch out their hands like beggars in order to
collect the fare. Another typical case in Israeli buses
is when money changes hands and a coin falls down
accidentally onto the bus floor. The question, who
will bend down to lift the coin, the driver or the
passenger, clearly reflects the driver’s role conflict.
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• Person/role conflict also arises when
employees are required to wear specific
clothing or change some aspect of their
appearance to conform to the job
requirements.

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Example
• A young lawyer, just
out of school, may
feel an internal
conflict with his
new role when his
employer requires
him to cut his hair
and trade his casual
clothes for a three-
piece suit.
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 Organization/Client Conflict
• A more common type of conflict for frontline
service employees is the conflict between
their two bosses, the organization and the
individual customer.

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• Service employees are typically rewarded for
following certain standards, rules, and
procedures. Ideally these rules and standards
are customer based.

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• When they are not, or when a customer
makes excessive demands, the employee has
to decide whether to follow the organization’s
rules or satisfy the customer’s demands.

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Example
• Management at an
accounting firm may expect
an employee to prepare tax
returns quickly to maximize
revenues during the short
tax preparation season.
However, the employee’s
other boss—the customer
—may expect personalized
attention and a significant
amount of her time in
preparing the return.
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• These conflicts are especially severe when
service employees depend directly on the
customer for income. For example, employees
who depend on tips or commissions are likely
to face greater levels of organization/client
conflict because they have even greater
incentives to identify with the customer.

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 Interclient Conflict
• Sometimes conflict occurs for boundary
spanners when incompatible expectations and
requirements arise from two or more
customers.

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 Example
• When the service provider is serving
customers in turn (a bank teller, a ticketing
agent, a doctor) or is serving many customers
simultaneously (teachers, entertainers)

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Example
• When serving
customers, the provider
may satisfy one
customer by spending
additional time,
customizing the service,
and being very flexible
in meeting the
customer’s needs.
Meanwhile, waiting
customers may become
dissatisfied because
their needs are not
being met in a timely
way.
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 Example
• When serving many customers at the same
time, employees often find it difficult or
impossible to serve the full range of needs of a
group of heterogeneous customers. This type
of conflict is readily apparent in any college
classroom in which the instructor must meet a
multitude of student expectations and
different preferences for formats and style.

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 Quality/Productivity Trade-Offs
• Frontline service workers are asked to be both
effective and efficient: they are expected to
deliver satisfying service to customers and at
the same time to be cost-effective and
productive in what they do.

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 Example
• A physician, is expected to deliver caring,
quality, individualized service to her patients
but at the same time to serve a certain
number of patients within a specified time
frame.

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 Example
• A checker at a grocery store is expected to
know his customers and to be polite and
courteous, yet also process the groceries
accurately and move people through the line
quickly

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STRATEGIES FOR DELIVERING SERVICE QUALITY THROUGH PEOPLE

• These strategies for enabling ser vice promises

are often referred to as internal marketing

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Source: Valarie A. Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner, Dwanye D. Gremler, Ajay Pandit, Services
Marketing - Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm, McGraw Hill (2018).
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