Factors affecting service recovery performance and customer service employees A study of Malaysian life insurance industry

Purpose - Service recovery is very important to the insurance industry; it helps to maintain clients, it is a crucial competitive advantage for business survival and it adds value for the organization's continued future. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing service recovery performance (SRP) of customer service employees in the life insurance industry from three dimensions; organizational (customer service orientation and top management commitment), human resource management (rewards, training, teamwork and empowerment) and personal (affective organizational commitment, role ambiguity, role conflict and emotional exhaustion). This study also investigated job satisfaction and the intent to resign. Design/methodology/approach - Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires from 350 customer service staff employed by life insurance companies in the Northern region of Peninsular Malaysia by using a convenience sampling technique. Data were analyzed using multiple regressions. Findings - The findings indicated that customer service orientation, training, empowerment, affective organizational commitment, role stressors and emotional exhaustion influenced staff's SRP. The findings also showed that SRP influenced job satisfaction and intention to resign. Practical implications - The research advances understanding of the influence of organizational, personal and human resource management factors on SRP and result constructs, namely, turnover intentions and job satisfaction. The researchers in Malaysia can use this model for future research in a service sector fields such as banking, retailing and hospitality to replicate and compare this finding. For practitioners especially the managers in insurance services providers can take actions and formulate proper strategies for customer service employees to deliver high level of performance in order to satisfied customer and continue stay in the organizations. Originality/value - Very little attention has been given to examine the impact of human resource, personal and organizational factors on SRP and the influence of SRP on result constructs, namely, job satisfaction and intention to resign in the life insurances area. Furthermore applying equity theory especially in the SRP area was not given fully attention.