Category: MBA Dissertations

Findings from the interview with service employees 

Challenges faced by part-time international student employees

The responses of service employees are gathered through semi-structured interviews to present as challenges faced by them. When interviewed about the difficulties faced by him in dealing with customers, Employee A said:

“I have been working as a part-time employee for the last six months. I am from India and I used to struggle to pick the slang of local customers. I used to ask some customers to repeat their words. This irked many customers and as a result of that I received negative feedback from the customers when they mentioned their views in the feedback form. However, I slowly improved with time and now I am quite comfortable in picking up  the slang of local customers. In my early days I was shocked to see a customer complaining that I am rude. I was shocked because I felt that I didn’t speak in a rude manner. When I spoke to my department manager, I was asked whether I missed some of the words like “thank you”, “hello”, “sorry”, “please” and “cheers” in my conversation. I came to know then that I rarely used those words. My manager explained the importance of such words in my communication style.”

Employee B :.

“I have been working in the store for the last two months. I found my job challenging when I was put in a situation where I had to rush while dealing with customers. This hampers my ability to effectively deliver the intended service to the customers. Besides that, I had to tell lies at times to convince the customer in order to encourage buying. This is a kind of gamble as it carries the risk of attaining negative feedback if they spot out that I am lying. But if can convince them, my performance is enhanced in terms of the number of items sold per month.”

Employee C:

 “I have been working in the store for the last four months. At times, I had to face some tough situations when I had to incur the wrath of the employees. It is very challenging to stay calm so as to not match their turn .”

The semi-structured interviews conducted with the customers helped in revealing opinions pertaining to their experience with local employees who are not students. Customer A :

“I usually prefer interacting with the same service employee whenever I make a purchase from the groceries department. He is quite helpful to me in giving information about the new arrivals and new offers. He understands my needs and utilities as we have developed a sort of personal connection with repeated visits to the store. The reasons for strong personal connection may be due to the fact that he is empathetic, friendly and reliable.”

Customer B when asked about her experience said:

“I was always greeted by the employees I identified as the local ones soon after entering the store. Besides that,  the body languages of the local employees suggest that they are quite accommodative, affable which is very pleasing.”

Customer C when asked about his experience mentioned that

“I found local employees to be more active and are characterised by socially acceptable facial expressions. This creates a cheerful environment at the time of purchase. Moreover, this ultimately leads to satisfied shopping experience .” 

Findings from the interview with Customers

The customers experience with part-time international service employees is derived from their opinions revealed in the semi-structured interviews. The experience of customers is considered to understand their problems in dealing with part-time international student employees. One of the customers, Customer A, a middle aged 26 year old white man  revealed his experience with part-time international service employees as follows.

“It happened when I visited the store for the first time when I faced an employee who was an international part-time student. As I was looking around the store, a Nikon camera caught my eye and one of the employees came forward to explain the features of the camera. He gave a brief demo about the camera. Then, as I had some doubts, I asked few questions to which I received irrelevant answers. I asked him repeatedly the same question so as to make it clear. Then, I thought that it is my slang that is troubling him in understanding my queries. He did not even bothered to call his department manager to clear the issue. I found that he was not concerned to clarify the issue and simply let the issue pass on. Moreover, he seemed somewhat abrupt and authoritarian to the point of being abrupt  in the style of his communication although he was resourceful.

Customer B, a 35 year old woman of Afro Caribbean origin revealed her experience:

“I am a frequent customer of the store. I have encountered many sales employees both local and foreign students. I never had a strong rapport with a foreign student employee although I found them friendly and empathetic. I never faced any serious issue with part-time international service employees. I used to have a strong rapport with a local employee who used to work in this store. From then on, I did not have a  rapport with any local employees. The main reason behind it may be due to their short stint with the store.”

Customer  C, a 50 year old male of Indian descent  said:

“I am a regular customer to the store. In my shopping experience till date with the store, I observed that the part-time student employees are less patient in hearing my concerns and my requirements. They tend to rush off without listening to me completely. I observed that they interrupt me in the middle of my sentence and they start talking without completely listening to my opinions. This is generally not observed in the behaviour of  local people who are employees”

The managers play a significant role in the betterment of communication of employees. The role of the managers is investigated from their opinions revealed in the semi-structured interviews. When asked about the role of management in improving the communication of part-time international service employees, the first manager responded in the following manner.

“I regularly interact with the customer service employees under my department. Sometimes, the part-time international service employees who are generally new to the  job find it difficult to get the accent of local customers. I make myself available to the employees so that they direct the customers to me when they find it difficult to understand their accent. I clear the queries of the customers in the presence of employees. This leads to a learning experience for the employees from which they can improve their listening and problem solving skills which are part of the communication process. So, I feel that the manager should be friendly and affable towards part-time international employees in order to help them improve their communication styles.”

Manager B when asked about the role of managers in improving the communication of part-time international students responded in the following manner.

“I feel that recognition of employee performance also plays a key role in the betterment of his performance as a good communicator in the service context. I regularly review the performance of service employees to identify who is performing well so that I can encourage them to perform better. I focus on the identification of star performers so as to provide leverage in some issues in order to nurture problem solving skills. This is a sort of empowerment of service employees. I feel this exercise of empowerment of service employees reinforce self-efficacy which leads to self-confidence and the results can be reflected in their performance.

When asked about the role of manager in improving the communication of employees, Manager C said:

“I make myself approachable to the service employees of my department. I reckon that personal accountability of managers in service employees’ communication process can foster the performance of service employees. I convey a strong message to the customers that am readily available to solve the problems encountered by service employees while dealing with customers. This is a practice of nurturing shared problem solving which I consider indispensible for improving the communication of service employees.  This equips the employees with necessary skills so as to easily deal with customers and negotiate them. Moreover, I stress the importance of upward communication which means useful communication between the manager and the employee.

This reflects in the better communication of part-time international service employees. Upward communication in retail supermarkets like Sainsbury fosters a relational link between the manager and the employees which reinforces the  trust and reliability of employees in relation to their  managers. These factors contribute to improved confidence levels of part-time service employees which ultimately lead to effective communication. 

The training program prior to the conduct of regular job activities include those key elements of communication which are applied regularly in day to day job activities. The key issues related to the communication process dealt in the training program are investigated from the opinions of the managers. All the three managers expressed more or less the same opinion regarding this issue. Hence the opinions of all the managers is consolidated and presented as below.

“A three day training program is conducted with the part-time international students employees to handle the customers in the desired manner characterised by empathy, kindliness, friendliness etc. In the first two days, a special certified trainer is appointed to clearly deliver and explain the key aspects of the communication process. In the first two days, a special CD is shown to these employees that highlight the key issues in handling the customers. The CD talks about issues like how to handle abusive customers, how to stay calm in customer service as a part of a good communication process and how to empathize with customers.

The CD demonstrates that the communication process of service employees should not match with the angry tone of the customers. Moreover, the CD suggests to the employees to concentrate more on what you can do rather than what you cannot do. The CD talks about empathy in detail which defines that empathy means a deeper understanding of customer’s problem by focusing on what customers have to say. This focus on others leads to a feeling of trust and reliability on the service employees which is a part of the effective communication process.

The aspect of staying calm in dealing with angry customers is dealt with in more detail where the stress is expressed  through the tone of the service employees when the customer is angry. The employee can pacify the situation by maintaining a regular tone characterised by professionalism. This automatically helps in reducing the tone and anger of the customers thereby easing the situation. Moreover, the importance of courtesy should not be undermined. This is hallmark of good communication skills. To be courteous is to talk to the people the way you wanted to be talked to.

Another highlight of the effective communication process includes helpfulness. To be helpful, an employee should be resourceful enough to clear the doubts of customers so as to provide the required information needed by the customers. Another important aspect is to follow up. A good communicator follows up regularly with calls. If a service employee makes any promise that is to be fulfilled in the next visit during the negotiation process, he should not fail to keep up the promise. Else, it is not advisable to promise the customer. 

Major shortcomings in communication identified  in international students who are  employees in Sainsburys Richmond

Some of the questions in the semi-structured interviews aim at collecting data pertaining to the shortcomings of communication process that is generally observed in the part time employees who are international students. When asked about the issue, Manager A said:

“I feel that the virtues like gratitude, empathy and friendliness are quintessential for effective communication process. These qualities are observed to be missing in many international employees. These qualities provide the basis for phrases like ‘thank you’, ‘cheers’, ‘sorry’, ‘please’ etc. “

Manager B when asked about the shortcomings observed in the communication process of part-time international service employees expressed his views in the following manner:

“Though some of the international students have good English, their use of language and their body language depicts that they are affirmative and commanding which does not go well in the service context as customers expect more of a friendly and empathetic style of communication rather than affirmative style”

When the same question was addressed to manager C, he stressed about the slang of the service employees in the communication process more than any other thing. He said:

“The slang of part-time international employees, particularly Indians, is a bit fast and less intelligible compared to the usual slang of the local people. This, at times results in a communication gap, which consequently stands as a hindrance to the communication process. Even though this aspect is particularly stressed in the training process in order to slow it down, not much progress is seen in the regular communication style of part time international employees.”

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 

This section presents the data collected from the participants who are involved in the case study through semi-structured interviews. The gathered data is analyzed and interpreted and presented as findings. The findings are organised under three categories, namely from the interviewed managers, from  the responding employees and the participating customers. These findings are collated to provide answers to the research questions in the light of analysis. The analysis is carried out by comparing the findings with the relevant themes identified in the literature review section.

Findings from the qualitative study

All the findings are presented as the opinions of the managers, customers and employees with the use of primary data collection techniques by employing qualitative techniques. The findings of the qualitative study facilitate provide answers to research questions which meet the research objectives in order to solve the research problem. The secondary data in the form of web reports is used if necessary to supplement the primary qualitative data.

Findings from the interviews with managers

The findings from the interviews with managers mainly focus on the role of management in identifying the shortcomings in the communication styles of part-time international employees who are students and improving the communication of employees who are part-time international students.

Research Design Implemented

The research design includes the conceptual framework of the research process which involves the data collection process and the sampling techniques employed for the conduct of the research. It is the blueprint of the procedure which contains the tools employed for data collection process and data analysis. The research design encompasses the kind of research strategy employed for the conduct of research upon which the data collection methods and the sample size and techniques are based. The research design in this particular dissertation involves the use of case study research strategy where the data is collected from the participants belonging to Sainsbury which includes the customers, employees and the managers of Sainsbury. The data is collected using semi-structured interviews. The interviews are useful as they allow probing questions for further information.

Case Study

A case study is an in-depth empirical investigation of a situation to understand and answer the how and why questions pertaining to a particular phenomenon. It refers to gathering information about a particular individual or a group in order to gain a holistic view about the subject of study .A case study approach is a holistic approach to observe the situation and gather valuable insights from the participants in the situation to explore phenomena.

A case study approach does not attempt at proving a generalised truth nor does it attempt at establishing a cause effect relationship but it attempts at empirical investigation of a phenomena.  A case study approach is particularly chosen when there does not exist much prevalent theory about the situation. It is used to explore a phenomenon based on the real life context. A case study employs the use of qualitative analysis in gathering the data.

A case study analysis proceeds on the lines of studying the situation to pose further questions for the research. In the statistical methods, the study is focussed on the distribution of variables while in the case study, it attempts in defining a variety of variables related to the subject of study. A case study is a consideration of the characteristics of participants, the cultural norms, the demographic analysis and the nature of the context which serve as useful inputs for answering the research problem to come up with plausible conclusions.

            The research design in the case study includes the collection of data and analysing it to meet the research objectives through concerned data collection methods and techniques. The research design takes the following aspects in consideration: to devise the relevant questions upon which the study proceeds, to identify what data is relevant, to have a clear idea of what data is  to be collected and finally to analyse the given data according the research problem. (CR, 2004)

Data Collection methods

The practice of data collection proceeds in the lines of the identified research questions whose answers can potentially solve the research problem. The data collection process revolves around these research questions taking the case of Sainsbury in this study. In general, primary or secondary data pertaining to these research questions can be used as a mode of data collection process.

Primary source of Information

The information gathered directly from the respondents is considered as a primary source of information. In most qualitative analysis, primary information is gathered mostly in the form of in depth interviews or semi-structured interviews.  Semi structured questionnaires include open ended questions and call for a subjective information while structured questionnaires tend to be close ended and seek for objective responses based on, for example, Likert scale measures. However, in this case-study, primary information is gathered through semi-structured interviews to gather in-depth insights about the issues relevant to the research objectives.

The open ended questions are designed in such a way that additional questions may arise depending upon the responses of the participants. The interviews with the managers generally include questions related to improving the style of communication of the part-time international students while the interviews with the customers contain questions about the satisfaction levels of customers and their problems with regard to the communication style of part-time international students. The interviews with the international students generally contain their demographic data, background, their approach and style of communication.

        The semi-structured interviews are conducted with three managers, three customers and three part-time international service employees in order to collect the required information so as to present them as findings. The interview is preceded by a note of confidentiality and is conducted on a one to one basis for the three managers, three part-time international service employees and three customers. Every interview lasted for about 45 minutes. The interviews was conducted on 27^th and28^th  August during the afternoon. 

Secondary source of information

The secondary source of information aims at gathering information which, although relevant,  is not directly related to the topic of the research. It takes information from survey reports, annual company reports and documents useful to the case. Secondary sources of information are less time consuming to access, however the choice of such sources depends on their relevance to the research questions.

Research Sample

The data collection method starts with the activity of sampling. The sampling is based on non-probability sampling techniques. In this research, interviews are carried out with three managers, three local customers and four employees, representing small convenience samples of each category, which allows the researcher to gain in depth information about the topic. The data gathered from the interviews is interpreted and collated to answer the research questions. 

Sampling technique

The sampling technique enables to choose the sample type for the intended data collection process. Sampling is about selecting a small set of respondents who represent the entire population. There are two types of sampling strategies namely probability sampling and non-probability sampling. The participants may represent a cross section of population or may be a set of target groups which are chosen by researcher according to his/her discretion. Non probabilistic sampling is that type of sampling where the researcher has minimal control of whom being selected for the research. The sampling technique used here is non-probabilistic purposive sampling. 

Qualitative vs Quantitative approaches

A qualitative approach to research is based on non-statistical techniques, such as narrative analysis. The qualitative research methodology is applied when the nature of the research problem contains an understanding of intangible elements like attitudes, values, perceptions, satisfaction levels etc. The approach of qualitative analysis proceeds mostly by collecting data through participant observation, in depth interviews, etc. The research strategies that generally come under qualitative analysis includes case studies, focus group study, ethnographic study etc. 

Qualitative analysis complies with an interpretivist research philosophy and an inductive research approach. The data collected from qualitative analysis is subjective in nature where the data collected represent the opinions or insights of people about a particular idea (Peter, 2006). The data collection methods involved in qualitative analysis are flexible and loosely structured.

Moreover, qualitative data collection methods enable for further investigation as the questionnaires used in the collection of qualitative data analysis are in-depth or semi structured.. Qualitative analysis is a time consuming process. The researcher needs to ensure that he/she do not involves themselves emotionally in order to reduce  bias due to the closeness of the researcher to the respondents. Qualitative analysis proceeds in the direction of exploring a phenomena rather than testing a hypothesis.

            Quantitative methods employ statistical techniques to measure or quantify the data in order to establish certain causal relationships between the variables identified in the research problem. The variables are identified and quantified to establish relationships in the quantitative analysis. Quantitative analysis complies with a positivist research philosophy and deductive research approach.

Quantitative data are used in testing the hypothesis using various statistical tests like t-tests, chi-square tests, F-tests etc. The data collection process is more rigid and highly structured. The quantitative analysis seeks objective opinions in the form of surveys involving structured questionnaires with close ended questions. The results obtained from the conduct of research through quantitative techniques can be directly collated to test the hypothesis. Quantitative research is generally conducted by employing large samples. The common measures involved in quantitative analysis constitute mean, median, standard deviation, correlation etc. These are helpful in establishing the relationships between the variables.

       In this dissertation a qualitative analysis is used as the nature of the research problem calls for an investigative approach which is informed by an interpretivist philosophy and an inductive approach. As the research is performed in Sainsbury, the research strategy is a case study. The case study is undertaken to gather the opinions of the participants through semi-structured interviews by circulating semi structured questionnaires.

As the research is conducted to gather information about the issues like the satisfaction levels of customers with the local employees, measures employed by the management to improve the communication efficiency of local students working as part time employees, it is rational to apply a qualitative analysis which revolves around an exploratory study taking the note of observations and insights. This data gathered through qualitative techniques is collated to answer the identified research questions and thereby analysed to answer the research problem.