Enhancing the Skills of the Customer Service Employees as a Tool for Improving the Performance of Banks – Investigation of the African Banking Environment
1.0 Research Question
The key question that will be addressed in this study is – How does African banks enhance the skills of their customer service employees? There are five specific areas to be explored such as:
A) How do African banks enhance the knowledge competencies of their customer service employees?
B) How do African banks enhance the commercial competencies of their customer service employees?
C) How do African banks enhance the intellectual competencies of their customer service employees?
D) How do African banks enhance the socioemotional competencies of their customer service employees?
E) How do African banks enhance the interpersonal competencies of their customer service employees?
2.0 Research Aim and Objectives
The main aim of this research is to determine how African banks enhance the skills of customer service employees as a way to improve the performance of the organization. Specifically, the study purports to:
- Determine how African banks improve the knowledge, commercial, intellectual, socioemotional and interpersonal skills of their customer service employees
- Formulate conclusions on customer service enhancement processes within African banks
3.0 Conceptual Framework – Competencies of Customer Service Employees
The study will adapt the competence development framework for the process of enhancing the customer service skills of the employees working in African banks. There are five competences that the customer service employees must develop: knowledge, commercial, intellectual, socioemotional and interpersonal.
1) Knowledge Competencies
This is a threshold requirement for customer service employees. The certain amount of knowledge ensures superior and efficient performance.
2) Commercial Competencies
The customer service employees must develop efficiency orientation and proactivity. The former refers to the development of continuing interest in doing things better and finding the best combination of resources and the latter deals with the development of the urge to initiate action.
3) Intellectual Competencies
There are three components to intellectual competencies: logical thought, conceptualization and diagnostic skills. The first is central on developing the dedication to placing events in a causal sequence. Conceptualization imparts the development of the ability to assemble information and seemingly unrelated ideas and events into a pattern. The development of the ability to apply concepts and theories to real-life situations is the core concept of diagnostic skills.
4) Socioemotional Competencies
Self-control, spontaneity, perceptual objectivity, accurate self-assessment and stamina and adaptability are the ideas under socioemotional context. Developing self-control suggest that employees must be able to place organizational needs above personal reactions while spontaneity is the ability to express ideas freely and easily. The development of perceptual objectivity centers the ability to understand and present contrasting points of view skillfully especially in conflict situations. An awareness of own strengths and weaknesses must be also developed. Similarly, high energy levels and the ability to function effectively under pressure must be also a priority of the Accounting Department.
5) Interpersonal Competencies
There are eight areas that the customer service employees must ponder on including self-confidence, developing others, concern about impact, unilateral power, socialized power, oral communications, positive regard and managing group processes. In sum, the key points are: self-confidence – compelling faith in own ability to attain goals; development of others – conviction about responsibility to help others, to seek and develop disciplines and to coach and counsel; concern about impact – awareness of ‘what I say and do’ which affects the department and the workmates; unilateral power – personal ability to get others to go along with prescribed directions, commands, policies and procedures; socialized power – ability to build a network of alliances and support within and outside the organization; oral communications – ability to speak so that others can understand; positive regard – deeply rooted belief in the ability of others in the department to perform effectively when given a reasonable chance; and management of group processes – ability to inspire team working, cooperation and direct coordination.
4.0 Methodology
The research will utilize exploratory method of research in order to acquire a deeper understanding of existing phenomenon. Exploratory research seeks to find new insights and could use the wealth of the literature. Such research requires an initial research in order to clearly define the nature of the problem and presents both quantitative and qualitative data as well. To arrive at conclusions, the research will be guided by interpretivism as research philosophy. Interpretivists believe in the constructivism theory or the theory of learning where humans construct meaning from current knowledge structures. There is a necessity to explore the subjective meanings that motivate people.
In this study, primary and secondary research will be both incorporated in order to provide adequate discussion for the readers. For this reason, it will help them understand more about the issue and the different facets that are associated with it. The primary data will be represented by the results and analysis of experience surveys and interviews which will be acquired from the respondents. The secondary sources will consists of books, journal, magazine and newspaper articles, related studies and theses and the Internet. The researcher will collate them and extract important themes from those data. Secondary data analysis will be conducted after gathering relevant data needed. Findings will be presented in the literature review section of the research.
The survey method will be used in gathering data for this research. Surveys are the most common method of collecting primary data. The purpose of surveying is to describe or to assess the distribution of some variables within the population. The descriptive attributes of the population is necessary to understand the audience and to define the existence and magnitude of the problems. Survey data also support the determination of cause and effect relationships between the variables.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment