An ethnography of conversations: A service encounter typology

This dissertation is a non-participant ethnographic study of service encounter conversations. One hundred and fifty complete prerecorded service encounter conversations between callers and their employer's human resource service representative provide the data. Role theory and the biology of language theory are used to understand and explain the interaction that occurs between the caller and service representative.; The prominent perspective in service encounter research is role theory where the service representative is a performer. During the service encounter a service representative acts out a role following a script designed to treat each caller the same. The objectives of the analysis were to identify what service representative speech patterns produced caller satisfaction, and then improve the script. Conversation analysis was used to identify caller and service representative speech patterns by analyzing 17 conversations that all focused on a common objective of updating the caller's address. The results identified were: (a) when the caller used their own name or the service representative's name he/she was satisfied with the service encounter, (b) when the service representatives said they would change the caller's address, used I in reference to making the change or used OK as a sign of listening the caller was satisfied. The reasons for the observed patterns are discussed. The analysis also identified three types of service encounter conversations produced as a result of the dyadic interaction: rote, mentoring, and coaching. Mentoring conversations had the highest caller satisfaction.; The biology of language theory uses Maturana's perspective that the service encounter interaction between the caller and service representative is a biological phenomenon. The interaction follows a process that requires co-orienting, structural coupling and forming domains of consensus. The objective of this analysis using the same 17 conversations was to identify how the caller was co-orienting with the service representative. The results indicate the caller co-oriented by task or identity. Callers who co-oriented on identity had higher satisfaction than those who co-oriented on task. Reasons are discussed.; Implications of these findings for call center managers are presented. First, a new perspective on how to balance the conflicting objectives of caller satisfaction with call center efficiency is offered. Second, service representative training and development is presented from a biology of language perspective.