Success factors of service encounter interactions in retail banking

In 2010 the Chair in Corporate Management (Prof. Dr. Marion Büttgen) started an international research project, focusing on the optimization of service encounter interactions in financial industries. The research team includes scholars from TU München (Dr. Jan Schumann) and EMLYON Business School, France (Prof. Dr. Zelal Ates).

Looking at typical financial services it is obvious that different actors are involved in the service production process. Clients expect – especially after the financial crisis – an honest and reliable advisory service from their financial advisors. At the same time financial advisors have to meet their sales targets to satisfy management’s expectations. As a result they find themselves in a difficult situation: If they increase their consulting effort, their productivity may drop and they won’t be able to meet their sales targets. On the other hand, if they reduce their consulting effort, their clients will be dissatisfied, they may lose trust and change their financial advisor. As shown the financial advisor has to meet unfitting interests which result in role conflicts and increased job stress.

Therefore it is important to analyze if these role conflicts influence employee specific performance measures, like employee satisfaction, turn over intention as well as client based performance indicators, like customer satisfaction, churn, or word-of-mouth.

To analyze our assumptions we implemented a research model which combines three phases: Qualitative, quantitative and experimental analysis. The main purpose of this research project is to understand the causes and influences of role conflicts in financial service encounters as well as developing appropriate tools to implement an enduring sales strategy. To do so it is also necessary to take a closer look at pricing and compensation models in order to analyze their influence on expectations and interactions during financial service encounters. In the end our research results will be valuable for all actors in the service encounter: clients, financial advisors and bank managers.