Understanding the Effect of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity on Customers Perceived Service Quality through the Responses of Salespeople

Service quality is an important element of the marketing services that determines the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Because of the interactive characteristics of service, salespeople are the ones who take the important role. As front-liners they are in a unique position as boundary spanners who frequently have to face the demand from the company as well as from the customers. Therefore the front-line position is more likely to get stressful roles such as role conflict and role ambiguity. The following research will examine the effect of role conflict and role ambiguity on customers perceived service quality through the attitudinal and behavioral responses of employees, i.e job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence as mediating variables. Subjects were 103 agents from a life insurance company operating in Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, and its 206 customers. The results of the data processing using Structural Equation Modeling based on Variance-Partial Least Square showed that role conflict had negative and significant effect on emotional intelligence, but it did not affect job satisfaction and self-efficacy. Role ambiguity had negative and significant effect on job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence. Self-efficacy and emotional intelligence had positive and significant effect on customers perceived service quality, but job satisfaction did not significantly affect the perceived service quality. Implications for the sales management and directions for further research are discussed