Analysing the preferred characteristics of frontline employees dealing with customer complaints: A cross‐national Kano study

Recent research in customer satisfaction suggests that attributes of products and services can be classified into three categories, must-be factors, one-dimensional factors and excitement factors, which all affect customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. These originate from Kano’s model (1984) that allows researchers to gain a deeper understanding of customer preferences by analysing how they evaluate and perceive product or service attributes. This paper uses the Kano model to gain a deeper understanding of attributes of effective frontline employees dealing with customer complainants in personal interactions. For products such as the TV remote control, Kano (2001; 2006) showed that excitement factors deteriorate to must-be factors over time. This research investigates whether the same phenomenon holds true for attributes of service employees. Data were collected from 197 respondents with complaining experience in the UK and Saudi Arabia, these being two countries at different stages of service sector development and the analysis of the Kano maps reveal significant differences between the two countries