Driving service effectiveness through employee-customer linkages

Executive Overview Linkage research provides a powerful tool for service organizations because it identifies those elements of the work environment that are connected, or linked, with important organizational outcomes including customer satisfaction and financial performance. In doing so, linkage research integrates functional areas across the organization, providing managers with a common language and framework for a holistic, strategic measurement system focusing on the shared objective of serving the customer. Data from linkage studies are also used to establish an agenda for improving the practices that matter most for customer satisfaction, and the data serve as useful predictors of future firm performance. This article describes the basic linkage model that connects employees and customers in service organizations. We describe the contexts in which employee opinions are most strongly related to customer outcomes and identify the eight practices that have been found to be important drivers of customer satisfaction.