Luận văn thạc sĩ UEH factors affecting the utilization centerin customer service by firms in vietnam

NGUYEN QUOC VIEN

FACTORS AFFECTING THE UTILIZATION OF CALL

CENTERIN CUSTOMER SERVICE BY FIRMS

IN VIETNAM MARKET

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City - year 2014

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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NGUYEN QUOC VIEN

FACTORS AFFECTING THE UTILIZATION OF CALL

CENTERIN CUSTOMER SERVICE BY FIRMS

IN VIETNAM MARKET

ID: 22110079

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

SUPERVISOR: Dr. ĐINH THAI HOANG

Ho Chi Minh City - year 2014

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

During the process of writing my thesis, I had coped with difficulties and obstacle that

I could not anticipate. The pressure of daily work seems to make me give up my study.

However, thanks to the encouraging of my supervisor, Dr. Dinh Thai Hoang, I was received a

great will to overcome step by step the difficulties.

I own my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Dinh Thai Hoang, who with his

wide research experience, guided me to complete this topic. Without his continuous support,

encouragement, and enthusiasm, this research would hardly have been completed.

I am indebted to Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tho for his immeasurable amount of teaching and

guidance during the research design course. I would like to thank Ms. Thai Thi Thu Giang,

my friend at University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, who introduced me the MBUS

course at ISB and encouraged me to go to the end of the course.

I also express my warmest gratitude to my professors at ISB, University of Economics

Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my MBUS course I wish to thank

warmly my classmates who showed their teamwork spirit and willingness to help each other

to complete our theses.

Finally, this thesis is dedicated to my beloved parent and daughter who understand,

encourage, and sympathize with me especially in making the convenient environment during

my work of this dissertation.

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ABSTRACT

This thesis aims to investigate the factors that affect the utilization of call center in

customer service by firms in Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh City – a biggest and

dynamic center business of Vietnam. Many Vietnamese firms are using the call center as a

tool for their customer service channel; however, the benefits that Vietnamese customer

orientation firms or broader the orientation market firms gain from its customer focus or

market focus through call center system either directly or indirectly remain unknown. The

study uses quantitative research method with the sample size of 230 enterprises including

firms are utilizing the call center for their own, firms are using the call center outsourcing

service and firms have hotline number to serve their customers. The reliability, convergent

and discriminant validity of scales was tested by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient and

exploratory factor analysis then regression analysis was done to find out the correlation

between the concepts in the theoretical model. This study finds that the key concepts in the

technology acceptance model (TAM), perceived ease of use of the call center, cannot be used

to predict call center utilization by organizations. Other concepts: perceived usefulness of call

center, market orientation and service innovation are predictors of call center utilization.

Learning orientation facilitates market orientation, perceived usefulness and perceived ease

of use of the call center by Vietnamese firms. The result of this research assist in identifying

keys factors that lead Vietnamese firms to adopt using the call center as a tool to take care,

retain their customers and develop market in globalization stage; moreover, this study shows

that both large enterprises and SME also gain the benefits from using call center by choosing

the right form of call center investment; owning a call center or using call center outsourcing.

Keywords: Call center utilization, market orientation, learning orientation, contact

center in Vietnam.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..............................................................................................................1

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................2

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES................................................................................................5

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................6

1.1. Contact center introduction..........................................................................................6

1.2. Research background...................................................................................................7

1.3. Research problem.........................................................................................................8

1.4. Research objective .......................................................................................................9

1.5. Thesis structure ..........................................................................................................10

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW & HYPOTHESES ........................................................11

2.1. Technology Acceptance Model – TAM .....................................................................11

2.2. TAM and contact center utilization ............................................................................12

2.3. Market and learning orientations and intention to adopt call center system...............15

2.4. Service innovation and call center utilization.............................................................18

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD .........................................................................................21

3.1. Measurement...............................................................................................................21

3.2. Quality study...............................................................................................................23

3.3. The sample ..................................................................................................................24

3.4. Data collection, purifying and coding data .................................................................24

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS ....................................................................26

4.1. Descriptive statistics ...................................................................................................26

4.2. Reliability statistic ......................................................................................................28

4.2.1. Market Orientation Cronbach’s Alpha.........................................................28

a. Customer orientation..............................................................................28

b. Competitor orientation...........................................................................29

c. interfunctional coordinator.....................................................................30

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4.2.2. Learning orientation Cronbach’s Alpha.......................................................31

a. Commitment to learning ........................................................................31

b. Shared vision..........................................................................................32

c. Open mindedness...................................................................................33

4.2.3. Perceived usefulness of call center ..............................................................33

4.2.4. Perceived easy to use call center..................................................................34

4.2.5. Service Innovation .......................................................................................35

4.3. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)............................................................................36

4.3.1. EFA of Market orientation concept..................................................................36

4.3.2. EFA of Learning orientation ............................................................................37

4.3.3. EFA of Perceived usefulness, Perceived ease of use and Service innovation .39

4.4. Correlations analysis...................................................................................................41

4.5. Regression Analysis....................................................................................................42

4.6. Discussion...................................................................................................................50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................54

5.1. Management implication ............................................................................................55

5.2. Limitation and directions for future research..............................................................56

REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................58

APPENDIX 1: Research process...................................................................................................65

APPENDIX 2: Scale Items............................................................................................................66

APPENDIX 3: Scale Items refinement..........................................................................................69

APPENDIX 4: Factor analysis.......................................................................................................72

APPENDIX 5: Regression analysis...............................................................................................75

APPENDIX 6: The result of qualitative survey.............................................................................77

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1: Theory of reasoned action ..............................................................................................11

Figure 2: Original technology acceptance model ..........................................................................12

Figure 3: A conceptual model of call center utilization.................................................................19

Figure 4: Model regression results.................................................................................................49

Table -5: Cronbach’s Alpha of three components in Market orientation concept.........................31

Table-10: Cronbach’s Alpha of three components in Learning orientation concept.....................33

Table-28: Correlations (see appendix 4)........................................................................................74

Table-45: The summary of verifying hypothesis in conceptual model .........................................49

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Contact center introduction

Nowadays, people regularly receive calls or messages from the customer service

center of telecommunication companies, banks, insurance organizations, hospitals,

transportation companies, game online companies and consumer firms… or even calls for

telesales and telemarketing. The question is how they can make a lot of calls; send a hundreds

of messages at the same time to their customers, how they can remember all the customer

numbers and detail of each transaction. That is a call center; thus, what is the call center?

As defined by North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC), call center is a place

where contacts are made and received. It is often the “front door” to a business and is the

place where most crucial customer interactions take place. Therefore, its effective and

efficient operation is a key ingredient to the overall success of any organization (NAQC,

2010). There are five main operational functions in any type of call center: workforce

management, quality management, technology management, report and communications and

financial management.

Call centers provide a single contact for customers who may try to reach a company

via multiple channels: e-mail, Web chat, fax, and phone, short message service (SMS) or

VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). Call centers, often called contact centers to reflect the

multiple points of access, provide staff with consistent information throughout an integrated

system; the term call center is used interchangeably with contact center. These centers

capture data from across the enterprise and consolidate customer-related information into a

central database. This integration improves the customer's interaction and satisfaction and

enhances the efficiency of the business operation (Duane Sharp, 2003).

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