COVID, Customer Loyalty, and Sacrificial HR Strategies Among Customer Service Representatives - Evidence Across Industries

Customer service is a straightforward concept and its effects are widely studied and well known.  No one would disagree that good customer service has a crucial and positive impact on firm profitability (Goodwin, 1992) so why do so many firms continue to provide poor customer service?  Research indicates that instead of viewing customer service as an external customer issue, perhaps it should be viewed as an internal human resource issue. In other words, managers may reap what they sow by not properly managing employee relationships and then expecting these same employees to turn around and successfully manage customer relationships. Using justice theory, this study explores the management of customer service representatives. Specifically, a national survey was conducted of call center managers utilizing measures for the three types of organizational justice: distributive, procedural, and interactional. Call center managers from many different service industries responded including travel/hospitality, telecommunications, retail/catalog, health care, insurance, and financial services. Results of the study indicate that justice theory can be used to explain a significant amount of employee commitment in call center operations. The significance of these findings provides a possible explanation as to why good customer service seems to be disappearing. Can any manager expect CSRs to provide good customer relationship management when managers are not properly handling employee relationships

Effect of Sensory Cues on Hand Hygiene Habits Among a Diverse Workforce in Food Service

Poor hand hygiene is a leading cause of foodborne illnesses in the foodservice industry. A series of complex motivational interventions must be employed to permanently change the behavior of workers, to increase their compliance and sustain appropriate levels of proper hand hygiene. Unlike the healthcare industry, which uses large, costly multi-modal behavior modification strategies, the foodservice industry must deploy rapid, cost-efficient strategies that are focus on accommodating these goals with the constraints of high employee turnover rates and diverse demographics. This research was twofold, 1) examining differences in emotions and hand hygiene behavior among participants of two cultures when handling common foods and 2) comparing prospective memory reminders across three basic senses (sight, hearing and smell) for individuals of Hispanic / Latino descent. Results showed hand washing behavior was affected by the type of food being handled and the intensity of the emotion of disgust. Individuals washed their hands more frequently after handling foods they perceived as more hazardous, and their motives to wash varied among variables of gender (self-protection for men, carryover effects for women), culture (self-protection for Caucasians, texture for Hispanics) and the type of food (self-protection for chicken, smell for fish). Additionally, as the feeling of disgust increased among individuals their probability to wash their hands also increased. In our second study, we showed that common, non-provoking visual cues are not as effective at increasing hand hygiene compliance as disgust-induced sensory cues. Furthermore, olfactory disgust, which is an underutilized motivator in interventions, showed a significantly higher probability that individuals would engage in hand washing behaviors than all other stimuli. This knowledge is important for future behavioral interventions that may need to be modified by food type or diversity, and extends current intervention techniques by introducing and comparing disgust-related sensory cues to decrease miscommunication and the intention-behavior gap associated with preforming required routine behaviors such as complying with proper hand hygiene

Identification of key factors in texture aversion and acceptance

All five senses contribute to the experience of eating, giving feedback on whether to continue or stop the process of consumption. Sensory feedback loops help the consumer modulate food ingestion by determining nutritional value and possible hazards. Texture is one sense integral to the eating process that may lead to a food being accepted or rejected. However, which specific oral textural features contribute to overall acceptance and rejection of a food is not well understood. In our first study, we used three different cultures, Poland, U.S.A., and Singapore, to explore common texture features in food. Our results show that all three cultures were twice as likely to mention texture combinations (multiple textures) with a texture contrast when describing foods, they liked, in comparison to foods they disliked. However, the western countries did not prefer extremely diverse texture combinations unlike the Asian country. In a second study, we measured the motivations and sensory attributes that lead to food rejection and specific texture qualities within rejected foods. Our results demonstrate unpleasant sensory attributes represents the largest reason people reject to eat a food with 94% of individuals rejecting a food due to its texture, a rate comparable to flavor-based rejection. This may be due to the mere number of aversive texture terms (outpacing liked terms) and the same food may be rejected due to a single or combination of texture terms. However, individual differences exist with touch sensitivity increasing motivations to reject and influencing the relationship primary eating senses (including texture) have with rejection as well as clusters of individuals rejecting foods due to different texture types (e.g. brittleness/elasticity or hardness/fat content). Together, these studies show the complexity of oral textures in food perception which influence adult’s food choice

The relationship between specified dispositional and cognitive variables and AIDS related health behaviors

The research presented here provides evidence for the use of dispositional psychological states within the Ordered Protection Motivation model. Specifically, the use of dispositional variables is supported when the threat is one related to health (such as AIDS). The study examined a sample of undergraduate students from Louisiana Tech University. Regression was used to determine if four dispositional variables (Health Locus of Control, Sexual Locus of Control, Narcissism, and Sociosexual Orientation) added explanatory power to the ordered protection motivation model. This study is of particular interest to marketers who produce public service announcements. The objective of any public service campaign is to change the public\u27s behavior in some manner. By using dispositional psychological states to target high risk groups of people, the promotion (public service announcement) becomes more effective

Outcomes in Type II Diabetes Patients through the Covid 19 Pandemic A Retrospective Chart Review

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity for urgent expansion of telemedicine services as providers continued to supply longitudinal care to patients. Patients with type II diabetes were vulnerable to serious infection with COVID-19 as well as disruption in management of their chronic disease. Objective: To delineate the outcomes in type II diabetes patients through the COVID-19 pandemic by a retrospective chart review in which disease management was evaluated through HbA1c levels and BMI. Methods: This retrospective chart review included adult T2DM patients receiving care from five university family medicine offices in NJ. HbA1c levels and BMI values were compared during the pre-pandemic (February 2019-February 2020) and pandemic (March 2020-May 2022) time periods. Data analysis was completed through SPSS. Results: There was no significant difference in HbA1c levels from before the COVID-19 pandemic compared to during the pandemic, but there was a significant decrease in BMI. There was a greater shift in patients being prescribed multiple anti-diabetic oral drugs compared to insulin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Despite changes in daily living and healthcare delivery, patients with T2DM were able to maintain or improve their disease status. Patients that were older, female, with a higher BMI, and of African American descent exhibited greater healthcare utilization, with variance in types of visits and associated outcomes. Moving forward, telemedicine could be a potential outlet for alleviating the global health burden associated with T2DM

Storage Time and Temperature on the Sensory Properties Broccoli

Typically, broccoli arrives at the store within 7–14 days of harvest and is kept refrigerated until purchased or considered waste. To date, information has been limited on how this time on the shelf or storage temperature affects the sensory attributes that contribute to broccoli purchase or repurchase. In this study, 100 consumers performed acceptance tests and a check-all-that-apply (CATA) section to characterize sensory changes in two cultivars of broccoli (‘Diplomat’ and ‘Emerald Crown’) stored at two temperatures (0 °C and 4 °C) over five time points: 0, 14, 21, 28, and 42 days. Due to quality degradation during storage, the overall liking of broccoli decreased regardless of holding temperature and variety. This was in accordance with a decrease in sweetness and an increase in bitterness intensity. However, there were differences between varieties in which Diplomat had more sensory changes at higher temperatures and only Emerald showed negative changes to its appearance in color. Lastly, the CATA data revealed the attributes responsible for modulating the consumer acceptance of broccoli such as tastes, colors and flavors (e.g., grassy, musty, dirt-like). This information can be used to better inform shelf-life determinations of broccoli. Additionally, these changes in taste, odor, texture, and color can inform those interested in investigating the biochemical processes related to broccoli storage

Storage Time and Temperature on the Sensory Properties Broccoli

Typically, broccoli arrives at the store within 7–14 days of harvest and is kept refrigerated until purchased or considered waste. To date, information has been limited on how this time on the shelf or storage temperature affects the sensory attributes that contribute to broccoli purchase or repurchase. In this study, 100 consumers performed acceptance tests and a check-all-that-apply (CATA) section to characterize sensory changes in two cultivars of broccoli (‘Diplomat’ and ‘Emerald Crown’) stored at two temperatures (0 °C and 4 °C) over five time points: 0, 14, 21, 28, and 42 days. Due to quality degradation during storage, the overall liking of broccoli decreased regardless of holding temperature and variety. This was in accordance with a decrease in sweetness and an increase in bitterness intensity. However, there were differences between varieties in which Diplomat had more sensory changes at higher temperatures and only Emerald showed negative changes to its appearance in color. Lastly, the CATA data revealed the attributes responsible for modulating the consumer acceptance of broccoli such as tastes, colors and flavors (e.g., grassy, musty, dirt-like). This information can be used to better inform shelf-life determinations of broccoli. Additionally, these changes in taste, odor, texture, and color can inform those interested in investigating the biochemical processes related to broccoli storage

Indignation for moral violations suppresses the tongue motor cortex: preliminary TMS evidence

Abstract We commonly label moral violations in terms of 'disgust', yet it remains unclear whether metaphorical expressions linking disgust and morality are genuinely shared at the cognitive/neural level. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we provide new insights into this debate by measuring motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) from the tongue generated by TMS over the tongue primary motor area (tM1) in a small group of healthy participants presented with vignettes of moral transgressions and non-moral vignettes. We tested whether moral indignation, felt while evaluating moral vignettes, affected tM1 excitability. Vignettes exerted a variable influence on MEPs with no net effect of the moral category. However, in accordance with our recent study documenting reduced tM1 excitability during exposure to pictures of disgusting foods or facial expressions of distaste, we found that vignettes of highly disapproved moral violations reduced tM1 excitability. Moreover, tM1 excitability and moral indignation were linearly correlated: the higher the moral indignation, the lower the tM1 excitability. Respective changes in MEPs were not observed in a non-oral control muscle, suggesting a selective decrease of tM1 excitability. These preliminary findings provide neurophysiological evidence supporting the hypothesis that morality might have originated from the more primitive experience of oral distaste

Prevalence and correlates of parosmia and phantosmia among smell disorders

Among those many individuals who suffer from a reduced odor sensitivity (hyposmia/anosmia) some individuals also experience disorders that lead to odor distortion, such as parosmia (i.e., distorted odor with a known source), or odor phantoms (i.e., odor sensation without an odor source). We surveyed a large population with at least one olfactory disorder (N = 2031) and found that odor distortions were common (46%), with respondents reporting either parosmia (19%), phantosmia (11%), or both (16%). In comparison to respondents with hyposmia or anosmia, respondents with parosmia were more likely to be female, young, and suffering from post-viral olfactory loss (p < 0.001), while respondents with phantosmia were more likely to be middle-aged (p < 0.01) and experiencing symptoms caused by head trauma (p < 0.01). In addition, parosmia, compared to phantosmia or anosmia/hyposmia, was most prevalent 3 months to a year after olfactory symptom onset (p < 0.001), which coincides with the timeline of physiological recovery. Finally, we observed that the frequency and duration of distortions negatively affects quality of life, with parosmia showing a higher range of severity than phantosmia (p < 0.001). Previous research often grouped these distortions together, but our results show that they have distinct patterns of demographics, medical history, and loss in quality of life