Discovering Call Interaction Fluency: A Way to Improve Experiences with Call Centres

In this article, the authors integrate the concept of fluency into the call centre service experience. Results (1) provide an easy-to-administer scale to measure call interaction fluency; (2) provide a holistic model by which fluency is linked to customer’s emotional response (anger), an evaluation of the interaction (interaction satisfaction), and the customer-company relationship (call aversion, trust, and satisfaction with the company); (3) highlight agents’ nationality and gender as well as customers’ age moderated the effect of call interaction fluency on interaction satisfaction; and (4) provide evidence of the role of the coping strategy used by customers depending on their initial emotional state; specifically, fluent interaction proved to be efficacious for both emotion-focused and problem-focused customers. Results reveal that fluency should be considered when designing training programmes for call centre employees.