A CQU research group looking into worldwide customer service has been given a University grant to progress their project to the next stage.

The Faculty of Business and Law team, consisting of Dr Tony Ward, Bruce Acutt and Jim Callan, has been researching aspects of customer service for over 10 years.

The team has identified a need to improve customer service standards in Australia and throughout the world and has developed a test instrument that has been known to have predictive capabilities of customer service performance.

“Basically, the test works as an instrument which detects personality types of above average performance,” Mr Ward said.

The team has measured their test instrument against existing tests of personal characteristics that measure a range of constructs, such as personality type, personality factors, personal values and interpersonal values.

“While tests used previously have yielded significant results, it takes over an hour for respondents to complete. This long completion time results in a number of tests being incomplete, or not even attempted, and is clearly not practical for use in business,” Mr Ward said.

The next stage of development will see the research team embark on the process of developing the Service Provider Performance Index (SPPI) as a commercial package comprising the SPPI instrument, a user manual and scoring guide.

“We are currently in the process of soliciting help from local companies to trial our approach and are seeking involvement from banks, building society’s, call centres, retailers, health carers and any area that involves customer service.

The group intends to develop web-based and CD-Rom versions as soon as the paper based tests are available for commercialisation.