Quality perceptions in the financial services sector - The potential impact of internal marketing

Argues that one theme that has emerged consistently in the recent services marketing literature is the importance of frontline employees in service delivery. The internal marketing concept is based on the belief that a firm's internal market/employees can be motivated to strive for customer-consciousness, market orientation and sales-mindedness through the application of accepted external marketing approaches and principles. Considers in this study that these objectives could be achieved by marketing, among others, the service firm's goals, objectives and values to frontline employees. A causal model was constructed which included organizational commitment (as an intervening variable), frontline employees' own perceptions of the service quality they deliver, and the service quality their supervisors believe they deliver as endogenous latent variables. The model was empirically evaluated with data from frontline employees in the banking and insurance industries.