Abstract

Rajasekhara Mouly Potluri* and Awgichew Abiye Zeleke

Service quality has become essential for the survival of service companies to attract and retain customers in the present day’s fiercely competing business world. Competent employees are the key to deliver excellent quality services, this study mainly focuses on evaluation of customer handling competencies of Ethiopian employees’ which is an imperative to maximize customer satisfaction.Data for the study was collected through self administered questionnaires distributed to 300 customers and 500 employees of 50 companies in Ethiopia. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS software package. The result shows that most employees working at the front desk service areas did not demonstrate most of the basic marketing competency indicators. As a result, most customers were not satisfied with the service provided by the Ethiopian companies and ranked its service quality as poor. The research identifies basic competency deficiencies of Ethiopian employees in handling customers’ and has managerial implication of how to staff the work force with the skill needed to deliver quality service.