Attracting applicants with high customer orientation

Employees with high customer orientation have been shown to have better job performance, higher job satisfaction, greater organizational commitment, and increase financial outcomes for their firm. Considered a surface-level trait, customer orientation is not something that can be trained, even if some of the associated behaviors can be taught. If customer orientation is inherent to the individual, then employees with this trait must be attracted into the organization. Despite the well-documented benefits of employing persons with high customer orientation, studies identifying how to attract this type of employee are absent in literature. To fill this gap in the literature, this study seeks to answer the question, how can firms attract frontline employees with high customer orientation? Both fit theory and the Attraction-Selection-Attrition model agree that a match between a person’s attributes and an organization’s attributes should lead the person to ultimately be more attracted to a company. That attraction should make them more likely to take some action towards gaining a position with the company, such as requesting more information or submitting an application. This project utilizes two studies to address the research question. The first study (n=236) tests how an organization can effectively share their customer-focused identity through recruitment materials. The second study (n=357) tests how the interaction between customer orientation and a customer-focused organizational identity leads to perceptions of person-organization fit. The perceptions of fit then lead to applicant attraction, which should ultimately lead to a potential candidate taking a behavioral action towards the company. Results provide partial support for the interactive effect of customer orientation on fit. Perception of person-organization fit was shown to increase applicant attraction, a finding which concurs with previous studies. Study two found applicant attraction was a significant predictor of taking an action towards employment with the company explaining 18% of the variance. This project addresses a question long absent in customer orientation literature while also addressing calls for studies on increasing applicant pool quality.