The happy versus unhappy service worker in the service encounter:Assessing the impact on customer satisfaction

This paper assesses the impact of the service worker's display of emotions (i.e., one aspect of functional service quality) on customer satisfaction under the conditions of different levels of technical service quality by means of an experimental approach (N=600), in which display of emotions (unhappiness vs. happiness) and technical service quality (poor vs. good) were manipulated. The results indicate that the impact of the service worker's emotional display behavior on customer satisfaction is contingent on the level of technical service quality, in the sense that customer satisfaction is affected only when technical service quality is good rather than poor. Encouraging a positive display (e.g., by a smile policy), which many service firms do, is thus not a panacea for improved customer satisfaction. The moderating effect is explained in terms of service encounter congruency, which influences the mediated process by which emotional displays by service workers come to affect customer satisfaction.     

Does delaying service-failure resolution ever make sense?

Conventional wisdom suggests that service providers should respond to their failures as quickly as possible. Some research, however, points out that delaying resolutions may produce highly desirable results. The study here investigates these competing views by examining under which conditions an immediate or a delaying resolution produces more positive consumer responses in term of re-patronage and negative word-of-mouth intentions. Based on the concept of service separation, this research identifies an interaction effect between service separation (separated service, non-separated service) and response timing (immediate response, delaying response) on consumers' post-consumption intention. This research also finds that the relationship between service separation-response timing interaction and consumer response is mediated by consumers' negative emotions. This study contributes to refining our understanding of consumer psychology in service recovery. Practically, the studies also enable service providers to better allocate their resources to recover different types of services' failure.     

The effect of pre-flight attendants’ emotional intelligence,emotional labor,and emotional exhaustion on commitment to customer service

Previous studies have shown that the success of airlines depends heavily on the quality of in-flight services provided by flight attendants. The performance of flight attendants is primarily based on their emotional intelligence (EI). Thus, airlines endeavor to recruit flight attendants with high EI and also conduct continuous EI training even after their recruitment. To meet the demand of excellent flight attendants, a number of universities and colleges have established airline service programs. This study examines the relationships among EI, emotional labor (EL), emotional exhaustion (EE), and commitment to customer service (CCS) among pre-flight attendants in the undergraduate airline service programs. The results of the study revealed that the better pre-flight attendants understand their emotions and use them appropriately, the more they display their true emotions and modify their bad feelings to desirable emotions required for effective in-flight customer services. Also, the more pre-flight attendants employ EL, the more exhausted they are emotionally. As the first study on pre-flight attendants’ EI, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on EI, EL, EE, and CCS. The findings of the study also provide practical implications that effective assessment and education of EI by university-based airline service programs can contribute to service excellence of airlines.     

Customer and selling orientations of retail salespeople and the sales manager's ability-to-perceive-emotions: A multi-level approach

Drawing from the mental ability framework and information processing theory, two studies embedded within the B2C retail setting investigate the role of the sales manager's ability-to-perceive-emotions in the complex non-linear relationships between salespeople's customer and selling orientations on one side, and its outcomes (sales performance and customer re-purchase intention) on the other. Using multilevel data from salespeople and their managers, Study 1 tests a theoretical model of salesperson orientation and performance, while Study 2 further verifies the results of Study 1 from the customer's perspective. Both studies find strong empirical support for a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped effect of a salesperson's customer orientation on sales performance and customer re-purchase intention. This effect is, however, reversed for the link between selling orientation and performance/re-purchase intention, where results indicate a U-shaped curvilinear relationship. Furthermore, we show that the sales manager's ability to perceive emotions facilitates the effect of salespeople's customer orientation on sales performance.     

The role of emotions in utilitarian service settings: The effects of emotional satisfaction on product perception and behavioral intentions

The role of emotions in hedonic service settings is well established, but their role in utilitarian service settings has received scant attention. This research attempts to fill this gap by investigating the effects of customers’ perceptions of service quality and servicescape on their emotional reactions, and their perceptions of product quality and subsequent behavioral intentions. Data are collected from 189 clients/patients who visited an optometry clinic. The study reports that perceived service quality (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy) and service environment (atmosphere and layout) both increase positive emotional satisfaction. In turn, positive emotional satisfaction leads to a high perception of product quality, high recommendation, patronage intention, and likelihood of purchase. Additionally, product quality perceptions have a significant positive impact on behavioral intentions.     

Effects of face masks and photo tags on nonverbal communication in service encounters

Facial expressions convey critical information for customers to evaluate a service encounter. Widespread mask-wearing since the pandemic began has brought challenges in decoding individuals' facial expressions. This study investigates the effects of face masks on customers' interpretations of frontline employees’ facial expressions across retailing and healthcare service contexts. The findings show that mask-wearing improves customer perception of service employees and behavioral intention when the employees display neutral or negative emotions. Photo tags, as an additional nonverbal signal, can enhance the positive perceptions of masked employees. This research suggests that service companies could incorporate face masks and photo tags as a cost-effective practice to improve service encounters beyond the current pandemic.     

Perceived quality, emotions, and behavioral intentions: Application of an extended Mehrabian-Russell model to restaurants

In order to address a lack of comprehensive evaluation of restaurant quality, this study extends Mehrabian and Russell's stimulus-organism-response framework by incorporating restaurant-specific stimuli and including restaurant-specific measures of emotion. Using structural equation modeling, this study shows that atmospherics and service function as stimuli that enhance positive emotions while product attributes, such as food quality, act to relieve negative emotional responses. Results also suggest that positive emotions mediate the relationship between atmospherics/services and future behavioral outcomes. The results are theoretically and practically meaningful because they address the relationships among three types of perceived quality (product, atmospherics, and service), customer emotions (positive/negative), and behavioral intentions in the restaurant consumption experience. Managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are also suggested.     

Do Mystery Shoppers Really Predict Customer Satisfaction and Sales Performance?

Mystery shopping (MS) is a widely used tool to monitor the quality of service and personal selling. In consultative retail settings, assessments of mystery shoppers are supposed to capture the most relevant aspects of salespeople’s service and sales behavior. Given the important conclusions drawn by managers from MS results, the standard assumption seems to be that assessments of mystery shoppers are strongly related to customer satisfaction and sales performance. However, surprisingly scant empirical evidence supports this assumption. We test the relationship between MS assessments and customer evaluations and sales performance with large-scale data from three service retail chains. Surprisingly, we do not find a substantial correlation. The results show that mystery shoppers are not good proxies for real customers. While MS assessments are not related to sales, our findings confirm the established correlation between customer satisfaction measurements and sales results.     

Displayed emotions to patronage intention: consumer response to contact personnel performance

The impact of service on consumers' brand attitudes and patronage intentions serves to stress its importance to service marketers. This study further investigates previous research by proposing an integrative model that examines the hierarchical influence underlying emotions displayed by service personnel and the subsequent effect on consumer behavioural intention in the retail service context. Results indicate that service personnel-displayed emotion hierarchically influences consumers' emotions, satisfaction with service personnel, brand attitude, and patronage intention. Findings also reveal that brand attitude plays a critical mediating role. This work discusses implications for retail service firms and marketing executives, in addition to providing direction for future research.     

消费情感对顾客服务经历评价的作用机理研究

日常管理实践可以注意到,顾客在消费过程中的情感状态会影响他们在服务完成后对服务的评价水平.但是这一管理事实在学术研究上长期未能引起足够的重视:以往关于服务质量和顾客满意度的研究本质上几乎都是基于认知的,情感的作用被忽视或低估.以商业银行服务为背景,本研究以问卷调查为实证工具,同时考察认知和情感因素在顾客服务后评价形成过程中的作用.研究结果显示,顾客消费情感与顾客认知显著相关,并且与顾客认知共同显著影响着整体服务质量评价和顾客满意.同时,顾客的情感状态可以划分为积极情感与消极情感,二者对顾客的服务经历评价也表现出了不同的影响作用.文章最后给出了该领域进一步研究的方向.     

Employee display of burnout in the service encounter and its impact on customer satisfaction

This study examines if employee display of burnout symptoms in service encounters has an impact on customer satisfaction. An experimental approach was used in which the employee's display of burnout (absent vs. present) and the service performance level (low vs. high) were the manipulated factors. The results show that employee display of burnout had a negative impact on customer satisfaction, that this effect was mediated by customers’ appraisals of the employee's emotional state, and that the effect was stronger under the condition of low service performance.     

The Service Industries Journal: Its Ethos and Emphases

This study investigates the dynamics of customer affection and customer trust on customer loyalty intention after cases of service failure and recovery. The results demonstrate that after customers experience service failure and recovery, customer affection has a greater influence on customer trust but less in loyalty intention, whereas customer trust becomes more influential in loyalty intention in comparison to the time prior to a service failure. The findings suggest that the rebuilding of loyalty after a service failure and recovery relies primarily on the recovery of trust and that the key determinant of trust recovery is customer affection. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.     

Buying a Book as a Christmas Gift: Two Routes to Customer Immersion

Although services and retailing are usually regarded as relevant experiential contexts and investments in creating an experiential environment are growing, little consideration has been given to the investigation of the general consumption experiences and their emotions in retailing. By adopting an ethnographic approach to study the buying processes in two Italian bookstores – a small traditional family-run bookshop and a large international chain store – products that, by definition, are high in perceived complexity and symbolism, we present two distinct business models based on different processes of valorisation of purchasers' emotions. The two-path model towards customer immersion represents different strategies to involve consumers emotionally: one is based on increasing the positive emotional load, the other on decreasing the negative emotional load. Decisions about physical layout, display, services and sales assistance should follow consistently.     

Leveraging employee emotional intelligence in casino profitability

Drawing on the link between service quality and casino profitability, this paper describes the roles of frontline employees in delivering casino service quality and analyses how management can nurture employee emotional intelligence's (EEI) contribution to casino revenue growth. This study is conceptual in nature. The analysis builds from identifying the emotional contents embracing service encounter involving casino frontline employees and customers. The identification area approaches from emotional work performed by employees, referred to as emotional labor, the emotional service delivered by casinos, customer attributed emotions and emotional contagion. The study comprehensively analyses how EEI can manage and regulate emotionally charged service encounters which subsequently affect customers’ perception of employee behaviours and service performance over service encounters. These encounter performance forms customers’ perception of casino service quality which leads to customer loyalty and ultimately casino profitability. This theory-focused study presents an additional venue with great potential for casinos to enhance business performance and financial growth, as well as providing new insights into the role of EEI in organizations for researchers in the relevant field.     

Customer response to intangible and tangible service factors

This research investigates the question: Does the physical environment of service delivery settings influence customers' evaluations of the service experience and subsequent behavioral intentions? Theoretical and empirical data from environmental psychology suggests that customer reactions to the tangible physical environment may be more emotional than cognitive, particularly when involving hedonic consumption. This article integrates environmental psychology into SERVQUAL (a current measure of service quality) to enable a fuller assessment of the role of the tangible aspects of service delivery. Based on consumer surveys in three leisure service settings, the findings are that the tangible physical environment plays an important role in generating excitement in leisure settings; excitement, in turn, plays a significant role in determining customers repatronage intentions and willingness to recommend. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Beyond good and bad: Challenging the suggested role of emotions in customer experience (CX) research

Our paper challenges several notions regarding emotion's role and their influence on the customer experience (hereafter CX). Based on our analysis, we develop the following five propositions to advance our understanding of emotions' role in customer experience research. First, we argue that positive and negative emotions can coexist during the consumption experience. Second, positive emotions do not automatically lead to positive consumption outcomes, and negative emotions may not necessarily generate negative results. Third, positive or negative emotions toward a company employee might not automatically transfer to the company as a whole. Fourth, customers are not apathetic victims of their emotions with no capability to control their emotional experiences. Our last proposition is that consumption emotions are not a purely intrapersonal phenomenon, but that the social context matters and influences the consumption experience. We propose a related future research agenda highlighting opportunities for scholars and managers alike.     

The impact of emotions on service quality,satisfaction, and positive word-of-mouth intentions over time

Abstract

This article examines the impact of emotions on customer satisfaction, service quality, and positive word-of-mouth intention formation process over time. In the study, a confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-dimensional model of emotions that then served as predictors in a series of multiple regressions. The findings indicate that two emotion dimensions had a consistent direct impact on all dependent variables in both time periods. However, the interaction effect between time periods and emotions revealed that different emotion dimensions influence satisfaction and word-of-mouth intentions at different stages of the service encounter. The theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed in detail.     

Understanding on-the-go consumption: A retail mix perspective

On-the-go (OTG) consumption is a growing phenomenon in the food and beverage industry. Drawing on the theory of consumption values, this study is conducted to acquire a better understanding of the influence that retail-mix elements have on OTG consumption outcomes. Specifically, this study examines the role of value for money, customer service, general assortments and healthy assortments in driving intention and satisfaction related to OTG consumption. The study also assesses the conditional value generated by the consumer's health orientation, impulsiveness and perceived time pressure. Based on a sample of 433 OTG consumers, and applying multi-group structural equation modelling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), value for money was identified as the key driver of OTG consumption outcomes. Impulsiveness and time pressure are shown to increase the effects of value for money perceptions on OTG consumption intention, while health orientation enhances the relationship between customer service and satisfaction. This study contributes to the literature on OTG consumption, explains the managerial implications for retailers, and offers recommendations to target OTG consumers better.     

How customer engagement in the live-streaming affects purchase intention and customer acquisition,E-tailer's perspective

In the emerging retail market, e-tailers operating in developing economies have to cope with the rapid use of the Internet, new electronic purchasing methods and online selling platforms. However, e-tailers do not understand the effect patterns in which customer engagement on purchase intention and customer acquisition. From e-tailers’ perspective, this study explores how customer engagement behaviors are related to both purchase intention and customer acquisition. We obtained live streaming data in the mature e-tail live streaming market environment and found empirical evidence supporting the conceptual framework through regression model analysis. The analysis results show that the specific indicators of the customer engagement are not all positively related to customer purchase intention and customer acquisition, and it is worth noting that the influence of “like” behavior on customer acquisition is no statistical significance. This is expected to encourage e-tailers to rethink their focus on customer acquisition and sales enhancement digital strategies as they operate in emerging markets.