How uncivil customers corrode the relationship between frontline employees and retailers

This study investigates the effects of customers’ uncivil treatments on frontline retail employees’ emotions, deviant behaviors and relationship with the retail organization. Our theoretical model is based on both marketing and personnel management literatures. 415 frontline retailing American employees answered our questionnaire. Employees treated uncivilly by customers feel angry but have to hide their negative emotions, which leads them to emotional exhaustion and deviant behaviors. Paradoxically, employees’ strong commitment to their retailing organization brings about more deviant behaviors. We propose some managerial strategies to cope with uncivil customers, as well as future research on this important and under-researched topic.     

How online service recovery approaches bolster recovery performance? A multi-level perspective

Employees are often sandwiched between understandable customer grievances and unchangeable organizational policies: only when employees feel fairly treated will they treat customers fairly. Most previous studies focused on external service recovery systems for customers, but neglected internal service recovery systems for frontline employees. By extending Homburg and Fürst’s research, this study adopts a multi-level perspective to explore the influences of the mechanistic approach (process guidelines, behaviour guidelines, and compensation guidelines) and the organic approach of service recovery (empowerment and recovery culture) on frontline employees’ responses (recovery efficacy, accountability, and performance) towards implementing a service recovery within an online auction context.     

Crowding in the time of COVID: Effects on rapport and shopping satisfaction

Decades of research in marketing has established that crowding (human and spatial) in retail contexts significantly affects shopping satisfaction. Prompted by the profound changes in retail supply and demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this study expands knowledge in two ways: uncovering new relationships and replicating some of the critical findings previously demonstrated in the pre-pandemic context. Two studies (Study 1 scenario and Study 2 actual shopping trip) show that higher levels of human crowding results in lower levels of shopping satisfaction, and this effect is mediated by a new construct introduced into the crowding literature, namely, customer rapport with employees, emerging as a significant factor in the pandemic era. Importantly, the results show that these relationships differ according to customers’: a) perceptions about the appropriateness of retailer precautions, b) beliefs about the severity of threat that the pandemic presents, and c) perceived vulnerability to Covid-19, all of them new to crowding dynamics during the time of Covid. Finally, with Study 2, we replicate and extend selected findings from prior research on crowding. Overall, the results expand our understanding of crowding effects and provide novel insights in the “new normal” retail context.     

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.     

The multichannel customer’s service experience: building satisfaction and trust

Multichannel retailers dominate today’s retail landscape. Practitioners and researchers are particularly interested in understanding how the multichannel strategy helps establishing and developing relationships with customers. Our findings, from 302 customers of multichannel financial services firms, show that frontline employees’ customer facilitation behaviors (traditional channel) have a stronger impact on satisfaction than e-psychological benefits (derived from the company’s Web site), while their positive influence on trust is not significantly different. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The Role of Social Mechanisms in Demand and Supply Integration: An Individual Network Perspective

In many industries, including retail, increased complexity of marketing strategies needs to be met with increased efficiency in product delivery, requiring integration across demand and supply facing functions of the firm. For frontline logistics employees (FLEs) of manufacturing firms who are delivering and marketing products in retail stores daily, the ability to understand both the marketing and supply implications of their actions is essential. Despite the importance of cross‐functional integration at the retail frontline, little logistics research has explored how logistics frontline employees interact with managers and each other to integrate knowledge and information. The purpose of this research is to examine the antecedents to cross‐functional integration across demand and supply functions in multiple social networks of the FLE. Mixed methods, including social network analysis, structural equation modeling, and analysis of variance, are applied to test social capital theory hypotheses regarding the impact of relational embeddedness and social mechanisms, socialization and shared interpretation, on individual demand and supply integration across friendship, key enabler, and ideation networks of the frontline employee.     

Determinants of switching intention from web-based stores to retail apps: Habit as a moderator

Online retailers seek to motivate their customers to switch from web-based stores to retail apps as using the latter as a shopping channel has many benefits for retailers compared to web-based stores. This study aims to examine the drivers of customers' intention to switch from web-based stores to retail apps by applying the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S–O-R) model. The moderating role of habit was investigated. Data were collected from 389 Malaysian individuals through an online survey and analysed using the partial least squares technique. The results indicated that performance expectancy has a significant influence on switching intention and is driven by mobile characteristics. Furthermore, effort expectancy has a positive effect on both performance expectancy and switching intention and is triggered by visual complexity and aesthetic quality. The moderating effects of habit on the associations between performance expectancy, effort expectancy and switching intention were not supported. The findings extend the literature on retail apps by exploring the switching intention drivers and testing the moderating effect of culture, which have received less attention. The results enable retail apps' developers and marketers to strategise retail apps development and marketing activities in a way that encourages current web-based stores’ customers to use retail apps as a better alternative.     

Look but Don’t Touch! The Impact of Active Interpersonal Haptic Blocking on Compensatory Touch and Purchase Behavior

This research investigates situations in which frontline employees deliberately restrict customers’ access to touch products on display (active interpersonal haptic blocking), and how this understudied form of sensory blocking may increase customers’ downstream purchasing. While previous research examines the benefits of increased product touch, we temporarily block touch for specific products in display areas and then investigate the subsequent impact on customer behavior. Through four studies, including a retail field experiment, we find that when an employee asks a customer not to touch a product on display, this initiates a serial mediation process which: (1) engenders feelings of psychological reactance that result in (2) increased compensatory touching of subsequently encountered products to counterbalance a loss of sensory freedom, and (3) increased spending and purchasing once the customer leaves the reactance-inducing encounter. Effects are moderated by socioeconomic status (SES) and need for touch (NFT) whereby psychological reactance was significantly stronger for high SES customers with a moderate or high NFT when actively blocked. Results also demonstrate that active interpersonal haptic blocking does not result in more negative attitudes toward retailers, thus retailers might consider implementing this counterintuitive practice to encourage downstream sales.     

Let Me Imagine That for You: Transforming the Retail Frontline Through Augmenting Customer Mental Imagery Ability

The rapid development of augmented reality (AR) is reshaping retail frontline operations by enhancing the offline and online customer experience. Drawing on mental imagery theory, this paper develops a conceptual framework to reflect how AR emulates customer’s cognitive processes offloading those to the technology. Consequently, the AR-enabled frontline improves decision comfort, motivates positive WOM and facilitates choice of higher value products. The underlying mechanism is a sequential mediation via improved processing fluency and decision comfort. The findings also demonstrate boundary conditions of customers’ visual processing styles and product contextuality. Object-visualisers benefit more from AR induced imagery processes, and the effect of processing fluency on customer decision comfort is moderated by product contextuality. The results are verified with repeat studies to control for novelty of AR, and a field study that highlights the impact of AR on customers’ choice and spending. We discuss implications for theory and practice of AR-enabled frontline retailing.     

Testing Retail Marketing-Mix Effects on Patronage: A Meta-Analysis

Retailers have always worked to establish close relationships with customers through the retail marketing mix. Thus, the literature has a long tradition of testing the effects of various instruments on retail patronage. This meta-study synthesizes prior research into one comprehensive framework. We use 14,895 effect sizes reported by more than 239,000 shoppers from 41 countries extracted from 350 independent samples, to test the impact of 24 marketing-mix instruments on retail patronage. Specifically, we investigate the direct and indirect effects of these instruments on store satisfaction, word of mouth, patronage intention, and behavior. Product and brand management related instruments display the strongest effects on most outcome variables, whereas price, communication, service and incentive management instruments affect only selected outcomes. Distribution management turns out to be of secondary importance. However, the effectiveness of these instruments depends on the specific shopping context (food/non-food, shopping frequency, single store/agglomeration, hedonic/utilitarian), the retail environment (gross domestic product, country innovativeness, retail sales share, retail employment, Internet era), and the employed method (participant type, study design, data source). Specifically, we reveal most differences for hedonic shopping environments and developed countries. Also, the store’s advertising and atmosphere have gained importance in the Internet era, while purchase incentives, in-store orientation, and store location have lost relevance. This study contributes to a synoptic understanding of the comparable effectiveness of retail marketing instruments on retail patronage. It offers insights into the effectiveness of marketing-mix instruments and provides guidance on whether and when to invest in them. It also presents an agenda for future research on marketing-mix instruments.     

Store Manager–Store Performance Relationship: A Research Note

Despite the critical role that store managers play in linking top management teams and service/retail employees, as well as in fulfilling corporate strategy within chain store environments, service management research infrequently addresses the factors that may promote store managers’ effective exchange relationships within the firm and subsequent effects on store operations and profitability. This study focuses on how store managers’ performance orientation, trust of a regional manager’s capabilities, and organizational commitment affect a manager’s relationships relative to regional managers and frontline employees. The direct effect of store managers’ relationship capacity on store performance is also examined. The results, based on survey data from managers of stores of a retail and service chain and company financial reports, generally support the suggested hypotheses. Specifically, a store manager’s relationship with his/her supervisor has a strong influence on how the manager views the supervisor’s leadership support and leadership style, which ultimately influence store performance (primary goods/service sales and store profits).     

Non-normal simultaneous regression models for customer linkage analysis

Simultaneous systems of equations with non-normal errors are developed to study the relationship between customer and employee satisfaction. Customers interact with many employees, and employees serve many customers, such that a one-to-one mapping between customers and employees is not possible. Analysis proceeds by relating, or linking, distribution percentiles among variables. Such analysis is commonly encountered in marketing when data are from independently collected samples. We demonstrate our model in the context of retail banking, where drivers of customer and employee satisfaction are shown to be percentile-dependent.      

The authentic service employee: Service employees' language use for authentic service experiences

This study analyzes how service employees' language use influences the authenticity of a service. The extant service literature on language use remains exclusively focused on the customer's perceptions of first language use in direct communication. Shifting the focus to the service employee, this paper posits that language could exert a wider influence, contributing both to how customers perceive the authenticity of the service and the entire service experience. Analyzing language use in service encounters, the paper addresses this research gap in the literature from the perspective of the service employee. In many service settings, authenticity is an important part in customers' construal of their experience. The study analyzes how service employees in British pubs outside the UK may use English with local customers who frequent these pubs to get a taste of Britain and British culture, contributing to the service literature by introducing a typology to align the service employees' language use with authenticity to strengthen the customer experience. The paper further contributes to service theory by extending the understanding of service sabotage by showing how, why, and in which circumstances service employees may use a language switch to sabotage the customer experience. Finally, the study extends the extant human resources literature on the effects of allowing service employees to be themselves to show that this managerial practice not only benefits the service employees also results in a more authentic customer experience.     

Pleasantly Plump: Offsetting Negative Obesity Stereotypes for Frontline Service Employees

Obesity is described as the fastest growing public health challenge facing developed nations (Prentice, 2006). This research introduces the topic of obesity to the retailing literature by examining the interplay between obesity in frontline employees and customer evaluations of service transactions. Baseline effects are established that show customers evaluate employees and firms more negatively if the frontline worker is obese compared to average weight. Two follow-up studies identify means by which firms may offset the negative obesity effects. Specifically, signaling theory is drawn upon in Study 1 to justify the introduction of observable quality cues as a means to offset negative stereotypes. Results indicate that the presence of unambiguous quality cues attenuate unfavorable judgments of the obese employee and the affiliated retail store. In Study 2, a countervailing, jovial stereotype is primed as a means to offset the more prominent negative ones. Retail managers can use this research as a means to understand an important caveat to frontline service evaluations and as the basis for managing a prominent negative stereotype.     

Utilitarian,hedonic, collecting,epistemic, and high values as determinants of the attractiveness of premium promotions

Modern retail is fiercely competitive, forcing grocery retailers to enhance promotions including premium redemption to attract customers. Taiwan’s leading convenience store chains have even established an integrated marketing department to develop unique premium rewards and campaigns that seek to induce customers to spend more or switch from other retailers. However, research on premium attractiveness is relatively scarce despite its importance in determining the success of a premium promotion. This empirical study identifies the premium value hierarchy that drives attractiveness from the consumer’s perspective. It finds that epistemic value is the most important driver behind making a premium reward attractive, which in turn, raises customers’ brand attitude toward the retailer and purchase intention in the retailer’s stores. High premium value can also make a customer develop a positive brand attitude. By contrast, utilitarian, hedonic, and collecting values only indirectly affect a customer’s brand attitude via the epistemic value. In addition, the trading stamps promotion only works with frequent customers; it is not effective in enticing VIP customers. This study provides suggestions on how to develop an attractive premium product and successful trading stamps promotion.     

Rapport-Building Behaviors Used by Retail Employees

The rapport between employees and customers represents a particularly salient issue in retail businesses characterized by significant interpersonal interactions. Although rapport relates significantly to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and word-of-mouth communication, the behaviors employees use to develop rapport receive minimal attention in marketing and management literature. Using research on rapport-building behaviors identified in other literature as a basis for investigation, this study investigates the extent to which such behaviors are relevant in commercial settings. With the critical incident technique, the authors identify rapport-building behaviors commonly used by retail employees in 388 service encounters. Analysis of 824 rapport-building behaviors described in these encounters confirms three categories suggested by previous research - uncommonly attentive, common grounding, and courteous behavior - and identifies two additional categories that have not been linked to rapport in retail settings, namely, connecting and information sharing behavior. The authors conclude with a discussion of managerial and research implications.     

Developing a New Theory of Frontline Manufacturer-Retailer Relationships for Consumer Packaged Goods

Purpose: Frontline employees from consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers, and the retailers’ employees who they interact with, play a crucial role in the in-store execution of product promotions and in ensuring that products are available for shoppers. This article investigates the development of interpersonal relationships between these frontline actors at the store-level of analysis and how these relationships influence in-store processes. We consider the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for sales force recruiting and sales management in the CPG retail channel.

Methodology/approach: Frontline relationships and in-store execution remain relatively under researched fields in the sales management and retail literatures. Given the lack of a well-established theoretical framework, we conducted a qualitative study in the grounded theory research tradition. We interviewed frontline personnel from manufacturers and retailers, their immediate managers and headquarters personnel and other industry experts. We took a holistic approach to data collection; also gathering other types of written, photo and video data for the purpose of iterative data analysis and developing a mid-range theory of relationship development between manufacturer representatives and retailer employees, the frontline employees tasked with executing marketing and merchandising strategies in the store.

Findings: We develop a model of frontline relationship development and performance consisting of 4 distinct stages: (1) working alongside, (2) building respect, (3) cooperative relationship (helping hands), and (4) collaborative partnership. We compare our findings with existing relationship marketing and relationship management theories. We find that an alternative theoretical framework may suit the particularities of the CPG retail channel better.

Research implications: This article provides insight into a very specific but important type of business-to-business relationships in the CPG retail channel that have seen little scholarly attention. It calls for re-evaluating the relevance of existing relationship marketing and sales management paradigms in the CPG retail channel. Future research could investigate the extent to which our model is applicable in sales environments beyond the CPG retail channel.

Practical implications: The study’s findings contribute to the practice of relationship marketing and sales management in the CPG retail channel. We present a case for a different approach of managing manufacturer-retailer relationships at the store level, a more functional tactic, which seems to deliver higher relationship performance than expected under the relationship marketing paradigm prevalent in sales and retail literatures. This different approach has direct consequences for the recruitment and management of a CPG sales force.     

Employee training and service quality in the hospitality industry

ABSTRACT

This study examines the relationship between employee training and service quality in the hospitality industry. The study tested the impacts of perceived access to training, perceived benefits of training and perceived support for training on service quality in the hospitality sector. Survey technique was used for the data collection. The research participants were frontline employees and their customers. The frontline employees responded to the training dimensions, while the customers’ completed the questions on service quality. One hundred and twenty useable surveys were included in this study. This study reveals a significant relationship between the employees’ perception of the benefits of training, support for training and service quality. This study offers some important management and theoretical implications.     

How retail entrepreneurs perceive the link between surveillance,feeling of security,and competitiveness of the retail store? A structural model approach

This study seeks to create a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which retail entrepreneurs perceive the link between surveillance and customers’ and employees’ sense of security at the store level. This study also analyzes the link between customers’ and employees’ sense of the security and store's competitiveness from the viewpoint of retail entrepreneurs. The present study utilizes elements of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) in its theoretical approach. The population for the study consisted of 946 grocery store K-retail entrepreneurs. The data collection was carried out through an Internet survey in February and March 2009. A total of 161 grocery store retailers filled in the questionnaire, yielding a response rate of 17%. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study revealed that formal surveillance has a negative impact on customers’ feelings of security from the retailers’ point of view. In contrast to formal surveillance, informal surveillance had positive impacts on customers’ and employees’ feelings of security. Retail entrepreneurs perceived that both customers’ and employees’ feeling of security had a positive impact on the store's competitiveness.