To smile or not to smile: The role of facial expression valence on mundane and luxury products premiumness

A smile is an essential professional requirement for sales assistant and endorser as a means to give a stunning impression and to please customers. However, luxury brands, engrained as consumption symbols to create social distance, tend to act oppositely: they prefer endorsers and sales assistants in a neutral face rather than a smiley face. The purpose of this study is to investigate how and why facial expressions valence impact luxury product price estimation. A pilot study and three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. We first test whether neutral faces combined with luxury goods can make the customer feel distant. Then we conducted an imagination task to assess whether the interaction between the facial expressions of sales assistants and product type affects product valuations. Further, we adopted an experiment to explore the proposed mechanism, social distance. The results show that commercial models and sales assistants' neutral facial expressions increase perceived social distance, further enhancing the valuations of luxury goods. In contrast, they estimated mundane products higher when they saw a smiley face than a neutral or a negative face. These findings contribute to the literature on the impact of facial expressions in advertising and services for luxury and mundane products. Our findings have potential implications for brands to manage their images and convey their value through employees’ facial expressions according to brand positioning.     

The depicted service employee in marketing communications: An empirical assessment of the impact of facial happiness

Employees are often depicted in service firms’ marketing communications material. This study examines one particular aspect of such depictions: the signaling of happiness in terms of the employees’ facial expressions. It is assumed that depicted faces transmit emotional signals, that receivers are hardwired to react to such signals, and that the emotional signals influence the outcomes of the receivers’ information processing activities. Our empirical results show that this was indeed the case: employee display of happiness was positively and significantly associated with employee evaluations. The contribution of employee happiness remained significant when other characteristics of the depicted face (e.g., attractiveness) were controlled for. Our results also show that employee evaluations had a positive impact on the overall evaluation of the offer of the employee's firm, and that the employee evaluations mediated the association between employee display of happiness and the evaluation of the offer.     

Overhead aversion and facial expressions in crowdfunding

Overhead aversion—donors’ negative attitudes toward their donated money being used for overhead costs—has been explored in many contexts. In this study, we first confirm findings from prior research that high overhead costs imposed on project initiators have a negative effect on supporters' funding decisions and that higher overhead costs make project funding less successful in crowdfunding. Thereafter, we investigate how the negative effect of overhead costs on funding performance is moderated by the project initiator's facial expressions in the image on the project webpage. A smiling face mitigates overhead aversion, whereas a sad face amplifies it. We collected a large sample of data from Kiva, a loan-based crowdfunding platform, and used a deep learning algorithm to categorize the facial expressions of project initiators. Subsequently, a propensity score weighting approach was applied to minimize confounding effects. This empirical study indicates that the project initiator's smiling face, rather than a sad face, can alleviate supporters' overhead aversion.     

What makes a good citizen in service settings?

As service firms face intense pressure to improve service quality, contact employees have been asked to do more with less. It is important that managers understand the concept of organisational citizenship behaviours and attempt to motivate employees to exhibit such behaviours. This study developed and tested a model of how employees' perception of organisational support affects affective commitment (AC), which contributes to their citizenship behaviours in service settings. Questionnaire data from matched pairs of 318 contact employees and their supervisors demonstrated that both perceived organisational support (POS) and AC play strong, central roles in determining contact employees' exhibition of citizenship behaviours. In addition, AC was found to be an effective mediator linking contact employees' perception of organisational support to their citizenship behaviours.     

The Impact of Chinese Culture on Service Predisposition

376 service employees at 27 Hong Kong food service outlets were surveyed using Lee-Ross's Service Predisposition Index instrument together with the cultural values questionnaire of the Chinese Culture Connection. The objective was to examine the influence of Chinese culture upon employees’ willingness to deliver service. Results suggested that cultural values influence service predisposition through specific job attitudes. Respondents perceived humbleness, loyalty to superiors and tolerance of others to have the greatest positive effect on their job attitudes. This influence was most pronounced for the service dimensions disposition and communication and the moderator deference. The cultural values that had the most negative influence on service predisposition were protecting face, conservatism and repayment of good/evil. Respondents interpreted delivering service in terms of personal deference, to the customer or their employer, rather than as a relationship with the customer. There seemed also to be a cultural reluctance to accord (unknown) customers status and hence to perceive them as worthy recipients of service.     

Express yourself: Facial expression of happiness,anger, fear,and sadness in funding pitches

We build upon theory from evolutionary psychology and emotional expression, including basic emotion theory and the dual threshold model of anger in organizations, to extend knowledge about the influence of facial expressions of emotion in entrepreneurial fundraising. First, we conduct a qualitative analysis to understand the objects of entrepreneurs' facial expressions of four basic emotions in their pitches: happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. This provides a base for our theorizing that the frequency of entrepreneurs' facial expression of each of these emotions exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with funding. We also argue that the frequency of changes in entrepreneurs' facial expressions is positively related to funding. We test our predictions with a sample of 489 funding pitches using computer-aided facial expression analysis. Results support inverted U-shaped relationships of the frequency of facial expression of happiness, anger, and fear with funding, but show a negative relationship of sadness with funding. Results further support that the frequency of change in entrepreneurs' facial expressions promotes funding.     

Customer orientation,engagement, and developing positive emotional labor

Frontline employees must deal on a daily basis with emotionally demanding customer interactions. Such interactions, when coupled with organizational directives to focus upon exemplary customer service, can prompt employees to express feelings and emotions that are not genuine. Such ‘surface acting' has been found to create stress in frontline personnel, but an understanding of how this negative aspect of emotional labor may be minimized is lacking in the services literature. How a frontline employee's individual attributes might interact with a service work context to build deep, as opposed to surface, acting is the current focus. Applying job demands–resources theory, this study investigates how a frontline employee's customer orientation helps to develop positive work engagement, even in the face of contextual demands. Engagement is then linked positively to the beneficial behavior of deep acting which, in contrast to surface acting, has been identified as a less stressful form of emotional labor.     

Quality and productivity: role conflict in the service context

This article presents a qualitative study exploring service employees’ experiences of quality–productivity tensions in the workplace, and how they cope with such conflicts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 50 service employees. Content analysis suggests that organization-level conflict derives from the different channels that service organizations use to convey the importance of quality (e.g. training) and of productivity (e.g. rewards) to employees. During service interactions, employees experience conflict when standardization is violated and productivity is threatened. Our results demonstrate and explain employees' strategies for coping with the conflict between productivity and quality and with the ‘double message' they receive about these two goals. Many of these strategies are intended to ensure quality while maintaining productivity. We discuss the study's contribution to service science, and explain existing organizational mechanisms and processes for communicating the importance of quality and productivity to employees. Implications for service management are discussed.     

Social distancing in retail: Influence of perceived retail crowding and self-efficacy on employees’ perceived risks

The global COVID-19 pandemic has compelled all countries to impose social distancing as the basic epidemic prevention strategy; however, enterprises find it difficult to follow social distancing. Enterprises should give precedence to the perceived feelings of employees and manage internally to control risks. This study explores the influence of perceived retail crowding and self-efficacy regarding the perceived risk of employees in the retail industry in terms of practical social distancing. Overall, 378 valid samples were investigated using actual employees in the retail industry, and partial least squares (PLS) method was used to test the hypotheses. This study found that perceived retail crowding has a positive impact on different risk levels, while self-efficacy has a direct negative significance. For the retail industry, knowledge of these risks and employees’ perceived attitudes can be used to suggest means to maintain the service capacity of sustainable operations in retail stores.     

Service quality and the congruency of employee perceptions and customer expectations: The case of an electric utility

Understanding how the quality of customer service is impacted by employees is essential to managing and improving customer service quality. This article develops a model that looks at the relationship between a series of two important customer service gaps. The first series of gaps (service provider gaps) is a result of the difference between consumers' and employees' expectations based on various dimensions of the customer service encounter. The second series of gaps (service quality gaps) occur when a difference exists between consumer expectations and the service they actually receive based on specific aspects of the customer service encounter. This study found a positive significant relationship between these two series of gaps. This significant relationship provides empirical evidence as to the importance of keeping employees informed about the expectations of consumers. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Employees' overestimation of functional and relational service quality: A gap analysis

This study extends previous research on gap analysis of service quality by including not only functional service quality but also relational benefits. To this end, a field study was carried out in 36 hotels and 35 restaurants. The samples consisted of 213 employees and 657 customers. A questionnaire format was used to measure both functional and relational service quality, as well as customers' loyalty. When comparing employee and customer perceptions, gaps potentially range from ‘overestimation’ (employees' perceptions are greater than customers' perceptions) to ‘underestimation’ (customers' perceptions are greater than employees' perceptions). In general, the results indicated that the employees surveyed overestimated the service quality they offer to customers, although gaps were greater for certain service attributes than for others. In addition, some gaps were more related to customer loyalty than others. The findings also showed that employees' overestimation of relational benefits plays a moderating role, increasing the negative relationship between employees' overestimation of functional service quality and customers' loyalty. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed further in this paper.     

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.     

Exploring Managers' Views About Brand Saboteurs

This paper explores the relationship between employee behaviour and service brand performance. Current literature emphasizes the importance of employee behaviour in delivering a strong service brand, and suggests that employees can be clustered according to their degree of support for the brand. Twenty in-depth interviews were undertaken with HR and Marketing managers in financial services and grocery firms. In the context of employees as brand builders, we explore whether managers have recognized variations in the level of employee support for the brand. Specifically, we surface managers' views about negative performers, or 'Brand Saboteurs'     

Service Orientation: Its Impact on Business Performance in the Medical Service Industry

From the viewpoint of internal marketing, employees who are content in their job may be motivated to satisfy their customers better than ones who are not content. Another relevant premise is that the content employees, because of their work motivation, would eventually help improve the performance of their firm. To verify these relationships, some previous studies looked into the effects of organisational service orientation on employee's satisfaction. But only few of them investigated the mediating effects of variables such as service value and customer orientation for their role in linking service orientation to business performance. This study examines how an organisation's service orientation had an effect on its performance at hospitals. For this purpose, verification of the mediating role of service value perceived by employees as well as the role of customer orientation on the firm's performance was attempted. For this study, a total of 292 usable questionnaires were collected from hospital staffs located in metropolitan cities of Korea. The hypotheses concerning relationships among service orientation, service value, employee satisfaction and customer orientation were verified by covariance structural modelling, using SPSS 10.0 and AMOS 4.0 programs. The result is as follows. First, organisational service orientation had a positive effect on both employee satisfaction and service value perceived by hospital staff. Second, employee satisfaction had a positive impact on service value and customer orientation. Finally, service value as well as employee's customer orientation were found to exert positive influence on the medical firm's performance.     

Factors Contributing to Internal Customer Satisfaction and Commitment in Quick Service Restaurants

Abstract

The fast-paced, highly competitive nature of quick service restaurants (QSRs) has motivated members of the industry to develop creative ways to optimize customer satisfaction. This search for competitive advantage has fueled an increased interest in employees as “internal customers” who are primarily responsible for external customer satisfaction. The hospitality industry is unique in that employees are part of the product; they directly provide the service component. This project surveyed over 900 hourly and salaried employees at 61 QSRs. The results indicate strategies and tactics to maintain satisfied and “actively” as well as “passively” committed employees. In turn these employees may be an employer's greatest marketing tool.     

Learning from evaluation by peer team: a case study of a family counselling organization

This qualitative study explores how employees learn from Team Primacy Concept‐based employee evaluation and how they use the feedback in performing their jobs. Team Primacy Concept‐based evaluation is a type of multirater evaluation. The distinctive characteristic of such evaluation is its peer feedback component during which the employee's performance is discussed by peers in a face‐to‐face team setting. The study used Kolb's experiential learning model to describe the process by which employees learn from Team Primacy Concept‐based employee evaluation and the ways in which they use the knowledge to improve their job performance. The study found eight major dimensions that highlight employee learning as a result of the employees' engagement in the process of Team Primacy Concept‐based evaluation.     

The effects of endorsers' facial expressions on status perceptions and purchase intentions

The facial expressions that endorsers convey in a print ad can influence consumers' reactions to the product being advertised. This effect, which is mediated by perceptions of the endorsers' social status, depends on whether the endorser is male or female. Consumers expect endorsers' facial expressions to conform to normative expectations for how men and women present themselves to others and they attribute high social status to those whose expressions deviate from these expectations. Thus, they perceive smiling male endorsers to have high status but smiling female endorsers to have low status. These perceptions, which are independent of warmth and competence, influence consumers' willingness to purchase products whose social prestige value is unknown a priori. Five experiments confirm these conclusions and demonstrate their implications for actual purchase behavior.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Seizing the opportunity of demanding customers by means of frontline service behaviors

Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.     

Customer experience in the B2B area: The impact of age-related impressions

Services are dyadic experiences and many of these experiences require personal relationships for service provision. The co-acting parties' early impressions shape their unique expectations regarding, for example, appearance, behavior, and age. In a business-to-business (B2B) context, for example, younger employees might create a favorable impression in design-related tasks, while older employees might create a favorable impression in engineering tasks. The business partner subsequently contemplates the impression made by the individual's age (hereafter referred to as age impression) and ascribes certain competences to the individual.This paper emphasizes the role of the others' age impressions in a working context. More specifically, a qualitative study's results highlight the impact of age impressions on service expectations and perceptions. The results identify several dimensions of age impressions that allow for adapting service personnel to a B2B context. This paper fills a void in the age-related marketing literature because it focuses on the others' age impression rather than the individual's perception. The paper also contributes to recent customer experience (CX) literature, as it emphasizes the context factors' role in the service encounter. Furthermore, this paper is one of the rare CX studies in a B2B context and enriches research in the CX's adaptability in such contexts.     

Implementation and Outcomes of Customer Value: A Dyadic Perspective

This study examines the concept of customer value based on the views shared by service firms and their consumers. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, the study reveals customer satisfaction and retention as outcomes of front-line service employees' value delivery practices. Our results suggest that service employees' efforts to deliver customer value, even when based on a dyadic view, do not necessarily lead to customer retention. Rather, customers become more loyal when the value provided by service employees is matched by consumers' satisfaction. In other words, satisfaction is an important and necessary mediating variable between employees' efforts and customer retention.