Emojis to conversion on social media

Emojis have become popular in online marketing communications. Marketers use emojis to humanize brand voice and elicit an emotional response from target audiences. However, little is known about how emojis are perceived and what kind of reactions they evoke. Therefore, this study aims to verify whether exposure to emojis leads to an increased intention to purchase and whether the use of emojis impacts campaign effectiveness in a real-life environment. In a theory build-up process, we draw upon the Dual Coding Theory and emotional contagion concept and develop seven hypotheses. We performed two data collection studies to test the hypothesized relations. The first study is based on a questionnaire (N = 318), while the second is based on experimental design in a real-life business environment. Surprisingly, we found that using emojis had a negative effect on purchase intention, while the effect was positive when mediated by positive affect. Emojis increased the effectiveness of marketing campaigns for hedonic products and strongly impacted the return on advertising spent. The findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications in the observed domains, particularly about the type of products emojis are most effective in promoting, gender differences, and real-life consumer behaviour. This is the first study to use an experimental design in a real-life scenario to capture the role of emojis on campaign effectiveness and decipher the differences between genders and their perceptions of emojis. Theoretical and practical implications together with future prospects are discussed.     

Frontline service employees’ customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, and service recovery performance: customer orientation as a moderator

This study investigates the structural relationships among customer-related social stressors (disproportionate customer expectation, ambiguous customer expectation, disliked customers, and customers?? verbal aggression), emotional exhaustion, and service recovery performance, with customer orientation (CO) serving as a moderator between customer-related social stressors and emotional exhaustion as well as emotional exhaustion and service recovery performance. The study uses data collected from a survey of 1,014 frontline service employees in Korea??s tourism service sectors. The results indicate that customer-related social stressors positively influence emotional exhaustion; emotional exhaustion negatively influences service recovery performance; and CO acts as a moderator. CO moderates both the effects of customer-related social stressors on emotional exhaustion and those of emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance, by weakening the effects for higher CO employees. This study contributes to both theory and practice by combining the four constructs of customer-related social stressors, emotional exhaustion, service recovery performance, and CO in addition to examining their relationships while focusing on customer-related factors.     

好的表演需要好的观众——顾客察觉准确性在员工情绪劳动影响中的作用

基于385对顾客和员工的问卷调查的配对数据,考察了员工的情绪劳动如何影响顾客的信任和忠诚,以及顾客察觉准确性在其中的调节作用。研究结果表明员工的深层表演会促进顾客的信任,进而促进顾客忠诚;顾客对深层扮演的高察觉准确性会加强员工的深层扮演与顾客信任之间的正向关系,而当顾客对表面扮演察觉准确性低时,员工的表面扮演会对顾客信任有正向的影响;顾客的深层/表面扮演察觉准确性加强了深层/表面扮演、顾客信任和忠诚之间的中介效应。研究帮助从情绪的视角更好地理解服务情境中信任的前因变量,发现顾客的察觉准确性在情绪劳动影响过程中的重要作用,有助于服务企业从情绪劳动的角度来建立顾客信任和忠诚。     

What You Feel,Is What You Like Influence of Message Appeals on Customer Engagement on Instagram

Visual-based social media are growing exponentially and have become an integrated part of the customer engagement strategy of many brands. Prior work points to the textual message content as a driver of customer engagement behavior. So far, little is known about the impact of visual message content, specifically visual emotional and informative appeals. We extract emotional and informative appeals from Instagram posts using machine learning models and use a Negative Binomial model to explain customer engagement. We test our model on 46.9 K Instagram posts from 59 brands in six sectors. Our results show that visual emotional and informative appeals encoded in brand-generated content influence customer engagement in terms of likes and comments. Specifically, we demonstrate that positive high and negative low arousal images drive customer engagement. Informative appeals do not drive customer engagement with the exception of informative brand-related appeals. These findings help brand managers in developing an effective customer engagement strategy on visual social media.     

The influence of emotions displayed and personal selling on customer behaviour intention

The impact of employee performance on customer behavioural intentions and consumption behaviour is important to service marketers. In many service settings, service organizations require emotional display and personal selling to stay competitive in todays market. Based on a review of service literature, this study investigates the effect of emotions displayed and personal selling on customer purchase amount and re-patronage intention in convenience-goods retail service settings. This work applies mystery shopper methods to data collected from a Taiwan bakery chain. Analysis of the results from 519 responded questionnaires in this study reveal that positive emotions displayed by contact personnel are unrelated to consumption expenditure, but do affect re-patronage intention. Further, the results show that personal selling negatively influences consumption amount. This study suggests that service managers consider enhancing their emotional display perspective in human resource practices, and focus on performing personal selling as a consumer need, in different service industries.     

The Mediating Role of Customer Relationship on the Social Media Marketing and Purchase Intention Relationship with Special Reference to Luxury Fashion Brands

The reach of internet technology and social media has opened abundance of opportunities for marketers as well as for consumers across the globe. To anticipate future purchase behavior of consumers, marketers are not leaving any stone unturned. The main objective of this study is to investigate the direct and indirect impacts of social media marketing activities (entertainment, customization, interaction, word of mouth, and trend) on consumers' purchase intentions in luxury fashion brands. This study employed higher order Structural Equation Modeling to test the study model with (n = 243) sample data. We found positive significant impacts of social media marketing and customer relationships on consumers' purchase intentions. In addition, our study model confirmed full mediation of customer relationships in the relationship between social media marketing and consumers' purchase intentions. Based on our research findings, we strongly recommend that marketers of luxury fashion brands engage in social media marketing activities to provide value to customers.     

Consumption in the public eye: The influence of social presence on service experience

Continuous improvement in managing customer relationships is a necessity for companies wishing to remain competitive in today's global marketplace. The two studies presented herein respond to this need by developing and testing a new nomological net that features social presence and its moderators as antecedents to service satisfaction. Study 1 discovers that when service experiences are positive, social presence enhances service satisfaction. Study 2 examines the interaction between service experience valence, social presence type and self-construal prime. The results show that when an interdependent self-construal is primed, social presence (both in-group and out-group) increases service satisfaction (dissatisfaction) during a positive (negative) service encounter, whereas, when an independent self-construal is primed, social presence exerts little impact on service satisfaction. Managers can benefit from these findings by considering the impact of social presence as they design their servicescapes.     

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.     

Oh my gosh,I got to get out of this place! A qualitative study of vicarious embarrassment in service encounters

Vicarious embarrassment is a negative emotion, which is experienced by an individual when others misbehave. People can feel vicariously embarrassed when observing other people's pratfalls or awkward appearance. For instance, vicarious embarrassment is elicited when watching reality TV or in service encounters where many other customers are present. However, the relevance of vicarious embarrassment in physical service environments has not yet been thoroughly analyzed in the context of service encounters. The objective of the present study is to close this research gap and to introduce the phenomenon of vicarious embarrassment to service research. The findings of 25 in‐depth interviews indicate that vicariously embarrassing incidents mostly occur in service encounters and that these incidents are triggered by the violation of social norms in both customer‐to‐customer and customer‐to‐employee interactions. The authors of the present paper identified closeness of relationship, the service context, and parties involved as important situational variables influencing vicarious embarrassment and further emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences for the observing person. From a managerial point of view, the relevance of vicarious embarrassment in physical service environments is caused by negative spillover effects of the service experience, which lead to decreasing customer satisfaction, negative word‐of‐mouth and purchase intentions, and a negative impact on the overall image of the service provider.     

Place the good after the bad: effects of emotional shifts on consumer memory

Marketing research has a limited understanding about the effects arising from emotional shifts (i.e., the transition from one emotion to another) during the same advertising message. This paper sheds light on this topic through two studies. Study 1 examines whether an advertising message that features a negative-to-positive emotional shift (i.e., a shift from a negative to a positive emotion) generates greater recall of an advertised brand than an advertising message with a neutral-to-positive emotional shift (i.e., a shift from a neutral to a positive emotion) or one with no emotional shift. Study 2 examines whether an advertising message that simulates a buyer-seller encounter—with the seller reproducing a negative-to-positive emotional shift via facial expressions—generates a greater recall of the advertised content than an identical advertisement with no emotional shift. Results confirm that a negative-to-positive shift facilitates the recall of both the brand and the advertised information.     

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.     

The impact of customer cognitive competence on online service decision-making: an event-related potentials perspective

Customer service online decision-making is subject to the perception of service value based on the interaction between customer cognition and emotion. The study reported in this paper examines the impact of customer cognitive competence on the online service perceived value. Thirty participants were divided into high- and low-cognitive-competence groups based on their responses on the service value perception survey. During the experiment, both groups were shown services that were available for online purchase. Changes in cognitive and emotional late positive potential (LPP) in the occipital and central–parietal region were recorded. In comparison with the customer sacrifice and customer benefit, the service value may elicit greater emotional LPP components in the central–parietal region and shorter cognitive LPPs in the occipital region in the group with high cognitive competence. Our findings present a potential neural mechanism for the impact of consumer cognitive competence on service value perception and decision-making, which may encourage the managers to improve service quality and guide the research of customer behavior and marketing.     

The role of memorable experience and emotional intelligence in senior customer loyalty to geriatric hotels

Drawing on service encounters and experiential marketing theories, this study examined the relationship between geriatric service, memorable experience, emotional intelligence, and senior customers' attitudinal and behavioural responses. The research was conducted at geriatric hotels in Portugal. The results showed that, compared to impersonal encounters, employee service has a significantly greater effect on customer satisfaction, memorable experience, and customer loyalty. In addition, customers' memorable experiences mediated the relationship between different service encounters and organisational outcomes. However, customers’ emotional intelligence had minimal effects on these relationships. The discussion and implications of these findings are offered to researchers and practitioners.     

Does emotional labor moderate customer participation and buying?

Two studies examined whether employees’ emotional labor as perceived by customers, moderates the relationship between customers’ participation and money spent. In Study I, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with customers to examine participation during shopping as well as customers’ awareness of their service employees’ behaviors. The interviews revealed two types of customer participation: emotional engagement and physical effort. Based on Study I, Study II investigated 114 customers, and the moderating role of perceived employees’ emotional labor on the relationships between customer participation and spending money. Even when customers were highly involved in the purchasing process, they spent less money when they observed employee inauthenticity as manifested in Surface Acting. However, Deep Acting positively moderated the relationship between customer participation and spending money. These findings help shed light on the circumstances in which customer participation is strengthened (leading to greater spending) or weakened.     

The Role of Empathetic Concern and Communication on Job Tension and Job Satisfaction of Customer Service Employees

The authors examine a model of empathetic behavior introduced in the social and clinical psychology literature to determine whether empathy contributes significantly to the job satisfaction or job tension of customer service employees. Both job satisfaction and job tension were found to be influenced by the level of .empathetic concern employees had towards customers, the amount of emotional contagion they experienced, and the degree of communicative responsiveness expressed. Results suggest that management should hire empathetic individuals, develop empathetic skills among their employees, and empower them to act accordingly. Findings have applicability to all service related organizations and businesses.     

The effect of customer dress on attitudes towards selling service by sales associates

Eliminating the criticism levelled towards customer service in retail firms is a current consumer/marketing issue. Customer satisfaction encompasses factors such as sales service and first impression. Research focusing on variables pertaining to emotional labour has the potential of increasing sales productivity and consumer satisfaction. This study represents an exploratory attempt to determine if relationships exists between customer appearance and first impressions and sales service. Results of the study suggest that the potential exists for apparel to influence sales associate customer evaluations as a positive association was found between sales service and first impression.     

Emotions in business-to-business service relationships

Emotion in business-to-business service relationships regarding cargo services is explored. The service relationship is characterised by mutual trust and cooperation. Contact is mainly via telephone or e-mail with some face-to-face interactions and participants providing a complex, multi-skilled seamless service. Experience rather than training plays a vital role with long-term service relationships built up and maintained. Emotional sensitivity is acquired partly by experience and a repeat customer base but mainly through a genuine desire to help and get to know others. In contrast to the view of emotional labour bringing managerial control or adverse affects to service staff, the emotion engendered by this work is authentic expression bringing personal satisfaction.     

Managing social media recovery: The important role of service recovery transparency in retaining customers

This research examines the influence of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness to retain customers in the context of service recovery via social media. We propose that customer forgiveness mediates the effect of service recovery transparency on switchover intentions. We further posit that the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is moderated by two additional recovery strategies, i.e., apology and explanation. The results of two studies, i.e., a survey and a scenario-based experiment, show that service recovery transparency acts to elicit customer forgiveness, which subsequently negatively affects switchover intentions. Furthermore, both apology and explanation moderate the effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness. The positive effect of service recovery transparency on customer forgiveness is attenuated when an apology/explanation is absent.     

Service with a smile: A source of emotional exhaustion or performance incentive in call‐centre employees

This study examines the relationships between emotional labour (surface acting, deep acting, and natural expression of positive emotions) and emotional exhaustion and service performance among 215 call centre employees. Of the hypotheses concerning the relation between the three emotional regulation strategies to emotional exhaustion and to service performance, only natural expression of positive emotion is significantly related to both consequences. Results also suggest that neuroticism moderates the link between deep acting and emotional exhaustion: employees with low levels of neuroticism seem more emotionally exhausted when they use deep acting. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Servir les clients avec le sourire: Source d'épuisement ou de performance chez les employés de centres d'appels?

This study examines the relationships between emotional labour (surface acting, deep acting, and natural expression of positive emotions) and emotional exhaustion and service performance among 215 call centre employees. Of the hypotheses concerning the relation between the three emotional regulation strategies to emotional exhaustion and to service performance, only natural expression of positive emotion is significantly related to both consequences. Results also suggest that neuroticism moderates the link between deep acting and emotional exhaustion: employees with low levels of neuroticism seem more emotionally exhausted when they use deep acting. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.