Understanding Promotional Service Interactions through Social Exchange Theory of Affect

Dyadic commercial relations during service interactions are not possible without exchange of emotions between the interactional partners. The study theorizes social exchange theory of affect and explores triggers of emotions from customers and service agents that enable rapport during promotion of products. The study conceptualizes that service agents deliver overall authentic service delivery, which is a composite of authentic emotions and affective service delivery. These delivered emotions are reciprocated by the customers who are high on agreeableness. The study also validates the link between rapport, customer satisfaction, and future buying intentions of the customers. Data were collected through between subjects experimental design on 120 participants. The results were analyzed and structural model was developed using partial least-square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. Results indicate that customer employee rapport is best predicted when overall authentic service delivery and customer agreeableness mutually interacts. The study is limited to outbound promotional services and its validity for other kinds of services and inbound calls awaits exploration.