IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joreco/v17y2010i2p161-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Söderlund, Magnus
  • Rosengren, Sara

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Söderlund, Magnus & Rosengren, Sara, 2010. "The happy versus unhappy service worker in the service encounter:Assessing the impact on customer satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 161-169.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:17:y:2010:i:2:p:161-169
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2010.01.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698910000020
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretconser.2010.01.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Goodstein, Ronald C, 1993. "Category-Based Applications and Extensions in Advertising: Motivating More Extensive Ad Processing," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(1), pages 87-99, June.
    2. Heckler, Susan E & Childers, Terry L, 1992. "The Role of Expectancy and Relevancy in Memory for Verbal and Visual Information: What Is Incongruency?," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 18(4), pages 475-492, March.
    3. Hartline, Michael D. & Jones, Keith C., 1996. "Employee performance cues in a hotel service environment: Influence on perceived service quality, value, and word-of-mouth intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 207-215, March.
    4. Grandey, Alicia A. & Fisk, Glenda M. & Mattila, Anna S. & Jansen, Karen J. & Sideman, Lori A., 2005. "Is "service with a smile" enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 38-55, January.
    5. Söderlund, Magnus & Julander, Claes-Robert, 2009. "Physical attractiveness of the service worker in the moment of truth and its effects on customer satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 216-226.
    6. Howard, Daniel J & Gengler, Charles, 2001. "Emotional Contagion Effects on Product Attitudes," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(2), pages 189-201, September.
    7. Sujan, Mita, 1985. "Consumer Knowledge: Effects on Evaluation Strategies Mediating Consumer Judgments," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(1), pages 31-46, June.
    8. Miao-Que Lin & Li-Shia Huang & Yi-Fang Chiang, 2008. "The moderating effects of gender roles on service emotional contagion," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(6), pages 755-767, July.
    9. Lee, Yih Hwai & Mason, Charlotte, 1999. "Responses to Information Incongruency in Advertising: The Role of Expectancy, Relevancy, and Humor," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(2), pages 156-169, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kumar, Anil, 2021. "Analysing the drivers of customer happiness at authorized workshops and improving retention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Zhu, Hong & Zhou, Yayu & Wu, Yening & Wang, Xin, 2022. "To smile or not to smile: The role of facial expression valence on mundane and luxury products premiumness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Murali, S. & Pugazhendhi, S. & Muralidharan, C., 2016. "Modelling and Investigating the relationship of after sales service quality with customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty – A case study of home appliances business," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 67-83.
    4. Söderlund, Magnus & Sagfossen, Sofie, 2017. "The depicted service employee in marketing communications: An empirical assessment of the impact of facial happiness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 186-193.
    5. Trivedi, Rohit H. & Teichert, Thorsten, 2019. "The effect of ad smiles on consumer attitudes and intentions: Influence of model gender and consumer gender," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 197-205.
    6. Xu, Yingzi & Ling, I-Ling, 2023. "Effects of face masks and photo tags on nonverbal communication in service encounters," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Loef, J. & Antonides, G. & van Raaij, W.F., 2001. "The Effectiveness of Advertising Matching Purchase Motivation," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2001-65-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    2. Georgios Halkias & Flora Kokkinaki, 2010. "Attention, Memory, and Evaluation of Schema Incongruent Brand Messages. An Empirical Study," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 032, University of Siena.
    3. Braun-LaTour, Kathryn A. & Puccinelli, Nancy M. & Mast, Fred W., 2007. "Mood, information congruency, and overload," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 60(11), pages 1109-1116, November.
    4. Lee, Michael S.W. & Septianto, Felix & Frethey-Bentham, Catherine & Gao, Esther, 2020. "Condoms and bananas: Shock advertising explained through congruence theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    5. Maria Mercanti-Guérin & Christophe Bezes, 2010. "La créativité publicitaire représente-t-elle un danger pour les marques ?," Post-Print hal-02056938, HAL.
    6. Hutter, Katharina & Hoffmann, Stefan, 2014. "Surprise, Surprise. Ambient Media as Promotion Tool for Retailers," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 93-110.
    7. Boujena, Othman & Ulrich, Isabelle & Piris, Yolande & Chicheportiche, Laëtitia, 2021. "Using food pictorial metaphor in the advertising of non-food brands: An exploratory investigation of consumer interpretation and affective response," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Mai, Robert & Hutter, Katharina, 2014. "Non-Linear Effects of Absurdity in Advertising," EconStor Preprints 96480, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    9. Loef, J. & Antonides, G. & van Raaij, W.F., 2002. "The Role of Schema Salience in Ad Processing and Evaluation," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-15-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    10. Chakravarty, Anindita & Liu, Yong & Mazumdar, Tridib, 2010. "The Differential Effects of Online Word-of-Mouth and Critics' Reviews on Pre-release Movie Evaluation," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 185-197.
    11. Christophe Bezes, 2010. "Tout ce qui est congruent, est-il similaire ? Propositions de définition du concept de congruence en marketing," Post-Print hal-00573441, HAL.
    12. Gaëlle Pantin-Sohier & Caroline Lancelot Miltgen, 2012. "L'impact des stimuli informationnels d'un nouveau produit alimentaire sur les réactions affectives et cognitives du consommateur," Post-Print hal-01117036, HAL.
    13. Wang, Sijun & Beatty, Sharon E. & Mothersbaugh, David L., 2009. "Congruity's role in website attitude formation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 609-615, June.
    14. Söderlund, Magnus, 2011. "Other customers in the retail environment and their impact on the customer’s evaluations of the retailer," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 174-182.
    15. Andrzejewski, Susan A. & Mooney, Emily C., 2016. "Service with a smile: Does the type of smile matter?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 135-141.
    16. Chu, Kyounghee & Lee, Do-Hee & Kim, Ji Yoon, 2019. "The effect of verbal brand personification on consumer evaluation in advertising: Internal and external personification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 472-480.
    17. Söderlund, Magnus & Sagfossen, Sofie, 2017. "The depicted service employee in marketing communications: An empirical assessment of the impact of facial happiness," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 186-193.
    18. McDaniel, Stephen R. & Heald, Gary R., 2000. "Young Consumers' Responses to Event Sponsorship Advertisements of Unhealthy Products: Implications of Schema-triggered Affect Theory," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 163-184, November.
    19. Simon Blanchard & Wayne DeSarbo & A. Atalay & Nukhet Harmancioglu, 2012. "Identifying consumer heterogeneity in unobserved categories," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 177-194, March.
    20. Roggeveen, Anne L. & Goodstein, Ronald C. & Grewal, Dhruv, 2014. "Improving the Effect of Guarantees: The Role of a Retailer's Reputation," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 27-39.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:17:y:2010:i:2:p:161-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.