scholarly journals Influence of emotions displayed by employees during service recovery

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Sicilia ◽  
M. Carmen Caro-Jiménez ◽  
Estela Fernández-Sabiote
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Consumer Experience ◽  
Service Experience ◽  
Content Type

Purpose While research evidences how customers’ emotions can influence their consumer experience, understanding of how employees’ displayed emotions affect the customer service experience is more limited. Drawing on affect transfer theory, the authors test for the mediating role of attitude towards the employee, which is proposed to mediate the effect of employees’ displayed emotion on customers’ satisfaction with recovery. As service recovery entails a critical service experience in which emotions can easily rise, this paper aims to highlight the pivotal role of employee-displayed emotions during service recovery. Methodology A scenario-based experiment in the context of an airline service failure recovery (3 × 2 between-subjects design) manipulates frontline employees’ emotions (anger vs happiness vs no specific emotion) and the quality of the solution (bad vs good). Findings Employees’ displayed emotions directly affect attitude towards the employee and indirectly affect service recovery satisfaction. Moreover, attitude towards the employee is affected more by the employee’s displayed emotion when the solution offered is bad compared to good. Practical implications Employees’ emotions displayed during service recovery can enhance or damage service recovery strategies. Employees should control for negative emotions in the case of service failure, especially when unable to provide a good solution. Originality Emotions displayed by employees can influence the customer’s service recovery evaluations. There is an interesting interaction between the quality of the solution and employees’ displayed emotions. Additionally, the mantra of “service with a smile” may not be valid in the case of service recovery: rather, employees should avoid displaying negative emotions.

Role of brand attachment in customers’ evaluation of service failure

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Luis Saavedra Torres ◽  
Monika Rawal ◽  
Ramin Bagherzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Brand Attachment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Coping Tactics ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This paper aims to examine the role of brand attachment as a relevant construct in customers’ evaluation after they face a service failure which impacts future consumer behaviors. It mainly answers the research question: does brand attachment cushion or amplify the effect of service failure on customers’ negative emotions? Design/methodology/approach A 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design was conducted. Data analysis was performed with ANOVA and moderated mediation. Findings Customer’s feelings toward a brand (brand attachment) that existed before a service failure occurred can regulate customer’s negative emotions especially when consumer attribute service failure to a controllable cause. This process minimizes the effect of service failure in customer’s satisfaction and consequently increase customer behaviors like word of mouth and loyalty intentions. Research limitations/implications Adding perceived intentionality as a service failure’s attribution could provide another layer of explanation of customer behavior. Also, an expanded study using a sector characterized by higher cost of change and permanent consumption could provide result’s generalizability. Practical implications Brand attachment should be included in the customer service strategy. In a service failure situation, brand attachment becomes part of the “service customer policy” helping customers to regulate their negative emotions. Originality/value This study fills the knowledge gap regarding the role of customers’ positive emotions toward brands when a service failure occurs. The current study extends branding literature by differentiating brand attachment role from coping tactics.

Explanation information and source in service recovery initiatives

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Baker ◽  
Tracy Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Source Credibility ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Positive Outcome ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Failure And Recovery

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to specifically consider two interactional aspects that are likely to contribute to the success of an explanation of why a service failed: the adequacy of information provided and role of the person providing the information. Design/methodology/approach – Two empirical studies were conducted using a between-subjects 2 (information: low vs high) × 2 (employee: frontline vs manager) experimental design. The first study was designed to better understand when the information provided might have a more positive impact on the customer. The second study was conducted to understand why the effects exist. Findings – In Study 1, an interaction effect was seen that suggests that the most positive outcome is when the manager (vs the frontline employee) provides a full explanation (vs limited explanation) of the mishap. Results from Study 2 indicate that source credibility is in play. Research limitations/implications – Participants were asked to respond to service failure and recovery scenarios using the same service context. The means of the outcome variables suggest that the recovery effort could be improved upon with other methods. Practical implications – Contrary to suggestions that frontline employees be responsible to resolve service failures, our studies reveal that service recovery initiatives involving an explanation only are best received when the manager provides the customer a full account of what went wrong. Originality/value – This research provides empirical evidence of when and why more information regarding the cause of a service failure is most positively received by the customer.

Foreign or domestic: who provides better customer service?

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amit Poddar ◽  
Timucin Ozcan ◽  
Ramana Kumar Madupalli
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Service Excellence ◽  
Customer Evaluations ◽  
Interaction Factors ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Service Representative

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of customer service employees’ (CSEs) competence and service recovery outcomes on service evaluations of foreign and domestic CSEs. Design/methodology/approach – Three experiments were conducted to test and validate the proposed hypotheses. The participants were told a cover story that they were either listening to (Study 2) or reading (Studies 1 and 3) a real conversation between a customer service representative of a bank and a customer and the authors wanted their views about the service encounter. While country of origin (COO) and competency were common independent variables across three studies, Study 2 included service recovery with a full refund and Study 3 had both full and partial refund and apology offered or not. Findings – Results from three experiments show that while competent CSEs are evaluated the same, regardless of their COO, the domestic CSE is evaluated more negatively than the foreign CSE when both are incompetent. The authors also find that when competent CSEs deliver no service recovery, the foreign CSE evaluations are significantly lower than the domestic one. Study 3 results show that this effect is mediated by participants’ ethnocentric beliefs. Research limitations/implications – For implications, this study provides a deeper understanding of the role of COO in services contexts. Future researchers can utilize the findings to investigate the important role that expectations play in determining service excellence and how it affects the COO effect. Practical implications – The paper provides managers in both offshoring client and provider firms with an understanding of the effects of offshoring on employee evaluations. It discusses the relevance/irrelevance of COO on the customer evaluations of service employees. Originality/value – The study investigates an under researched phenomenon – offshoring of services. This paper is one of the few looking at the role of different interaction factors, such as competence, recovery on service evaluations.

scholarly journals DO HR PARTICES AFFECT SERVICE QUALITY OF FRONT LINE STAFF

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farooq -E- Azam Cheema
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Hr Practices ◽  
Recruitment And Selection

The basic objective of this study was to examine the role of HR practices like recruitment and selection, training, performance appraisal and rewards management in enhancing overall service quality of the frontline staff in the hotel industry in Karachi, Pakistan. Hypothetic deductive approach was used for examining the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Customer service dimensions used in this study were derived from the SERVQUAL model that included frontline staff appearance, reliability of service, responsibility among the staff, assurance of job related knowledge and etiquette and empathy. For the purpose of study 15 hotels and restaurants of various sizes with minimum 30 frontline employees were chosen. Ten frontline employees from reception staff, waiters/waitresses, housekeeping employees were chosen using quota sampling for data collection. Opinion of the frontline staff was sought through structured questions as to how the four HR practices are likely to affect quality of five dimensions of the customer service quality. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire and integrated through SPSS. Results of study showed that the two HR practices; training and rewards management significantly affect the service quality of the frontline staff and this effect is far stronger than the effect of other HR practices. This research will not only bring significant practical implications for better human resource management in hospitality sector but also provide important indicators for future research. The future study may aim at identifying various internal and external factors that affect efficacy of various HR practices and policies and consequently their contribution in enhancing service quality of staff. Studies are also needed to identify further impediments obstructing the positive influence of recruitment and selection and appraisal practices on service behavior and quality of the staff. The role of various intervening or mediating variables such as employee collaboration, organization culture can also be probed further.

Employee proactivity, work engagement, job resources and service recovery performance: a study of structural linkages

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Adil Zahoor
Keyword(s):  
Work Engagement ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Proactive Personality ◽  
Job Resources ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Recovery Performance ◽  
Recovery Performance ◽  
Moderating Role

PurposeThis study explores the driver influence of employee proactive personality on service recovery performance with work engagement as mediator. The moderating role of job resources (social support, supervisory coaching and performance feedback) is also examined in the proactivity-performance linkage to analyze the interaction effect of employee proactivity and job resources on recovery performance.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data pertaining to the constructs under investigation were collected using a structured questionnaire from 432 dyads of employees from four companies operating in the Indian retail banking sector. Each dyad comprised of one frontline employee and her peer (colleague). Responses to work engagement and job resources were self-reported by frontline staff, as peer ratings were solicited for frontline employees' proactivity and recovery performance.FindingsEmpirical findings suggest that frontline employees' proactive personality significantly ameliorates their work engagement which in turn exerts a positive driver effect on their service recovery performance. In the case of less proactive employees (those with a proactivity score of less than mean value), service recovery performance is boosted when they receive constant feedback on their recovery performance. The results, however, did not provide significant evidence with regard to the moderating role of social support and supervisory coaching.Originality/valueThis study is one of the maiden attempts to relate employee proactive personality with service recovery performance. Since the research relating personality with recovery performance is largely underexplored yet fundamentally important, this study expands the available literature by examining as to what type of employee is more likely to deliver superior service recovery performance with little organizational support.

Employee adaptive and proactive service recovery: a configurational perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1581-1607
Author(s):  
Graca Miranda Silva ◽  
Filipe Coelho ◽  
Cristiana R. Lages ◽  
Marta Reis
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Adaptive Behaviors ◽  
Proactive Behavior ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Managerial Practices ◽  
Configurational Approach

Purpose This study aims to investigate the configurations that drive employee service recovery. Rather than analyzing the net effects of individual antecedents of service recovery, which is the common approach in the literature, this study uses a configurational approach to investigate how five antecedents (customer service orientation, rewards, teamwork, empowerment and customer service training) combine to yield employee adaptive and proactive service recovery behaviors. Design/methodology/approach The study collects responses from 90 frontline employees through an online survey. Building on configurational theory, the authors developed and empirically validated four research propositions by using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Findings Three equifinal configurations of managerial practices result in either employee proactive or adaptive service recovery behaviors. Two of these three configurations result in both adaptive and proactive behaviors. In addition, the findings show that two out of the three configurations that lead to proactive behavior in service recovery also lead to the simultaneous existence of proactive and adaptive behaviors in service recovery. None of the sufficient configurations require the presence of all managerial practices. These results underscore that managers do not have to act on every single managerial intervention area to promote service recovery. Research limitations/implications The study advances the knowledge on the antecedents of employee behavior in service recovery by investigating how these antecedents combine to yield different recipes for developing either employee adaptive or proactive behavior in service recovery. Practical implications The findings provide insights for managers into the different combinations of practices that can be used to develop employee proactive or adaptive behavior in service recovery. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that relies on a configurational approach to understand the combinations of managerial practices that result in employee proactive and adaptive behaviors in service recovery.

Consumer attitude towards service failure and recovery in higher education

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hardeep Chahal ◽  
Pinkey Devi
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Consumer Attitude ◽  
Quantitative Methodology ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Computer Lab ◽  
Service Failures ◽  
Service Failure And Recovery

Purpose – This paper aims to explore consumer attitude towards service failure and recovery in the higher education in general and with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure in particular. Design/methodology/approach – The data are collected from 120 students of three undergraduate colleges of University of Jammu using purposive sampling. Findings – The findings reveal that all recovery efforts pertaining to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure are significant in overcoming the respective service failures. Research limitations/implications – The present study is limited to address service failure and service recovery relationship with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure and limited to three undergraduate colleges operating in Jammu city only. The sample of the study is small which needs to be considered before generalizing the results. Originality/value – This study makes a maiden attempt to identify service failure issues with respect to teaching, examination, library, computer lab, administration and infrastructure using quantitative methodology in higher education and role of service recovery strategies in monitoring and reducing service failure.

Experience of shame in service failure context among restaurant frontline employees: does industry tenure matter?

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingyu Wang ◽  
Priyanko Guchait ◽  
Do The Khoa ◽  
Aysin Paşamehmetoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Customer Service ◽  
Survey Methodology ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Individual Factor ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Culture ◽  
Service Failures ◽  
Job Attitude

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to integrate tenets from the appraisal-based model of self-conscious emotions and the compass of shame theory to examine restaurant frontline employees’ experience of shame following service failures, and how shame influences employees’ job attitude and behaviors. In addition, employees’ industry tenure is identified as an individual factor influencing the impacts of shame in resorting to literature on aging in emotion regulation. Design/methodology/approach Using a survey methodology, 217 restaurant frontline employees and their supervisors in Turkey provided survey data. Partial least squares (PLS) method using SmartPLS 3.3.3 was used for data analysis. Findings The results indicated the maladaptive nature of shame following service failures as a salient self-conscious emotion, as it was negatively related to employee outcomes. Moreover, employees’ industry tenure played a moderating role that influences the impacts of shame on commitment to customer service. Practical implications Managers should attend to frontline employees’ shame experience depending on their industry experience and adopt appropriate emotion intervention (e.g. cognitive reappraisal) or create error management culture to eliminate the negative effects of shame. Originality/value This study advances our understanding of a powerful but understudied emotional experience, shame, in a typical shame-eliciting hospitality work setting (e.g. service failures). Shame has been linked with commitment to customer service and error reporting. In addition, industry tenure has been identified as a boundary condition to help clarify previous inconsistent findings in regard to the adaptive/maladaptive nature of shame.

Negative emotions and consumers’ preventive health behavior: a multi-method exploratory study

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manel Ben Ayed ◽  
Nibrass El Aoud
Keyword(s):  
Health Behavior ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Preventive Health ◽  
Consumer Experience ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Preventive Health Behavior

Purpose As the emotional/experiential aspect is still marginalized in the literature, this paper aims to explore the role of negative emotions associated with past experiences (PEs) in explaining the preventive health behavior (PHB) of the consumers with a chronic disease. Design/methodology/approach From the perspective of experiential marketing, a multi-method exploratory study was conducted among consumers with type 2 diabetes. The investigation process applied phenomenological interviews, visual projections and consumer diaries to adequately capture the emotional responses related to consumer experience of healthy diet behavior. Findings The results of a methodological triangulation show that the generation of negative emotions associated with PE with the PHB stimulates adopting healthy eating behavior rather than restraining it. Research limitations/implications The multi-method protocol chosen for this experiential study is a response to the methodological requirements for a broader conception of consumer experience in the context of chronic diseases. This protocol can be used for further empirical investigation of emotional reactions experienced in consumer behavior in the broad sense. Practical implications Managerial implications are provided for health-care professionals on how to implement marketing strategies and practices based on the identified consumer profiles. Originality/value This study highlights the significant role of experienced emotional responses in explaining the adoption of the PHB and underlines that not all decisions are rational. It also contributes to the literature by specifying a mixed-method approach of data collection for deeper investigation of the consumer’s emotional responses to the health behavior experience.

Timing and compensation strategies in service recovery

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 755-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofei Tang ◽  
En-Chung Chang ◽  
Xing Huang ◽  
Meng Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Service Industry ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Service Recovery ◽  
Repurchase Intention ◽  
Employee Behavior ◽  
Combined Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Failures ◽  
Hotel Service

Purpose A combined model involving the intensity of negative emotions and the strategic combinations (timing and means) of service recovery is developed. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performances of these different combinations through customer satisfaction, repurchase intention and fitting curves between the two under hotel service scenarios. Design/methodology/approach A 2 (recovery timing: immediate/delayed) × 2 (recovery means: psychological/economic) × 3 (type of service failure: failure in a delivery system/failure in responding to customer needs/improper employee behavior) between-subject experimental design was used with 456 participants. Findings The results suggest that immediate and economic recovery effectively raises the service recovery evaluations from customers with low-intensity negative emotions, whereas delayed and psychological recovery helps customers with high-intensity negative emotions to give higher evaluations. Originality/value When service failures happen, the strategies for and timing of recovery directly influence customers’ service recovery evaluations. This study sheds light on the role that negative emotions play in the process of service recovery and provides implications for service industry managers.

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