scholarly journals Attacking the Cultural Turn: Misrepresentations of the Service Encounter

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Work ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Economic Relationships ◽  
Customer Interaction ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Employment Experience ◽  
Cultural Turn

Service work is often (mis)represented within western sociology through hyperbolic language, as its increasing incidence and changing character is seen as symptomatic of profound social change. This paper argues that many recent empirical investigations into, and the dominant representations of, the service encounter (employment involving employee-customer interaction which is represented as a particularly ‘new’ form of work) exaggerate its novelty as ‘cultural’ work. Through a critical analysis of some recent empirical accounts of the service encounter and drawing upon one example from the author's own ethnographic research into service encounters within north- eastern England, it is argued that the dominant representations over-emphasise the cultural, and underplay both the economic and gendered, dynamics of the employment experience. More specifically, we argue that it is the active combination of ‘the economic’ and ‘the cultural’ - the way in which gendered demands for employees to develop particular norms, values, personalities and identities are embedded within inequitable economic relationships - which can shape the employment experience of service employees. Dominant representations of the service encounter also reject the contemporary relevance of ‘traditional’ industrial sociological analyses of employment relations. However, given the weak empirical foundations of ‘the cultural turn’, we argue that this contention cannot be supported. In fact, it is suggested that many ‘traditional’ industrial sociological analyses precisely examine the interplay between economic, gendered and cultural relations and therefore continue to have relevance for understanding contemporary employment. Finally, our arguments are located within debates about the cultural turn within the wider sociological discipline.

It Went Downhill From There: The Spillover Effect from Previous Customer Mistreatment on Frontline Employees’ Service Delivery

2021 ◽  
pp. 109467052110490
Author(s):  
Yumeng Yue ◽  
Karyn L. Wang ◽  
Markus Groth
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Spillover Effect ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
Past Experiences ◽  
Frontline Service Employees

Research indicates that a customer’s service experience is shaped by their past experiences with the firm. However, the extent to which past experiences with customers shape frontline service employees’ delivery of services has not been examined. We propose that the analysis of service encounters as discrete, independent units ignores possible linkages between customer experiences via frontline employees. Adopting a resource spill-over perspective across two studies, we find that employees’ experience of customer mistreatment compromised their subsequent service delivery. Using an experiment in Study 1, we find that these effects are mediated by changes in the employee’s self-control capacity. Using a field sample in Study 2, we find that these effects are moderated by the employee’s dispositional self-control capacity and their motivation to commit to display rules. Our findings show how service encounter outcomes can be shaped by distal service events and call for a more holistic understanding of the forces that shape service encounter outcomes. In particular, by highlighting the potential consequences, our findings challenge conventional work protocols that compel employees to persevere despite their experience of mistreatment. By detailing the mediating and moderating mechanisms of mistreatment spill-over in service organizations, we highlight the recovery mechanisms and practices that enable FLEs to remain resilient despite negative encounters with customers.

Poor and rich customers in the service encounter

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Soderlund
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine categorization leakage from employees in service encounters in terms of indications that the customer has been categorized as either poor or rich. Given that customers perceive themselves as belonging to one of these two categories, leakage can result in perceptions of the categorization as either correct or incorrect, and the specific purpose is to assess the impact of such outcomes on customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach Two between-subjects experiments were used to manipulate service employees’ leakage of categorization clues; the participants were subject to leakage comprising clues that they had been categorized as either poor or rich. The participants’ self-perceived membership in the poor and rich categories was used as a measured factor. Findings The results indicate that customers are indeed sensitive to how they are categorized in service encounters. More specifically, when categorization in terms of the categories poor and rich was leaked to the customer, being correctly categorized (either as poor or rich) was more satisfying than being incorrectly categorized. In addition, given the valenced charge of these two categories, the results indicate that the category charge per se also influences satisfaction. Originality/value The present study adds employee categorization leakage to the existing literature dealing with employee-related factors affecting customer satisfaction in service encounters.

scholarly journals IMPLIKASI HUMOR DAN PERAN LAYANAN KARYAWAN GARIS DEPAN TERHADAP KEPUASAN PELANGGAN

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 249
Author(s):  
Widya Mulyati ◽  
Robert Kristaung
Keyword(s):  
Customer Satisfaction ◽  
Customer Service ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Banking Industry ◽  
Sem Analysis ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Frontline Service Employees

<p><em>This study aims to examine the implications of humor and the role of front-line employee services to customer satisfaction. The effect of front-line service employees calculates the factor of service encounters. The service encounter factor becomes one of the decisive factors in the service industry, especially the banking industry, especially in the era of digitization as the interaction between employees and customers is still needed. The research design used is hypothesis testing between humour, front-line service employees, to customer satisfaction by service encounter. The sample of this research is supported by 150 workers consisting of teller, customer service, and head teller/customer service department who participate as the respondent in this research. This research uses SEM analysis. The result of this research supports the hypothesis that humor positively effects frontline service employees and front -line service employees affect the service encounter. This research fails to prove that service encounter has a significantly direct effect on customer satisfaction. Therefore, the implication of service encounter is still a crucial point for the banking industry in achieving customer satisfaction.</em></p>

Emotion regulation in service encounters: are customer displays real?

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Shin-Yiing Lee ◽  
Jillian C. Sweeney ◽  
Geoffrey Norman Soutar
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Motivational Factors ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Face To Face

PurposeDespite recognition of the importance of emotions and emotion regulation in service encounters, emotion regulation has been generally studied from an employee perspective. This study investigated customer emotion regulation behaviours (CEREBs) in face-to-face service encounters; arguing for a more nuanced approach through an emotion regulation matrix representing the playing up and downplaying of positive or negative emotions. Motivational factors and service-related situational conditions that influence the likelihood of emotion regulation were also examined.Design/methodology/approachFour focus groups and the critical incident technique method were used to obtain data from people who had interacted with service employees within the previous six months.FindingsThere was support for emotion regulation in the four facets of the emotion regulation matrix. Five CEREB dimensions, including verbal behaviours and facial expressions, were evident. Motivational factors and situational conditions that impacted on customer emotion regulation in service encounters were also identified.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings were based on two qualitative methods. A quantitative approach should be used to further validate the suggested framework.Originality/valueMost research on emotion regulation has focused on employees. We examined the phenomenon from a customer viewpoint and in a service encounter context. As customers are not bound by employment rules and conventions, a wider range of emotion regulation behaviours were found. The study used the four-faceted emotion regulation matrix to investigate this, developing a conceptual framework that provides a foundation for future research.

A cross-linguistic study of metacommunication in online hotel reviews

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 445-470
Author(s):  
Irene Cenni ◽  
Patrick Goethals ◽  
Camilla Vásquez
Keyword(s):  
Hospitality Industry ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Service Failure ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Correct Information ◽  
Linguistic Patterns

AbstractIn this study, we focus on a specific form of metacommunication found in an emerging digital genre: Hotel reviews posted on TripAdvisor. In particular, we investigate how tourists represent their service encounter interactions. The main goal of the present study is to identify what these digital metacommunicative practices reveal about communicative norms and expectations among groups of reviewers writing in three different languages. We analyzed a multilingual dataset of 1800 reviews written in English, Dutch, and Italian. The results reveal that reviewers commented upon a broad range of aspects when evaluating service encounters interactions, for instance, describing the quality of the interaction (e.g. polite, correct), or a lack of communication when a specific type of communication is expected (e.g. absence of greetings, or apologies after a service failure). Further, we found similar cross-linguistic patterns, such as appreciation for being able to communicate in one’s mother tongue during the hotel-guest encounter. At the same time, a few differences across languages emerged, such as the preference for precise and correct information within British reviews. Since service interactions are of fundamental importance for customer satisfaction, our findings contribute not only to the current research on metacommunication in digital contexts, but may also be significant for service providers in the hospitality industry.

“Can I go or should I stay?” A theoretical framework of social lock-in during unsatisfactory service encounters

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Volkers
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Sunk Costs ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Intention To Stay ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Decision To Stay ◽  
Lock In

PurposeThis article demonstrates that the type of service setting and the first interaction with an employee influences the customers' intention to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter, and that these effects are mediated by social lock-in, which describes the perception of a customer that exiting a service encounter early violates social norms.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses are tested with two scenario-based experiments using a collective (theater) and high-contact service (restaurant) (N = 1143; 1485).FindingsThe results suggest that social lock-in and the intention to stay are higher in a closed as opposed to an open setting and that the type of setting is, in fact, more important for the decision to stay than sunk costs. Moreover, customers are more likely to stay after an interaction with an employee.Research limitations/implicationsThis article contributes to the research aimed at explaining customers' decisions to stay or leave during an unsatisfactory service encounter. In doing so, the study highlights the constraining power of social norms in service encounters, which contributes to the research on the relationship between the social context and customers' behavior.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that service providers can manage servicescape cues and employee behavior to influence customers' social lock-in perceptions and their decision to stay on or to leave early.Originality/valueThis is the first study to provide quantitative evidence for social lock-in and its determinants in service encounters.

Accommodating ethnic minority consumers during service encounters: the fine line

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Mady ◽  
John B. Ford ◽  
Tarek Mady
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Quality Perceptions ◽  
Language And Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of intercultural accommodation efforts on service quality perceptions among ethnic minority consumers. Specifically, the paper postulates that during an intercultural service encounter, the impact of the service provider’s language and ethnicity on the consumer’s service quality perceptions is moderated by the level of service involvement, consumer acculturation and perceived discrimination, which, in turn, influence purchase intent. Design/methodology/approach A 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with an online nationwide consumer panel of Hispanic consumers was conducted where 377 participants were randomly assigned to a series of service encounter scenarios in the banking service context to manipulate accommodation efforts (yes vs no) and the level of involvement with the service (high vs low). Findings When such language and ethnicity accommodations were offered, highly acculturated minority consumers regarded the service encounter less favorably than low acculturated minority consumers. Moreover, during low-involvement service encounters, intercultural accommodations positively impacted consumer’s service quality perceptions compared to situations involving high-involvement services. Also, minority consumers with perceptions of past discrimination had less favorable evaluations of the service quality than when such perceptions were nonexistent when intercultural accommodation efforts were made by the service provider. Research limitations/implications The findings add to the sparse literature that examines the effectiveness of intercultural accommodation and focuses on the combined use of service provider’s language and ethnicity as a means to enhance service quality. Practical implications The study delivers cautions for service firms not to generalize the receptivity of intercultural accommodation efforts. Given the increasingly sizable segments of minority customers, this study offers insights for service providers to develop suitable recruitment strategies and training programs when devising effective ethnic targeting strategies. Originality/value This research is among the first to explain why the effect of target marketing is not homogenous by expanding the research on intercultural accommodations toward a new context considering service involvement levels among varied minority consumer groups.

The Role of Digital Service Encounters on Customers' Perceptions of Companies

2010 ◽  
pp. 88-97
Author(s):  
Kristina Heinonen
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Customer Perceptions ◽  
Digital Service ◽  
A Company ◽  
E Mail

The service encounter occurs whenever a customer interacts with a company personally or through technology through, for example, the Internet, e-mail, or telephone. Nowadays, customers frequently initiate the encounter as, for example, inquiries, information searches, and complaints are conveniently performed online. This article explores the role of digital service encounters on customer perceptions of companies. Digital service encounters in this article denote remote customer-company interactions via the Internet or e-mail. The focus is on active customers initiating interactions and on customer perceptions of company responses to these interactions. A conceptual framework that captures customer perceived service encounter value on two dimensions (responsiveness and personalization) is proposed. An empirical study exploring the value of company responses to digital contacts indicated that many contacts are responded to promptly and satisfyingly. However, there are also significant differences in the value of the service encounter. Some service encounters are perceived as unpersonalized, and some are even left without response.

scholarly journals Service encounter microblog word of mouth and its impact on firm reputation

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 717-733
Author(s):  
Jennifer Brannon Barhorst ◽  
Alan Wilson ◽  
Graeme James McLean ◽  
Joshua Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Structural Equation Models ◽  
Service Encounter ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Firm Reputation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Positive And Negative Valence ◽  
The Impact

Purpose It has now become a normal part of the consumption journey for consumers to share their positive and negative service encounters with firms on microblogs such as Twitter. There is, however, a limited amount of research on service encounter microblog word of mouth (SEMWOM) and its impact on firm reputation from a receiver’s perspective. This study aims to understand the comparative effects of positive and negative valence SEMWOM on receivers’ perceptions of firms’ reputations and the factors that are particularly salient to receivers’ perceptions of firm reputation upon exposure to SEMWOM. Design/methodology/approach An experiment exposed 372 Twitter users to positive and negative valence SEMWOM. To determine whether changes in perception of firm reputation occurred on exposure to both positive and negative valence SEMWOM, participants’ perceptions of a range of US airlines were measured before and after exposure to the SEMWOM. To confirm the factors that influence the perception of reputation on such exposure, six structural equation models were created to determine the comparative effects of positive and negative valence SEMWOM among three electronic WOM media as follows: video, photo and text. Findings Both positive and negative valence SEMWOM affect receivers’ perceptions of airlines’ reputations on exposure. Furthermore, the factors that influence perceptions of reputation on exposure to SEMWOM vary depending on valence and type of media contained in a tweet. Originality/value Although consumers now routinely share their positive and negative service encounters with brands on microblogs, scant research has examined receivers of positive and negative valence SEMWOM, important actors in the microblog domain. This study addresses this research gap by empirically investigating the impact of both positive and negative valence SEMWOM on receivers’ perceptions of firm reputation upon exposure to it.

scholarly journals Building Customer Loyalty in Intercultural Service Encounters: The Role of Service Employees’ Cultural Intelligence

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas G. Paparoidamis ◽  
Huong Thi Thanh Tran ◽  
Constantinos N. Leonidou
Keyword(s):  
Service Quality ◽  
Customer Loyalty ◽  
Cultural Intelligence ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
The Impact

Intercultural service encounters, in which customers and service employees from different cultures interact, are becoming more common in the market. Despite the importance of such encounters for international marketers, limited research attention has been directed to this area. Drawing on social exchange theory, this study examines how frontline employees’ cultural intelligence (CQ) influences customer loyalty outcomes of service quality perceptions. Specifically, the authors propose that the three components of CQ—cognitive, emotional/motivational, and physical—have differential moderating effects on the perceived service quality (PSQ)–customer loyalty link and that these effects vary across two national markets. Data collected with a multirespondent (i.e., frontline service employees and customers) cross-cultural research design indicate that cognitive CQ negatively mitigates the impact of PSQ on customer loyalty in an emerging-market context while emotional/motivational CQ has a positive moderating effect in a mature-market setting. When service employees have high physical CQ, the positive role of PSQ in creating and maintaining customer loyalty is strengthened in both markets. The authors discuss these implications for theory and practice.

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