Are all smiles created equal? How emotional contagion and...

Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, Markus Groth, Michael Paul, & Dwayne D. Gremler

Are All Smiles Created Equal? HowEmotional Contagion and EmotionalLabor Affect Service Relationships

In this study, the authors examine the effects of two facets of employee emotions on customers' assessments ofservice encounters. Drawing on emotional contagion and emotional labor theories, they investigate the influence ofthe extent of service employees' display of positive emotions and the authenticity of their emotional labor displayon customers' emotional states and. subsequently, on customers' assessments of the service interaction and theirrelationship with the service provider. To test the study hypotheses, 223 consumers participated in a simulatedservice encounter in which actors played the roles of service employees. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, the employeesvaried both the extent of their smiling behavior and their emotional labor display by engaging in surface or deepacting. The results show that the authenticity of employees' emotional labor display directly affects customers'emotional states. However, contrary to expectations, the extent of employee smiling does not influence customeremotions, providing no support for the existence of primitive emotional contagion in service interactions.Furthermore, employee emotions exert an influence on customer outcomes that are of interest to marketers.

I n general, the interaction between service employees andcustomers is considered an essential part of both cus-tomers' assessments of service quality and their relation-

ship with the service provider {Bitner 1990; Gwinner,Gremier, and Bitner 1998; Parasuraman, ZeithamI, andBerry 1983). Despite the considerable amount of empiricalresearch on service relationships and customer assessmentsof service quality, several aspects of the service interactionhave remained unexplored. An area of particuhir interest istbe role of emotions in service encounters. Although thenotion of having a friendly service staff and providing "ser-vice with a smile" has become a generally unquestionedmantra for service firms, empirical research about howemployees' emotional states affect customers and their

Thorsten Hennig-Thurau is Professor of Marketing and Media Research(e-mail: [email protected],de), and Michael Paul is a doctoral stu-dent (e-mail: mjchael.paul@medien,uni-weimar.de), Department of Mar-keting and Media Research, College of Media, Bauhaus-University ofWeimar, Germany. Markus Groth is a senior lecturer, Department of Orga-nizational Behavior, Australian Graduate School of Management, Univer-sity of New South Wales (e-mail: markusg@agsm,edu.au). Dwayne D.Gremler is Associate Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing,College of Business Administration, Bowling Green State University (e-mail: gremler@bgsu,edu),The authors thank the students involved in thedata collection for their support, especially Jofianna Pauge, FarnoushPourebrahimzadeh. and Vincent Charles for Iheir acting performances.Tfiey also tfiank the three anonymous JM reviewers, Alicia Grandey, DougPugh, and Anna Mattila for their helpful and constructive comments onprevious versions of this article. They are grateful to CineStar and Con-corde Home Entertainment for contributing the incentives for the partici-pants in the study.

To read or contribute to reader and author dialogue on this article, visithttp://www.marketingpower.com/jmblog.

assessments of service encounters has emerged only inrecent years.

Two research streams that address the role of emotionsin service encounters involve emotional contagion (Hat-field. Cacioppo, and Rapson 1994) and emotional laborfHochschiid 1983). "Emotional contagion" is defined as theflow of emotions from one person to another, with thereceiver "catching" tbe emotions that the sender displays{Schoenewolf 1990). In the context of service interactions,emotional contagion creates a ripple effect of etnotionsfrom service employees to customers (Pugh 2001; Tsai andHuang 2002; Verbeke 1997). In other words, employeeswho smile at customers may be contagious, in that theychange tbe affective state of customers and thus influencecustomers' perceptions and evaluations of the serviceencounter. "Emotional labor" refers to service employees'display of expected emotions as a self-regulatory process(Hochschild 1983). When displaying expected emotions tocustomers, employees can choose between two actingstrategies, surface or deep acting, wbich differ mainly intheir extent of authenticity (Grandey 2()03).

The purposes of this study are twofold. First, weattempt to extend marketing theory by developing and test-ing a model of how employee emotions affect customers.Building on emotional contagion and emotional labortheories, we develop a model that enables us to test the dif-ferential effects of two facets of employee emotions—employee smiling behavior and authenticity of the emo-tional labor display—on changes in customer affect in aservice setting. We also examine key customer conse-quences of interest to service firms, including the impact ofemployee emotions on customer satisfaction, customer-employee rapport, and customers' future loyalty intentions,all of which constitute previously untested relationships.

© 2006. American Marketing AssociationISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185 (eiectronic) sa

Journal of MarketingVol. 70 (Juiy 2006), 5&-73

A second contribution of this study is our use of anexperimental research design that enables us to assess thecause-effect nature of emotional contagion processes moreprecisely. The extant services literature on emotional conta-gion has not answered the question whether customersreally catch employee emotions. Responding to Pugh's(2(X)I. p. 1026) statement that "in the absence of a trueexperimental design, it is not possible to conclude that con-tagion alone is responsible [for the variation in customerconsequencesj." our research establishes such causal rela-tionships and fills an important gap in the customer-employee emotions literature.

We first review the concepts that are central to ourstudy, namely, emotional contagion, emotional labor, andcustomer consequences of service interactions, and then wepresent a conceptual model and discuss the relationshipsamong the model elements. Next, we describe the design ofour experiment, which enables us to examine the relation-ships of the conceptual model using a two-way repeatedmeasures analysis of variance (ANOVA) and partial leastsquares (PLS) structural equation modeling. Finally, wepresent the findings and their implications for servicesresearch and management.

The Role of Emotions in ServiceInteractions

Emotional ContagionResearch on emotional contagion attempts to explain howemotions are transmitted among people in social interac-tions and how "catching" another person's emotions affectsthe dynamics of the social interaction. Emotional contagionean occur at both subconscious and conscious levels(Barsade 2002). That is. the process of emotional contagioncan be attributed to people's "tendency to automaticallymimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations,and movements with those of another person and, conse-quently, to converge emotionally" (Hatfield, Cacioppo, andRapson 1994. p. 5) and to more conscious social compari-son processes between people (Barsade 2002).

With "primitive emotional contagion" (Hatfield,Cacioppo, and Rapson 1994), the transfer of emotions fromone person to another is the result of the receiver's uncon-scious, emotive processes. This type of emotional contagionis driven by a two-step mimicry process, in which a person(1) spontaneously imitates another person's facial expres-sions and other nonverbal cues, which (2) leads the personto experience the corresponding emotions through physio-logical links. Although the person feels the emotions thatresult from mimicry, the processes that lead to this emotionare often "subconscious and automatic" (Barsade 2002, p.648). As a consequence, emotional contagion theories sug-gest that primitive emotional contagion is spurred by theextent to which the sender displays emotions; a greateremotional display by the sender results in higher levels ofemotional contagion in the receiver.

In contrast, "conscious emotional contagion" is basedon social comparison processes in which people activelyseareh for emotions as a type of social information (Salan-

cik and Pfeifer 1978). This search activity is considered afundamental human behavior, which grows particularlystrong in situations perceived as ambiguous (Gump andKulik 1997). Specifically, conscious emotional contagiontheory argues that people compare their mood with anotherperson's mood and adopt the sender's emotive level when itappears appropriate (Barsade 2002).' For example, in theabsence of other social information, people visiting anattorney for the first time can be expected to observe theattorney's emotional display and then to adopt his or heremotions as a result of their desire to search for social infor-mation and reduce perceived ambiguity. Unlike primitiveemotional contagion, conscious emotional contagion isdetermined less by the extent to which the sender displaysemotions during an interaction (e.g., frequency of smiling)and more by the authenticity with which the emotions aredisplayed (e.g.. genuineness of a smile). When the receiverperceives the sender's emotional display as fake or disin-genuous, he or she will not interpret the emotional displayas adequate for reducing perceived ambiguity, so consciousemotional contagion is less likely to occur.

Emotional LaborThe concept of emotional labor, which we consider a poten-tial driver of customers' emotional states and subsequentassessments of service interactions, refers to the "effort,planning, and control needed to express organizationallydesired emotions during interpersonal transactions" (Morrisand Feldman 1996, p. 987). Recent management literaturehas considered emotional labor in an effort to better under-stand how service organizations can manage employees'positive displays to customers. Furthermore, it is linked tothe existence of either explicit or implicit organizationaldisplay rules (Rafaeli and Sutton 1987) that delme whichemotions employees are expected to display and which theyshould suppress in the course of interacting with customers.

In general, service employees are expected to align theirdisplayed emotions with organizationally desired emotionsthrough their choice of emotional labor strategies(Hochschild 1983). With regard to specific emotional laborstrategies, scholars have drawn on Hochschild's (1983) dis-tinction between surface acting and deep acting as the pri-mary framework for service employees. In "surface acting,"an employee tries to change only his or her outward behav-ior to exhibit the required emotions. Thus, surface actingrefers to the act of displaying an emotion that is not felt andcould involve both suppression of felt emotions and fakingof unfelt emotions. For example, when dealing with anangry or annoying customer, an employee may simply puton a smile and pretend to be cheerful and friendly withoutactually feeling the emotions. In other words, surface actingconstitutes the expression of feigned emotions and lacksauthenticity (Grandey 2003). With "deep acting," however,employees express expected (or required) emotions byattempting to create these emotions within themselves. This

'This type of emotional contagion is sometimes referred lo as"emotional comparison" in the literature (e.g., Bartei and Saavedra

How Emotional Contagion and Etnotional Labor Affect Service Relationships / 59

strategy is similar to the method-acting technique developedby Russian director Constantin Stanislavski (1965), inwhich actors are taught to create self-induced true emotionsby using their emotional memory and recalling prior experi-ences and emotions (Hochschild 1983). As an example ofdeep acting In the context of service delivery, Hochschildreports on flight attendants who are trained to deal withangry passengers by thinking of them as frightened, first-time fliers. This process enables the flight attendants tochange their inner feelings toward the customer fromannoyance to pity and sympathy. Thus, the distinctionbetween surface acting and deep acting is conceptuallyaligned with the "service-as-theater" metaphor, which pros-tulates the interaction between service employees and cu.s-tomers as a dramaturgical interaction in which actors (i.e.,employees) perfonn (i.e., provide service) on stage (i.e., theservice environment) in front of an audience (i.e., cus-tomers) (Grove and Fisk 1992).

Consequences of Service InteractionsThe display of employee emotions and the resultant cus-tomer emotions likely alfect various outcomes of interest tomarketing managers. We focus on three major customerconsequences of service interactions that are consideredparticularly relevant to service companies: customer satis-faction, customer-employee rapport, and customers' futureloyalty intentions.

"Customer satisfaction" is widely regarded as the cogni-tive assessment of a customer's emotional experience (Hunt1993). As Oliver (1981) discusses, satisfaction is consump-tion specific; that is, it is related lo a single consumptionexperience. This transact I on-related characteristic is oftenconsidered the main difference between satisfaction andsimilar evaluative concepts, such as consumer attitude andperceived service quality, which are regularly modeled asoverall constructs or general evaluations of a service and areunrelated to a specific consumption episode (Hennig-Thurau and Klee 1997).

"Customer-employee rapport" is "a customer's percep-tion of having an enjoyable interaction with a serviceprovider employee, characterized by a personal connectionbetween the two interactants" (Gremler and Gwinner 2(X>0,p. 92). As a relational concept applicable to service settings,rapport depends on one or more interactions betweenemployees and customers. Similar to satisfaction,customer-employee rappon represents a customer's cogni-tive assessment of an affective state. It also is important tostress that rapport can be cultivated through a single serviceinteraction and does not depend on a shared long-term his-tory. Customer-employee lappon has been identified as asalient issue for service organizations because rapportexerts a strong influence on customer perceptions of servicedelivery and service organizations (DeWitt and Brady 2003;Gremler and Gwinner 2000).

Finally, customers' "future loyalty intentions" constitutea central component of service loyalty (Oliver 1997), whichitself is defined in various ways. Most defmitions focus on acustomer's willingness to visit a particular firm againbecause of his or her positive emotions and cognitions(Oliver 1999). In empirical research, future intentions repre-

sent a frequently studied component of loyalty, when loy-alty is defined and/or measured as future intentions (e.g.,Fomell 1992: Rust and Zahorik 1993; ZeithamI. Berry, andParasuraman 1996). We emphasize future loyalty intentionsbecause we believe that, in general, the future behavior ofcustomers is of more interest to service marketers than cur-rent consumer attitudes (i.e., attitudinal loyalty) and/or priorbehavior.

A Conceptual Model of the Impactof Employee Emotions on

Customers in Service InteractionsThe impact of different facets of employees' emotional dis-plays on customer emotions and their consequences for cus-tomers constitute the focus of this research. In Figure 1, weshow the conceptual model and the specific hypothesestested herein. In the following section, we discuss the pro-posed relationships in detail.

Impact of Employee Emotions on CustomerEmotions

Drawing on emotional contagion and emotional labortheories, we contend that in interpersonal interactionsbetween employees and customers, the likelihood that anemployee's emotions affeci customer emotions is facilitatedby two key variables: the extent of an employee's smilingand the authenticity of his or her emotional labor display.Although prior research has found that employees whodeliver "service with a smile" increase a customer's serviceexperience (e.g., Rafaeli and Sutton 1989; Tsai and Huang2002), little is known about how or why an employee's dis-play of emotions is related to customer consequences. Emo-tional contagion theoi-y (Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson1994) suggests that people's expression of positive emo-tions facilitates a corresponding emotional state in others.McHugo and colleagues (1985) demonstrate tliat exposureto Images of smiling faces produces correspondingobserved and self-reported emotions in study participants.Furthermore, as we discussed previously, primitive (i.e.,subconscious) emotional contagion suggests that the extentof a service employee's positive emotional display (e.g.,amount of smiling) is the key driver of emotional contagion(Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson 1994). Thus, on the basisof the assumption that customers perceive employee smil-ing, we argue that if an employee increases his or heramount of smiling, customers are more likely to mimicthese facial expressions subconsciously during theencounter, thus altering their own emotional state. We usethe term "customer positive affect" for this positive emo-tional state (DeWitt and Liu 2002; Watson and Tellegen1985).

H|:High amounts of employee smiling lead to a greaterincrease in customer positive affect ihan do low amountsof employee smiling.

We also expect that the authenticity of the serviceemployee's emotional labor display influences the cus-tomer's emotional state. As we indicated previously, deepacting and surface acting are alternative strategies that

60 / Journal of Marketing, July 2006

• - • - ^

FIGURE 1A Conceptual Model of Employee and Customer Emotions in Service Interactions

Customer ConsequencesCustomer EmotionsEmployee Emotions

Extent ofemployee

smiling

Customer-employee

rapport

Change incustomerpositiveaffect

Future ioyaltyintentions

Customersatisfaction with

transaction

Authenticityof the emotional

labor display

employees use to ensure that their emotional display towardcustomers conforms to organizational display rules. A keyditference between these two emotional labor strategies isthe degree of authenticity of the emotional display (Broth-eridge and Grandey 2002; Hochschild 1983; Kruml andGecides 2000). We argue that a high level of authenticity ofthe employee's emotional labor display, a main characteris-tic of deep acting, triggers positive emotions within cus-tomers due to their preference for being treated in an honestand authentic way. In contrast, we do not expect such posi-tive customer emotions when the employee's emotional dis-play is inauthentic. which is a main characteristic of surfaceacting. Evidence from the social psychological literature onauthentic (i.e., Duchenne) smiles and emotion recognitionsupports this view. For example, Ekman and colleagues(Ekman 1992; Ekman. Davidson, and Friesen 1990; Ekmanand Friesen 1982) show that authentic smiles stimulatemore positive emotional reactions by respondents than do"faked" smiles. It is argued that this distinction in reactionsis due to different neurological bases, in that observersoften respond more positively to some subtle facial cuesassociated with authentic emotional displays, including the

symmetry of the smile or the activation of certain musclegroups around the eyes {Ekman and Friesen 1982; Ekman,Friesen. and O'Sullivan 1988). Thus, customer reactions toauthentic emotional displays are likely to be more positivethan those to inauthentic displays.

This argument receives additional support from con-scious emotional contagion theory (Barsade 2002: Barteiand Saavedra 2000), according to which the lack of authen-ticity associated with employee surface acting makes it lesslikely that customers can reduce their service-related ambi-guity through the adoption of the employee's emotions(Grandey et al. 2005; Kruml and Geddes 2000). In the caseof deep acting, however, employees summon true and genu-ine emotions from within and thus display positive emo-tions to customers that are authentic, enabling those cus-tomers to adopt the employee's emotions consciously—thatis. to use the employee's displayed emotions as a type ofsocial information to reduce the ambiguity associated withthe service experience. In other words, the change in cus-tomer positive affect should be greater when employees'emotional labor displays are authentic (i.e.. engage in deepacting) than when they are inauthentic (i.e., surface acting):

How Emotional Contagion and Emotional Labor Affect Service Relationships / 61

H2: A high level of authenticity of ihe employee's emoiiona]labor display (i.e., deep acting) leads to a greater increasein customer positive affeci than does a low level ofauthenticity of the emotional labor display {i.e., surfaceacting).

Customer Consequences of Employee EmotionsIn addition to the proposed effects on customer positiveaffect, we also expect that the independent variables (i.e..extent of employee smiling and authenticity of the emo-tional labor display) directly affect both customer satisfac-tion with the transaction and customer-employee rapport.Regarding customer satisfaction, customers often interpretan employee's emotional display as part of the service it.self(i.e., the notion of service as theater; Grove and Fisk 1992).which suggests that they hold expectations about the dis-play of positive emotions (i.e., smiling) that influence theirlevel of satisfaction (Tsai 2001). Regarding customer-employee rapport, an employee's smiling may be anantecedent of rapport, in that it increases the receiver'senjoyment of the personal interaction (Gillis. Bernieri, andWooten 1995; Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal 1990).

Hy High amounts of employee smiling lead to a greaterincrease in cusiomer satisfaction with the transaction thando low amounts of employee smiling.

H4: High amounts of employee smiling lead to a greaterincrease in customer-employee rapport than do lowamounts of employee smiling.

Similarly, we expect that the provision of authenticemotions as part of employee Jeep acting leads to greatercustomer satisfaction and rapport than does an inauthenticemotional labor display (i.e.. surface acting). Grandey(2()03) finds that employees' use of deep acting leads tohigher ratings of service delivery than does the use of sur-face acting, and Grandey and colleagues (2005) report thatcustomer satisfaction is higher when customers perceiveemployee behavior as authentic. Grandey {2(K)3) also pro-vides support for the direct impact of the type of emotionallabor strategy on customer-perceived rapport. In her study,employees' deep acting is related to perceptions of friendli-ness and warmth, both of which are considered characteris-tics of rapport (Gremler and Gwinner 2000).

H5: A high level of authenticity of the employee's emotionallabor display (i.e.. deep acting) leads to a greater increa.sein customer saii.sfaction with the transaction than does alow level of authenticity of tlie employee's emotionallabor display (i.e., surface acting).

H(,: A high level of authenticity of the employee's emotionallabor display (i.e.. deep acting) leads to a greater increasein customer-employee rapport than does a low level ofauthenticity of the employee's emotional labor display(i.e., surface acting).

Relationships Between Customer Emotions andCustomer ConsequencesTheoretical support lor the impact of a customer's emo-tional state on his or her satisfaction comes from serviceresearch, which suggests that customer satisfaction with aservice encounter is strongly influenced by customer emo-

tions (Oliver 1997). In particular, when customers assess aspecific consumption experience (i.e.. form their level ofsatisfaction with the service), they draw strongly on theircurrent emotional state and ask themselves questions suchas "How do I feel about it?" Thus, a change in a customer'semotions due to an employee's emotional display shouldinfluence the customer's satisfaction. This impact is consis-tent with the aflect-as-information model from social psy-chology (Schwartz and Clore 1988), which suggests thatpeople rely on their moods as information cues when theymake evaluative judgments. Consequently, a change in cus-tomer emotions facilitated by an employee's emotional di.s-play should lead to a change in customer satisfaction, suchthat an increase in customer positive affect results in higherlevels of satisfaction.

H7: An increase in customer positive affect has a positiveeffect on customer satisfaction with the transaction.

We further hypothesize that an increa.se in customerpositive affect as a result of employee emotions will influ-ence customers' perceptions of their rapport with theemployee. Specifically, when a customer is "infected" by anemployee's positive emotions as a result of a service inter-action, the customer likely will enjoy the interaction withthe service employee to a greater extent. Because anenjoyable interaction is a key characteristic of customer-employee rapport (Gremler and Gwinner 2(X)0), an increasein customers' positive emotions should ultimately lead tohigher levels of rapport.

Hy: An increase in customer positive affect has a positiveeffect on customer-employee rapport.

The services literature also indicates relationshipsamong customer-employee rapport, customer satisfactionwith the transaction, and future loyalty intentions. Specifi-cally, we argue that rapport is positively related to customersatisfaction because an enjoyable interaction with a highdegree of customer-employee rapport is usually one inwhich customers reveal personal information, whichenables employees to customize the service offering to thecustomer's needs (Gremler and Gwinner 2000); both ofthese elements are considered integral parts of customer sat-isfaction. Furthermore, we expect that customer satisfactionis positively related to customers' future loyalty intentionsthrough the creation of positive attitudes toward the serviceprovider (Yi 1990). a claim we base on both attitude theory(Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) and exit-voice theory(Hirschman 1970). Finally, because customers who person-ally like a service employee and have rapport with him orher can be expected to form positive expectations about afuture service experience with this employee (Gremler andGwinner 2000), we propose that customer-employee rap-port has a positive relationship to customers' future loyaltyintentions.

Hy: Customer-employee rappon i.s positively related to cus-tomer satisfaction with the transaction.

H|o: Customer-employee rapport is positively related to cus-tomers' future loyalty intentions,

H|i: Customer satisfaction with the transaction is positivelyrelated to cu.stomers' future loyalty intentions.


Methodology

ParticipantsParticipants in the experiment were undergraduate andgraduate students from various non-business schools of amedium-sized university. The final sample contained datafrom 223 participants. 46.8% of whom were women. Themean age of the respondents was 23.5 years (SD = 3.2);ages range from 18 to 48 years. Although the use of studentsamples is sometimes considered a limitation in marketingresearch, drawing on student samples in experimentaldesigns, especially those involving role playing, is wellaccepted for examining causal relationships (e.g., Barsade2(X)2; Surprenant and Solomon 1987).

We contacted participants through the university's Website and course announcements; they received either a freemovie ticket for a local movie theater or a free DVD moviein return for their participation. Before the actual data col-lection, we conducted a pretest with 32 consumers to as.se.ssthe adequacy of the study design and the experimentalmanipulations and to ensure that the psychometric proper-ties of our study measures were adequate.

ProcedureGeneral research design. We informed all participants

that a new business model for a personalized movie rentalservice was being tested at the university. The service waspositioned as a new "movie consulting service" for whichcustomers would answer a series of questions about theirmovie-viewing habits and preferences in a one-to-one con-sultation with a service employee (unbeknownst to the sub-ject, this employee was a trained actor). Based on theiranswers, customers would then receive personalized advicefor potential movie rentals from the employee. Throughoutthe duration of the study, professionally designed postersthat promoted this new service appeared in various loca-tions at the university. The university also set aside specificfacilities to serve as the movie consulting service locationfor the duration of this study. The layout and interior deco-ration of these facilities resembled those of actual videorental services (e.g., a service counter, shelves containingmovies, movie posters, and life-sized figures announcingcurrent and upcoming movies). Donations of actual DVDand VHS movies and various poster displays from localvideo rental stores and movie theaters decorated the facili-ties and thus increased the realism of the servicescape (seeFigure 2).

E.xperirnental manipulations. Using a 2 x 2 between-subjects factorial design, we manipulated the extent ofemployee smiling (high versus low) and the authenticity ofthe emotional labor display (high authenticity/deep actingversus low authenticity/surface acting). We randomlyassigned participants to one of the four experimental condi-tions, high smiling/deep acting (n = 58), high smiling/surface acting (n = 52), low smiling/deep acting (n = 55),and low smiling/surface acting (n = 58).

Dramaturgy. We used appointments to schedule oneparticipant at a time, which limited waiting time and elimi-

nated potential interactions among the participants. Onarrival, each participant filled out a preencounter question-naire and then immediately entered the video consultingstore to begin the service encounter. During the serviceencounter, participants interacted with the serviceemployee, who engaged them in a conversation by asking aseries of specific questions about movie preferences andviewing habits. The service encounter concluded with theemployee recommending a specific movie on DVD or VHS,which he or she then handed to the customer. In general,these service encounters lasted between 5 and 10 minutes(M = 7.5 minutes).

Actors. The service employees were three trained stu-dent actors (two female, one male) whom we specificallyrecruited for this study and paid for their time. We hiredthese actors on the basis of their experience in service work,their interest in acting, and their knowledge of motion pic-tures. Initially, we narrowed the pool of potential candidatesdown to six people, all of whom then performed in a seriesof auditions and rehearsals and participated in the pretest ofthe experiment. On the basis of their peribrmances in thesetests, we selected the fmal three actors and trained themover a period of six weeks.

Furthermore, we developed a role description for eachof the four conditions. All roles required the actors tobehave in a customer-oriented manner and avoid the displayof negative emotions. For the extent of smiling manipula-tion, we trained the employees to smile frequently whendisplaying a high level of smiling and to minimize theirsmiling when displaying low-level smiling behavior. In linewith previous research, we defined smiling as a noticeableupward twist of the employee's lips (Pugh 2001; Sutton andRafaeli 1988). For the authenticity of the emotional labordisplay manipulation, we trained the actors in accordancewith the characteristics of surface and deep acting, asdescribed in tbe literature. They read some pertinent intro-ductory literature (e.g.. Grandey 2003; Hocbschild 1983),and two of the authors then discussed the concepts with theactors for a total of ten hours. Mainly, we drew from theconcept of method acting by showing movie excerpts andusing teaching techniques associated with method acting.For the surface acting role (i.e., low authenticity of the emo-tional labor display), the employee was instructed to adaptonly his or her outward behavior to the customer's needsbut not his or her inner feelings. For deep acting (i.e., highauthenticity of the emotional labor display), the employeewas instructed to create the appropriate emotions withinhim- or herself. To teach these actors the skills to do soeffectively, we employed specific exercises used inStanislavski's (1965) acting technique, which are com-monly taught to acting students as part of their basic train-ing. These exercises target the development of specificskills for using emotion memories (i.e., remembering andreexperiencing specific emotions) to evoke the requiredemotions. We continued the training until both the actorsand the researchers were satisfied that the actors had mas-tered a sufficient skill set to enable them to act out the spe-cific roles required for the experiment.


FIGURE 2Design of the Video Consulting Store

Finally, we developed a standardized service script thatconsisted of a list of questions about customers' movie-related preferences to ensure that all service encounterswould be identical in nature in all respects other than theexperimental manipulations (for further details about theservice script, see Appendix A). Data collection took placeover a period of seven days. Each actor played only one roleper day over a time of approximately two-and-a-half hours.We randomly determined the roles in advance, and eachactor performed for roughly equal amounts of time in eachnf the four roles.

i\/leasures

Freeneounter quesdowmirc. Study participants receiveda questionnaire just before they entered the video rentalstore, which included four items from Brief and colleagues'(1988) job affect scale to measure preencounter customerpositive affect (see also Burke et al. 1989). We dropped twoof the original six items (strong and active) because wedeemed them to be inappropriate for use by customerrespondents. In addition, to conceal the true nature of thestudy, the preencounter questionnaire contained various

filler items about preferences and consumption behaviorsfor motion pictures.

Po.stericounter questionnaire. Participants completed apostencounter que.stionnaire immediately after the end ofthe service encounter; it included measures of post-encounter customer positive affect, customer-employeerapport, customer satisfaction with the transaction, andfuture loyalty intentions, as well as demographic variables.We assessed pe>stencounter customer positive affect withthe same items used in the preencounter survey and calcu-lated any changes as posiencounter customer positive affectless preencounter customer positive affect for each of thefour items.- To measure rapport, we used four items from

-There is an ongoing discussion about the problems associatedwith the use of difference scores (e.g., Peter. Churchill, and BrownIW3). These i.ssues predominantly address the integration of twomeasures (e.g.. service expeciaiions and service performanceevaluation) but are less relevant when the same constnicE is mea-sured at two points in time. Two common eoncems about differ-ence scores are thai they lack variability and do not differ from theinitial level (Tisak and Smith 1994). However, these issues do nol


the scale developed by Gremler and Gwinner (20(X)); weexcluded items that implicitly suggest a long-term relation-ship between the customer and the employee. For customersatisfaction with the transaction, we used five items fromthe work of Churchill and Surprenant (1982) and Bitner andHubbert (1994). Finally, we measured future loyalty inten-tions with four items, three of which we adapted from thework of ZeithamI. Berry, and Parasuraman (1996) and onefrom the work of Taylor and Baker (1994). We measured allitems using seven-pt)int scales, in which higher numbersindicated greater agreement with the construct (for a list ofall study items, see Appendix B).

ResultsManipulation ChecksWe employed several methods to ensure the validity of ourstudy manipulations. First, unbeknownst to customers, allservice encounters were recorded with a hidden digitalvideo camera and transmitted in real time to an adjacentroom. Two trained judges (one of the authors and one grad-uate student) watched each interaction to judge whether itwas consistent with the required experimental manipula-tion. Service encounters that the judges deemed to be incon-sistent with the required role were dropped from furtheranalyses. Second, because the authenticity of the emotionallabor display manipulation ultimately depends on anemployee's self-evaluation, after each service encounter, weasked the service employees whether they believed they hadeffectively portrayed the desired role. In addition, duringthe debriefing, one participant guessed the true nature of thestudy. As a result of these measures, we excluded three ser-vice encounters from further analysis, which resulted in 223usable encounters.

Third, after completion of the study, four graduate stu-dents (two male, two female) who were not familiar withthe study watched all 223 videotaped service encountersand rated each interaction on several dimensions.^ Specifi-cally, two of the judges separately watched all interactionsand recorded (1) the frequency of employee smiles (definedas the number of times the employee noticeably smiled)during each interaction and (2) the duration of each smile(measured in seconds). We transformed these data into asmiles-per-minute measure and a measure of the percentageof time the employee smiled during each encounter, whichenabled us to control for service encounter length. Theinterrater agreement, which we measured with the intraelasscorrelation coefficient (ICC; Shrout and Fleiss 1979), washigh between the two judges for both items (frequency ofsmiles: ICC = .909, />< .01; duration of smiles: ICC = .948,p < .01). The ANOVA results also showed that the manipu-

appear to be critical in our case. Specifically, the standard devia-lions of the difference scores range from 1.46 to 1.63. and the cor-relation between the difference score and preencounter affect(-,34). though significant, is smaller than 1.

^We thank the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions ofhow to use the videotaped encounters to provide additionalmanipulation checks for this study.

lation of the extent of employee smiling had a significanteffect on the frequency of smiles per minute (.M|,jgh extent =3.5, M,ow extent = -4; F(l, 220) = 386.62, /? < .01) and thepercentage of time spent smiling (M|,i h(. ., .|n = 35.2%,Miowextent = 1-8%; F(l,220) = 417.09. p < .01), asintended. We found no significant effect for the authenticityof the emotional labor display on the frequency of smiles('*'high aulhenlieily " 2.0, Mj,!^ ;,in| en,jj.i,y = 1,8; r ( I, ^^U) =

1.08, not significant [n.s.]). though it infltienced the per-centage of time spent smiling (M j h au,heniidiy = 23.9%,Mi,,waumen.idty = 12.6%; F(l, 220) = 18.64, /; < .01), whichsuggests a potential confounding of the manipulations. AsPerdue and Summers (1986, p. 323) suggest, providing evi-dence that the effect sizes for unintended manipulations aresubstantially smaller than those for the intended manipula-tions indicates that the experimental manipulations haveworked effectively and that statistical significance "shouldnot be of great concern." In our case, tbe extent of tbeemployee smiling manipulation had a much greater effecton the percentage of time spent smiling (partial T|- = .656)than did the authenticity of the emotional labor displaymanipulation (partial r|- = .078), thus providing support forthe validity of our experimental manipulation.

The other two judges also watched all 223 videotapedinteractions and separately provided a global rating of theauthenticity of the etnpioyee's emotional display for eachinteraction (on a four-point scale ranging from "not at allauthentic" II] to "very authentic" [4]). Again, interrateragreement was high between the two judges (ICC = .927,p < .01). The authenticity of the emotional labor displaymanipulation had a significant effect on authenticity ratings(^highauthenticity ~ •^•°- '^low auihenticitv ~ ' "^' r ( l , z2U) =2552.78, p < .01), as intended. The extent of employeesmiling also had a significant main effect on authenticityratings (M jghexiem = 2.7. M,o exicm = 2.3; F(l, 220) = 4.21,p < .05), but the effect size of the authenticity of the emo-tional labor display manipulation (partial r|- = .932) wasgreater than that of the employee smiling manipulation(partial r\- = .147), again providing support for the validityof our experimental manipulation.

Reliabiiity and Validity AssessmentWe report the means, standard deviations, and correlationcoefficients of all variables in Table I. To assess the relia-bility and validity of our measures, we calculated Cron-bach's alpha coefficients for each construct. All alphascores are satisfactory, with no values below .80. In addi-tion, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis with allmulti-item measures in tbe model. The overall fit statisticsfor the four-factor model indicate that the model providesan acceptable fit to the data: x'(129, N = 223) = 333.7, p <.01; comparative fit index = .950; incremental fit index =.950; Tucker-Lewis index = .941; standardized root meansquare residual = .048; and root mean square error ofapproximation = .086.

The average variance extracted is greater than .60 for allconstructs, and the composite reliability measures are allgreater than .80. We also find support for convergentvalidity because the t-values for all constructs are signifi-cant at;? < .01 (Anderson and Gerbing 1988). Similarly, we


TABLE 1Descriptive Statistics, Reliability Information, and Correlations

Numberof Items M SD 1

1. Customer positive affect (preencounter)2. Customer positive affect {postencounter)3. Change in customer positive affect4. Customer-employee rapport5. Customer satisfaction with transaction6. Future loyalty intentions

444454

3.704.41

.714.914.695.12

1.201.411.241.661.471.56

.812

.556-.336

.233

.323

.269

.904

.596

.643

.771

.662

.806

.503

.561

.486

.967

.827

.696.932.798 .940

Notes: N = 223, Values along the diagonal represent Cronbach's alpha internal consistency estimates. All correlations are significant at p < .01(two tailed).

find support for discriminant validity; the squared correla-tions between each pair of constructs are smaller than theaverage variance explained of the respective constructs{Fomell and Larcker 1981). Thus, these resuhs indicate theacceptable reliability, convergent validity, and discriminantvalidity of our measures. ^

Two-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA

To test H| and H2, we conducted a two-way repeated mea-sures ANOVA to examine the effect.s of the extent ofemployee smiling and the authenticity of the emotionallabor display on the change in customer positive affect. Thewithin-subjects factor, customer positive affect, containstwo levels: preencounter affect {Time 1) and postencounteraffect (Time 2). As Tables 2 and 3 show, the extent ofemployee smiling has no significant main effect on cus-tomer positive affect {F{1, 217) = 1.5, n.s.), but the authen-ticity of the emotional labor display by employees has a sig-nificant effect (F(l. 217) = 35.2,p < .01. partial n ' = .139).4The nature of this effect is in the expected direction:Employees who express authentic emotions by engaging indeep acting facilitate customer positive affeci to a muchgreater extent (change in customer positive aftect = 1.18,SD = 1.09) than do those who display inauthentic emotionallabor by engaging in surface acting (change in customerpositive affect = .25, SD = 1.22). This fmding holds true notonly for the overall composite score of customer affect butalso for each of the four emotions (i.e., elated, peppy, enthu-siastic, and excited). Thus, we fmd strong evidence in sup-port of H2 but not of Hj. Therefore, we conclude thatemployees' emotional displays affect customers' emotionalstates, but this process appears to be driven primarily by theauthenticity of the emotional labor display rather than byprimitive emotional contagion through employee smiling.

PLS Equation Modeling

Next, we tested all elements of our conceptual model simul-taneously with PLS structural equation modeling. As acomponent-based method, PLS permits the use of nominaldata, which we need to assess the effects of smiling and

''Although we did not formally hypothesize an interactioneffect, our examination indicates ihat both effect.s are largely inde-pendent with no interaction effect (F(l. 217) = .607, n.s.). We alsoinvestigate the extent to which the results are influenced by theindividual employees by controlling for actors in the analysis. Thi.sdid not change the results.

authenticity (Fornell and Bookstein 1982). Furthermore, asa distribution-free method, PLS has fewer constraints andstatistical specifications tban covariance-based techniques,such as LiSREL.

We operation ali zed botb the extent of employee smilingand the authenticity of the emotional labor display asdichotomous variables (I = low extent, 2 = high extent; I =low authenticity/surface acting, 2 = high authenticity/deepacting, respectively). To estimate the model paths, we usedPLS Graph 3.0 and estimated the inner weightings with thepath method (Chin 2001). To estimate the predictive powerof the model, we applied a blindfolding approach {Fomeiland Bookstein 1982). This approach results in Q- values of.38 (change in customer positive affect), .67 (customer sat-isfaction), .81 (rapport), and .72 (loyalty intentions), all ofwhich are significantly different from 0 and therefore indi-cate tbat tbe model has predictive power (Gei.sser 1974;Stone 1974). The model explains 14.8% of the variance inchange in customer positive afTect, 47.6% of the variance inrapport, 71.7% of tbe variance in customer satisfaction withthe transaction, and 65.9% of the variance in future loyaltyintentions, in further support of its relevance (Chin 1998).All indicator reliabilities are greater than .75, compositereliability is greater than ,85 for all constructs, and the aver-age variance explained is greater than .60 in all cases (formore detailed information, see Appendix B). To determinewhether the use of a difference score measure for change inpositive affect influenced the results, we also analyzed analternative model with postencounter customer positiveaffect rather tban change in customer positive affect, but wefound no differences between the two models.''

The PLS results support most of our hypotheses aboutthe inner model relationships and provide convergentvalidity for the findings of the two-way repeated measuresANOVA {see Table 4).^ Specifically, our results show thatthe authenticity of the employee's emotional labor display

•"Significance levels and the direction of the effects for allhypothesized paths are ideniical to those of the difference scoremodel. The variance explanations for the postencounter model are11.6'7r for postencounter customer positive atTect, 60.4% for rap-port. 78.4% for customer satisfaction, and 66.0% for loyaltyintentions.

''We generated the t-values through a bootstrapping procedurewith 223 resamples with 100 cases each (Fomell and Booksiein1982).


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TABLE 3Means and Standard Deviations for Customer Positive Affect

Extent of employee smiling

Authenticity of the emotionallabor display

High extentLow extent

High authenticityLow authenticity

Time 1:Preencounter

3.72(1.21)3.69 (1.20)

3.71 (1.20)3.70(1 21)

Customer Positive Affect

Time 2:Postencounter

4.54 (1.38)4.30 (1.44)

4.873(1.28)3.953(1.40)

Change inCustomer

Positive Affect

.82 (1.26)

.61 (1.21)

1.18b (1.09).25^(1.22)

Notes: Standard deviations are shown in parentheses. Values with the same superscript are significantly different from each other at p < .001;all other values do not significantly differ.

has a strong and significant impact on the change in cus-tomer positive aifect—high authenticity through deep act-ing results in a significantly greater increase in the changein customer positive affect than does low authenticitythrough surface acting—but the extent of employee smilingdoes not significantly influence the change in customerpositive affect.

The extent of employees" smiling and the authenticity oftheir emotional labor display both have a significant, directimpact on customer-employee rapport, in support of H4 andHfi, but they do not affect customer satisfaction, which failsto support H3 and H5. The PLS resuhs also show thatchange in customer positive affect has a significant effecton both customer satisfaction with the transaction andcustomer-employee rapport, in support of H7 and Hg,respectively, Rapport positively influences customer satis-faction (in support of Hy), and customer satisfaction posi-tively influences future loyalty intentions (in support ofH||). Contnu7 to our expectations, rapport has no directrelationship to future loyalty intentions, leading us to rejectH|o. However, the total efl'ect of rapport on loyalty inten-tions is strong and significant as a result of the strongimpact of rapport on satisfaction (for a listing of all totaleffects, see Table 4).

DiscussionWhat We Have LearnedThe purpose of this study was to develop and experimen-tally test a conceptual model of how employee emotionsinfluence customers in service encounters. We apply a two-way repeated measures ANOVA and PLS structural equa-tion modeling to data collected from a sample of 223 con-sumers. The results of this research provide severalimportant contributions to the literature.

First, we fill an important gap in the service marketingliterature by providing empirical evidence that anemployee's emotional display can trigger changes in a cus-tomer's affective state. Our study is the first to provide adirect test of emotional contagion and its related processesin service interactions, and the controlled experimentaldesign of our study enables us to test causal effects betweendifferent facets of an employee's display of emotions andthe customer's state.

Second, our fmdings suggest that the authenticity of theemployee's emotional labor display, rather than the extentof smiling, influences the customer's emotions and percep-tions. Respondents in our study who encountered authenticemployees (i.e.. those who engaged in deep acting) were farmore likely to adopt the emotions of that employee thanwere those who interacted with inauthentic employees (i.e.,those who engaged in surface acting). This finding con-tributes to the emotional labor literature in that our study isthe first to provide evidence that different types of emo-tional labor (i.e., deep versus surface acting) differentiallyinfluence the customer experience during service encoun-ters. Furthermore, our fmdings contribute to the emotionalcontagion literature by contradicting the dominant beliefthat emotional contagion in service settings is based mainlyon mimicry effects (i.e., primitive contagion processes; see.e.g.. Pugh 2001). Although mimicry effects occur withinextremely short time frames (often less than one second)and thus might affect tbe receiver's emotions for a shortperiod, our results suggest that their impact fades during thecourse of a service encounter. That is, primitive emotionalcontagion might occur in the early phases of serviceencounters, but it does not remain throughout the comple-tion of the encounter, because postencounter emotions donot appear to be influenced by mimicry effects.

Third, our fmdings provide support for the aftect-as-infomiation theory, which links customer emotions to satis-faction (Schwartz and Clore 1988); the results show thaiboth the customer's postencounter emotional state andchange in positive affect lead tt) increased customer satis-faction. An increase in customer positive affect also influ-ences customer satisfaction indirectly through customer-employee rapport. Because satisfaction is positively relatedto customers' future loyalty intentions, employees" emo-tional displays appear to play important roles in a servicefinn's long-term success and have significant impacts onkey customer outcomes.

Fourth, we could not replicate Grandey and colleagues'(2005) results of a direct relationship between emotionallabor and customer satisfaction. In our study, the two pathsfrom the extent of employee smiling and the authenticity ofthe emotional labor display to customer satisfaction are notsignificant. Therefore, our results suggest that such effectsare of an indirect nature, with customer-employee rapportbeing the main driver of customer satisfaction. Thus, the


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link between authenticity of the emotional labor display andcustomer satisfaction is not as direct as previously thoughtbut instead is mediated by the extent to which customersperceive that rapport with the service employee exists. Apossible explanation of this finding is that whereas the con-struct of rapport focuses mainly on the interaction with theemployee, satisfaction also captures the customer's assess-ment of other aspects of the service encounter, such as thedesign of the servicescape (i.e.. "I like how the video storelooks") and outcome qualities (i.e., "I like the movie I wasgiven by the employee").

Fifth, although we find that customer-employee rapportis a driver of satisfaction, our results also suggest that rap-port does not exert a direct influence on customer loyalty.Although previous marketing research has postulated such adirect relationship (Gremler and Gwinner 2000), our studysuggests that the interplay among rapport, satisfaction, andfuture loyalty intentions may be more complex than previ-ously believed.

What We Still Need to LearnAlthough our findings expand the extant knowledge onemotions in service encounters, we recognize several limi-tations that must be taken into account when generalizingour results. The design of our experiment provides insightinto the transfer of employee emotions in one specific ser-vice domain—an innovative video rental service—but itremains unclear whether fmdings would be similai' for otherservices. Another limitation is that we focus on positiveemotions because they are most relevant (and desired) inthe service delivery context. However, similar ripple effectsmay occur for negative emotions. For example, anger andfrustration displayed by employees may transfer to cus-tomers and negatively atTect their service experience. Fur-ther research should address this issue by testing whethereffects similar to those we find apply equally lo the flow ofnegative emotions in the service delivery context.

Because participants in our study engaged in a servicethat was unfamiliar to them, their emotional processes werecompletely independent of any prior service interactions.However, in many real-life services, relationships betweenemployees and customers have been established over aseries of encounters, which might influence the emotionalflow in future service transactions. Another avenue for fur-ther research would be to test the cross-cultural stability ofour findings. Given that cultural norms about service deliv-ery and smiling behavior in general vary across cultures,additional research should examine the extent to which cul-tural variables inlluence the interplay of employee emo-tional displays and customer variables in service deliveries.

What Marketing Managers Should DoThis study illustrates that the emotions displayed by front-line employees are an important driver of the relationships

between service employees and customers. The transfer ofpositive emotions from employees to customers can enablefirms to establish high levels of customer-employee rap-port, customer satisfaction, and future loyalty intentions, allkey objectives of relationship marketing.

Our finding that customer affect is driven mainly by theauthenticity of the emotional labor display, rather than theextent of employee smiling, has important implications forservice marketers. First, it contradicts the common mantrain service organizations that service with a smile andfriendly service staff inevitably pay off and serve as acompetitive advantage. The commonly advocated "Smile!"policy that is currently in place in many firms may be a lessuseful strategy than is generally believed. Rather, ourresults indicate that the authenticity of the emotional dis-play by frontline staff and the sincerity with which staffinteracts with customers may be much stronger drivers ofservice outcomes than policies that require people to smileat any cost but do not provide them with the tools to createand display seemingly real emotions when they serve cus-tomers. Simply hiring low-paid service workers with lim-ited qualifications and motivation and requiring them tosmile at customers as part of their job description may notdeliver the desired results, whereas the display of authenticfeelings by service employees—facilitated by the use ofdeep acting—is likely to be more effective for positivelyinfluencing customer satisfaction and related serviceoutcomes.

Second, in terms of managing frontline employees, theprovision of authentic feelings is a far more challengingtask than simply smiling at customers. Such strategy mayrequire increased managerial emphasis on identifying andhiring talented and qualified frontline employees. Managersalso may need to provide additional training for frontlinestaff that teaches them how to engage in deep acting. Onesuch approach uses a perspective-taking technique, whichputs employees in the customers" shoes and therebyincreases their ability to adopt a customer's viewpoint(Parker and Axtell 2001). For example, flight attendanttrainees can be taught strategies to deal with irate cus-tomers, such as imagining that something traumatic hashappened in these customers' lives or by pretending thatthey are children (Hochschild 1983).

Third, our results confirm that the emotions customersexperience during service encounters play crucial roles anddirectly affect the success of service relationships. Becausecustomer emotions appear to be key drivers of rapport withemployees and, ultimately, customer satisfaction and loy-ally intentions, service organizations may benefit fromfocusing their attention on increasing positive customeremotions. This recommendation is consistent with emerg-ing literature on customer delight {Rust and Oliver 2Q00),which stresses the emotional component of customers' ser-vice evaluations.


APPENDIX ASummary of Service Script

Step 1. As soon as the customer enters the video consult-ing store and steps toward the service counter, theemployee makes eye contact with the customerand weicomes him or her to the store.

Step 2. The employee briefly introduces the nature of themovie consulting business and its service offeringsfollowing a standardized script. The employeepoints out that this service is currently being testedand thus is free of charge to the customer.

Step 3, The employee asks a series of standardized ques-tions about the customer's movie-viewing habitsand preferences. These questions follow a stan-dardized order and cover the following topics: (1)preferences tor specific movie genres, (2) prefer-ences for happy endings, (3) importance of filmdirectors in influencing choice of movies, (4) prefer-ences for specific film directors, (4) preferences forspecific lead actors and actresses, and (5) prefer-ences for a movie's country of origin. During thisprocess, the employee takes brief notes while thecustomer answers all questions.

Step 4. Following the set of standardized questions, theemployee briefly reviews his or her notes and sum-marizes the customer's responses.

Step 5. The employee proceeds to recommend a specificmovie to the customer on the basis of the cus-tomer's responses. The employee briefly introducesthe movie using a standardized script. If the cus-tomer has already seen this movie or is not inter-ested for other reasons, the employee recom-mends up to two additional movies.

Step 6. When the movie choice is finalized, the employeeasks the customer for tiis or her choice of DVD orVHS format, and the employee hands the movie tothe customer. The customer is thanked for his orber business and leaves the video consulting store.

APPENDIX BList of Items and Goodness-of-Fit Measures of

PLS Analysis

Change in Customer Positive Affect (CompositeReliability [CR] =: .871, Average Variance Extracted

[AVE] = .627)

At this moment, I feel...elated.peppy.enthusiastic.excited.

.794

.760

.800

.813

Customer Satisfaction with Transaction (CR = .948,AVE = .784)

I am delighted by this service experience. .922This service experience really helped me to find a

good movie. -764This service experience was a great one. ,863I am satisfied witti this specific service experience. .939I really liked this service experience. .928

Customer-Employee Rapport (CR = .977, AVE = .913)

In thinking about my relationship with this person,I enjoyed interacting with this employee. .949

This employee created a feeling of "warmth" in ourrelationship. .958

This employee related well to me. .947I was comfortable interacting with this employee. .969

Future Loyalty Intentions (CR = .956, AVE = .846)

The next time I need the services of a video store,I will choose this company, .936

i will say positive things about this service providerto other people. 922

I plan to visit this service provider in the next years. .922I will recommend ttiis service provider to someone

who seeks my advice. .898

Notes: Numbers in the right-hand column are coefficients ofdetermination.

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