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Rapport between service employees and customers has been suggested to be an important determinant of customer relationship management, yet existing marketing literature still lacks a sufficient understanding of how service employees’ nonverbal communication affects customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The purpose of this paper is to fill this research gap by proposing and testing a model that explores how service employees’ nonverbal communication (employee affective delivery and behavioral mimicry) influences customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of customer-employee rapport development were also assessed.

Using an observational methodology in conjunction with a customer survey, multi-source survey data collected from 303 customer-employee pairs in the apparel retailing industry was examined through structural equation modeling and regression analysis.

Results showed that employee nonverbal communication positively influenced customer positive emotions and customer-employee rapport. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere in the process of rapport development were also confirmed.

Service firms should train and motivate employees to use nonverbal communication to develop and strengthen customer-employee rapport. The importance of customer positive emotions in the service process should be addressed in the customer-employee rapport development process. Moreover, service managers should also allocate firm resources to create a well-designed store atmosphere for target customers.

This research represents one of the earliest studies to explore and empirically test the influence of employee nonverbal communication on customer-employee rapport development in service encounters. The partial mediating role of customer positive emotions and the moderating role of store atmosphere on the relationship between employee nonverbal communication and customer-employee rapport were also proposed and confirmed.

Although the verbal components of service encounters have been investigated, the nonverbal aspects of employee‐customer interactions have remained virtually unexplored in the marketing literature. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of service employees’ nonverbal communication during service interactions. Specifically, a conceptual model is presented that links nonverbal communication (kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics, and physical appearance), customer affect, and consumers’ evaluations of service providers (with respect to credibility, friendliness, competence, empathy, courtesy, and trustworthiness). Further, the importance of nonverbal elements is discussed and managerial implications are given.

Nonverbal communication comprises a core element of the interactions between leader and follower. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical attention regarding the impact of nonverbal cues on followers’ attitudinal outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this gap by linking a salient form of nonverbal communication, kinesics, to an under-researched leader-follower relationship outcome, that is relational identification (RI) with the supervisor. In doing so, the authors also highlight the mediating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) in the aforementioned relationship.

The authors conducted two studies in different countries. Moreover, the authors examined the hypotheses using hierarchical regression and bootstrap analysis.

As hypothesized, the present results showed that kinesics have both a direct and an indirect effect, through LMX, on RI with the supervisor.

To the best of authors’ knowledge this is the first study that links a form of nonverbal communication to both LMX and RI.

This study aims to examine the relationship among nonverbal customer-to-customer interactions (CCIs), positive and negative emotions, customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions.

The conceptual model that was developed using the stimulus-organism-response theoretical framework was tested using a sample of 583 consumers.

The results show that kinesics and paralanguage positively affect customers’ positive emotions while proxemics, paralanguage and physical appearance negatively influence their negative emotions. Further, both positive and negative emotions are found to have significant impacts on customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions.

Theoretically, this study not only contributes to the existing servicescape and customer experience literature but also expands nonverbal interaction research in the hospitality management field. However, results may have limited generalizability to other service settings and other cultural contexts.

This study is one of the first to investigate the impact of nonverbal CCIs on service experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between customer service skills and customers' loyalty through examining the mediation effect of customer satisfaction dimensions in Jordan's mobile service operators.

To achieve the research objectives, data were collected from 1,350 subscribers in Jordan from which 1,007 were valid for the analysis. Utilizing structural equation modeling, and after a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the authors tested an integrated model of customer service skills and customer loyalty through examining the meditational effects of customer service satisfaction dimensions on the relationship between customer service skills and customer loyalty.

It was found that three of customer service skills components, namely; reputation building skills, nonverbal communication skills, and customer service culture have positive relationships with customer service satisfaction dimensions (overall, functional, and technical customer satisfaction). Also, overall customer service satisfaction and technical customer service satisfaction dimensions fully mediated the relationships between customer service skills and customer loyalty.

This is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between customer service skills and customer loyalty through customer service satisfaction dimensions as mediators, either in Jordan or other developing countries. The authors' results also provide significant managerial implications on how to acquire and retain loyal customers in today's highly competitive telecommunications market, and the vital role of customer service satisfaction dimensions on the relationship between customer service skills and customer loyalty.

Previous studies that examined the role of empathy and nonverbal immediacy on business-to-business (B2B) salesperson performance is limited in scope and yielded inconclusive evidence. Grounded in Plank and Greene’s (1996) framework of salesperson effectiveness, this paper aims to empirically investigate the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior through which empathy and nonverbal immediacy influence sales force performance and the form of empathy (cognitive or affective) that has the most beneficial role in improving relationship (versus outcome) salesperson performance.

Using cross-sectional data that were collected from 422 pharmaceutical sales representatives, this study used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

Adaptive selling behavior mediates the effect of perspective taking empathy and empathic concern on relationship performance. However, the impact of empathy on outcome performance is not significant through adaptive selling behavior, but perspective taking empathy has a direct influence on outcome performance. Contrary to expectations, nonverbal immediacy is not mediated by adaptive selling behavior but has a direct and positive impact on relationship performance.

The results of this study have several implications for recruitment, training and assessment of salespeople in a B2B context. Based on the empirical evidence, it is highlighted that firms may use different forms of empathy and nonverbal cues to promote adaptive selling behavior that impact sales force performance (i.e. outcome or relationship).

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which simultaneously examines the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior in the relationship between three antecedent variables that relate to sales force empathy and nonverbal communication (i.e. perspective taking empathy, empathic concern and nonverbal immediacy) and two aspects of B2B sales performance (relationship and outcome).

Conversational agents (chatbots, avatars and robots) are increasingly substituting human employees in service encounters. Their presence offers many potential benefits, but customers are reluctant to engage with them. A possible explanation is that conversational agents do not make optimal use of communicative behaviors that enhance relational outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to identify which human-like communicative behaviors used by conversational agents have positive effects on relational outcomes and which additional behaviors could be investigated in future research.

This paper presents a systematic review of 61 articles that investigated the effects of communicative behaviors used by conversational agents on relational outcomes. A taxonomy is created of all behaviors investigated in these studies, and a research agenda is constructed on the basis of an analysis of their effects and a comparison with the literature on human-to-human service encounters.

The communicative behaviors can be classified along two dimensions: modality (verbal, nonverbal, appearance) and footing (similarity, responsiveness). Regarding the research agenda, it is noteworthy that some categories of behaviors show mixed results and some behaviors that are effective in human-to-human interactions have not yet been investigated in conversational agents.

By identifying potentially effective communicative behaviors in conversational agents, this study assists managers in optimizing encounters between conversational agents and customers.

This is the first study that develops a taxonomy of communicative behaviors in conversational agents and uses it to identify avenues for future research.

This study aims to examine how employee advocacy, via the value and credibility of their professional social media content, affects their followers’ attitudes toward the brand through the mediating role of parasocial relationships.

A quantitative research was used, and questionnaires were answered by LinkedIn users who follow at least one person they consider to be an employee advocate. A total of 390 responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that the credibility of an employee advocate positively impacts the parasocial relationship between the user and the employee, which, in turn, impacts the user’s attitude toward the brand represented by the employee advocate.

The results of this study suggest that employee advocacy on LinkedIn can shape positive attitudes toward the advocate’s brand. These findings suggest that organizations should consider employee content and credibility as strategic tools in marketing communications.

This study delineates the linkages between the credibility and content value of the employee advocate, the parasocial relationship they have with followers and their attitude toward the brand. This research contributes to the literature on employee advocacy and studies on the concepts of parasocial interactions and relationships.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has completely changed the landscape of the hospitality industry. The World Health Organization does not officially recommend wearing face masks in the workplace. Wearing face masks is controversial worldwide, however it has been widely adopted in Hong Kong society. Hospitality practitioners have worn face masks to work and serve customers for almost a year long, matching the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a conceptual model of face mask effects and also discusses and evaluates the effects of wearing face masks during the pandemic.

A convenience sampling method is employed to investigate hospitality operators using in-depth and focus group interviews with managers, front-line staff and customers.

The perspectives of both hospitality practitioners and customers are included in this study. The concepts of (1) invisible care, (2) sense of safety and (3) service trust have been introduced in this study. These provide valuable insights for the service industry when facing a large-scale health crisis, now and in the future.

This paper analyzes interview data collected from 35 respondents – 14 managers, 6 practitioners and 15 customers – in order to understand the critical effects of wearing face masks during the pandemic and the perspectives of both hospitality practitioners and customers.

For the hospitality industry, wearing face mask in service has already become a “new normal”, face mask effects might create an impact on service design, service delivery and service quality.

The findings show that wearing face masks turns hygiene and safety into a form of invisible care in the Asian hospitality industry. Practitioners' perspective regarding the necessity of a smile is less important to Asian customers, showing a discrepancy between the two parties. Customers do not believe that service quality has dropped due to the wearing of masks, but that the level of hygiene has risen. Unlike customers, practitioners are more concerned about not providing good quality service. However, the interview data show that respondents generally agree that mask wearing is a gesture and symbol for the hospitality industry to make tangible a new form of caring, professionalism, safety concern and communication.

The authors systematically review empirical dyadic service encounter research published in top-tier journals between 1972 and 2022.

The authors employed bibliometric techniques, co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling analysis to map schools of thought and research frontiers within the dyadic service encounter literature. In total, the authors analyzed 155 articles. To ensure inclusion of high-quality research, the authors screened articles from 139 journals with “4” or “4*” ratings on the 2021 Chartered Association of Business Schools (ABS) journal list, in addition to articles published in three service sector-specific journals: Journal of Service Management, Journal of Services Marketing and Journal of Service Theory and Practice.

The authors' co-citation analysis identified four distinct clusters within the dyadic service encounter literature: (1) shaping and explaining service encounters; (2) emotions in service work; (3) modeling, manipulating and measuring encounter service quality and (4) emotional labor and regulation in dyadic service encounters. Furthermore, the authors' bibliographic coupling analysis generated three research clusters: (1) service encounter characteristics; (2) emotions and emotional labor and (3) service encounter interaction content.

The authors' comprehensive review synthesizes knowledge, summarizing similarities among research clusters within the service encounter realm. Noteworthy are research clusters that clarify the emotion-based underpinnings and reciprocal nature of behaviors and emotions within dyadic encounters. By conducting complementary bibliometric analyses, the authors trace the evolution of the service encounter literature, providing an overview of the present state of dyadic service encounter research. These analyses offer valuable insights into the current landscape of the field, identifying future dyadic service encounter research opportunities.