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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.

Using the analogy of “If you build it, they will come” from the movie Field of Dreams, this study aims to draw on relational signaling and commitment–trust theories to examine the role of different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) in the relationship between relational-encounter quality and customer loyalty to service employees and to the organization in the case of an integrated casino resort. The study confirms that building it (trust), they (customers) will come to the casino exhibited in their loyalty to casino hosts and their affiliated casinos.

The study was conducted with very important person (VIP) customers who have a designated VIP host to provide them with personal services at an integrated casino resort in Macau. The questionnaire was distributed to the respondents by VIP hosts using WeChat and Tencent QQ.

The study shows that different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) play a significant mediation role in the relationship between relational-encounter quality and the customers’ loyalty to the hosts and their affiliated casinos.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the roles of different types of trust (cognitive, affective and relational) in the relational encounter between casino hosts and VIP customers and provides insights into the link between service employees and their firm through the nurturing of the service encounter with the firm’s key accounts.

This study aims to assess green food packages’ role in sustaining a restaurant’s curbside pickup service on three stages of consumer experiences: choosing a restaurant, evaluating their experiences of a recent purchase and weighing their post-consumption behavioral intentions after the recent purchase.

The service encounters framework and relevant literature guided the development of the questionnaire. A Qualtrics panel data of 314 valid questionnaires were collected and analyzed with choice experience, ordinary least squares regression and PROCESS modeling.

First, word-of-mouth (WOM) and function encounters significantly influence consumers’ first-time curbside pickup purchasing decisions. Then, service results encounter (besides distributor encounter) most significantly affects consumers’ overall curbside pickup experience. Finally, green food packages increase consumers’ shares of future purchases through their positive WOM intentions and extra efforts of revisiting the restaurant. Consumers’ perceived importance of green restaurant practices strengthens green food packages’ positive impact on extra efforts.

This study provides operational and marketing insights for restaurants to use food packages and sustain their curbside pickup service.

Besides assessing consumers’ evaluations and behavioral intentions for an off-premises restaurant service expected to stay beyond the pandemic, this research uniquely focuses on green food packages, a sustainability issue lacking research attention. The findings add new empirical insights to studies about sustainability and restaurant/food–retail operations.

Service research offering a view of both the dark and bright sides of smart technology remains scarce. This paper embraces a critical perspective and examines the conflicting outcomes of smart services on the customer experience (CX), with a specific focus on chatbots.

This study uses empirical research methods to examine a single case study where an online retail service provider implemented a chatbot for customer service. Using discourse analysis, we analysed 7,167 conversations between customers and the chatbot over a two-year period.

The analysis identifies seven general themes related to the effects of the chatbot on CX: interaction quality, information gathering, procedure literacy, task achievement, digital trust, shopping stress and shopping journey. We illuminate both positive (i.e. having a pleasant interaction, providing information, knowing procedures, improving tasks, increasing trust, reducing stress and completing the journey) and negative outcomes (i.e. having an unpleasant interaction, increasing confusion, ignoring procedures, worsening tasks, reducing trust, increasing stress and abandoning the journey).

The paper develops a comprehensive framework to offer a clearer view of chatbots as smart services in customer care. It delves into the conflicting effects of chatbots on CX by examining them through relational, cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions.

This study aims to descriptively identify and refine the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in the retail banking employee–customer contact context, and prescriptively use this knowledge to develop a framework for improving true customer service without excess organizational cost, in Lebanon.

The research adopts the classical interpretive/constructivist ontology and the interpretivism/constructivism epistemology, and it rests on a tripod of methodological foundations. The first leg is the theoretical work that sets the extant scientific ground for the empirical work to develop. The second incorporates the main (qualitative) empirical tools, i.e. 40 interviews with customers and HR managers (NVivo-analyzed), plus a critical incident technique study. The third includes the supportive tools of secondary data and an expert panel composed of industry and scholarly specialists.

EI was empirically shown to modulate the levels of customer satisfaction and to hold a critical role in the company–customer interface, albeit one that is currently and unjustly both undervalued and ineffectively controlled. The findings identify the key factors and exhibited behavioral attributes of EI within the customer service process, and they integrate all into a comprehensive framework of both scholarly and executive worth.

This study provides distinct theoretical elucidations and conceptualization that have identified and interrelated the relevant works on the subject; empirically refines the variables involved in the EI context of retail banking customer service; and culminates in the form of the proposed framework that incorporates and interrelates the findings into an empirical-data-based composition of both scholarly and executive orientation and worth.

Small retail stores in the luxury market face significant challenges due to fluctuations in market demand. This task turns challenging as it requires effectively coordinating and translating customer needs into specific requirements that align with retail goals and available resources. However, limited empirical research exists investigating how managers can address service value and quality attributes in small retail stores. This article aims to bridge this gap by investigating the role of quality function deployment (QFD) in improving market and quality requirements management in small retail stores.

Based on the case study, a customer survey was initially conducted to gather information on critical characteristics valued in the luxury retail segment. QFD was used to assist the company in identifying and prioritizing key quality attributes to meet customer requirements effectively.

The findings demonstrate that implementing QFD in small luxury retail stores empowers managers to identify previously neglected product and service quality aspects. The article shows that QFD informs organizational adaptations that align with the demands of the retail market, leading to an improved ability to meet customer expectations and enhance customer value through the development of enhanced products and services. The study showcases the efficacy of the tested methodology in effectively capturing and prioritizing both tangible and intangible customer needs in retail.

Findings offer valuable insights to retail managers of small luxury stores, providing actionable market-oriented strategies. By implementing the recommended practices, managers can improve the store’s competitiveness and better cater to the customer base.

This study contributes to bridging persistent knowledge gaps by addressing the unique context of small luxury retail stores and introducing the application of QFD in this setting. The insights gained from this research are relevant to both retailing and quality management literature. Considering the growing prevalence of transformations in the retail industry, the study provides practical implications for retail managers in effectively navigating these changes.

This paper integrates the findings of the articles included in the special issue (SI) on frontline employee (FLE) research. Articles included in this SI systematically review multiple research domains, including employee and customer engagement, FLE vulnerability, customer mistreatment, service teamwork and service encounters; provide instructions on effectively conducting meta-analyses and discuss the practical applications of FLE research. This paper also provides future directions for FLE scholarship with a focus on theoretical/methodological rigor and relevance.

This is a conceptual paper that integrates and critically evaluates extant research and provides directions for future scholarship.

An integrative framework of extant FLE research is proposed consisting of situational predictors, psychological mechanisms, attitudinal/behavioral outcomes and boundary conditions/moderators. Further, three main areas for future scholarship are recommended including examining the transformative effects of technology on FLE work, focusing on decent work for FLEs and conducting practically relevant and impactful research.

This paper provides reflections, integration and future directions for scholarship based on systematic reviews of key domains of FLE research, a primer for conducting systematic reviews (specifically – meta-analysis) and practitioner perspectives on extant research.

Prior research examining cultural effects on customer service expectations has primarily used more generic Western cultural theory on an aggregate scale or with only a single variable to draw conclusions on a customer’s underlying reasoning for buying a service. This study aims to focus on culturally distinct clusters within non-Western nations, specifically exploring within-cluster differences in service expectations within the Confucian Asia cluster.

This study developed a measurement model of Chinese cultural values and service expectations, consisting of a three and five-factor structure, respectively. Data from a sample of 351 diners were analysed using SmartPLS software. The data was compared with similar studies within the Confucian Asia cluster to understand the culture effect on service expectations and within-cluster variations.

The findings underscore the varying importance of cultural values in shaping customer service expectations, emphasizing their relative, rather than equal, significance. The study provides insights into potential within-group differences in customer service expectations within the same cultural cluster – without losing sight of the fundamental cultural heterogeneity of the Confucian culture.

Managers should leverage the distinct cultural values of their operating country to gain insights into diverse customer groups, predict their behaviours and meet their needs and expectations.

This study offers valuable insights to both service management scholars and practitioners by focusing on culturally distinct clusters of non-Western nations and exploring their effects on variation in service expectations within these clusters.

The purpose of this study is to explore the literature of healthcare service quality for identifying and analyzing the healthcare service quality models and dimensions and to present future research insights pertaining to the applications of these models and dimensions.

A literature review of healthcare service quality has been performed on 59 relevant studies after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Google Scholar and Scopus are the primary sources to find the relevant documents. Search was limited to keywords of “service quality,” “healthcare,” “models” and “dimensions.”

The results revealed that different models and dimensions have been evolved and developed after SERVQUAL in healthcare service quality literature. There is still a need to develop new models, add new contextual dimensions and items in existing models on different aspects of healthcare services. There is also a need to incorporate the perspective of service providers as respondents. Moreover, healthcare service quality models can be devolved or narrowed down at department and individual levels.

This study presents valuable research insights for the researchers and practitioners in ways that healthcare service quality models and dimensions can be developed, modified and tested further in different research contexts and settings. Besides, the literature on healthcare services can be enhanced and enriched.

This study investigates the impacts of return channel type on the relationships between return service quality (RSQ) and customer loyalty (CL) in an omnichannel retailing environment.

Data comes from Chinese customers having a return experience in omnichannel retailing that uses the channel type of both buy-online-return-in-store (BORIS) and buy-in-store-return-to-online warehouses (BSROW). The authors use the structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses and the bootstrapping method to test the mediation and moderation effect.

For BORIS channel, satisfaction of customer returns (CRS) partially mediates the relationship between convenience and CL, and fully mediates that between CL and responsiveness, transparency and competence, respectively. For BSROW channel, CRS partially mediates the relationship between responsiveness and CL, and fully mediates that between CL and convenience, transparency and competence, respectively. The mediation effects indicate that omnichannel customers may feel more satisfied due to higher omnichannel fulfillment (responsiveness and convenience) and omnichannel trust (transparency and competence) provided by retailers. Return channel type moderates the relationship between RSQ-convenience and CL. The results show the different expectations between BORIS and BSROW customers in the return process.

This paper serves as a pioneering study to apply cognition-affect-behavior paradigm into the field of return management in omnichannel retailing.

The findings suggest retailers develop their strategies on customer returns and post-sales service quality improvement in the omnichannel. Also, retailers should develop an integrated return system across channels to provide convenient service to BORIS customers and quick response to BSROW customers.

Studying return service management in the omnichannel from customer's cognition appraisal, this study contributes to the literature of the reverse service management by bringing in the effect of omnichannel type to explore the relationship between RSQ and CL.