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Purpose: To outline recent developments in digital service delivery in order to encourage researchers to pursue collaborations with computer science, operations research, and data science colleagues and to show how such collaborations can expand the scope of research on emotion in service delivery.

Design/methodology/approach: Uses archived resources available at http://LivePerson.com to extract data based in genuine service conversations between agents and customers. We refer to these as “digital traces” and analyze them using computational science models.

Findings: Although we do not test significance or causality, the data presented in this chapter provide a unique lens into the dynamics of emotions in service; results that are not obtainable using traditional research methods.

Research limitations/implications: This is a descriptive study where findings unravel new dynamics that should be followed up with more research, both research using traditional experimental methods, and digital traces research that allows inferences of causality.

Practical implications: The digital data and newly developed tools for sentiment analyses allow exploration of emotions in large samples of genuine customer service interactions. The research provides objective, unobtrusive views of customer emotions that draw directly from customer expressions, with no self-report intervention and biases.

Originality/value: This is the first objective and detailed depiction of the actual emotional encounters that customers express, and the first to analyze in detail the nature and content of customer service work.

Emotions play a significant role in the workplace, and considerable attention has been given to the study of employee emotions. Customers also play a central function in organizations, but much less is known about customer emotions. This chapter reviews the growing literature on customer emotions in employee–customer interfaces with a focus on service failure and recovery encounters, where emotions are heightened. It highlights emerging themes and key findings, addresses the measurement, modeling, and management of customer emotions, and identifies future research streams. Attention is given to emotional contagion, relationships between affective and cognitive processes, customer anger, customer rage, and individual differences.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to determine the role of emotions in customer evaluation of service failures; and second, to examine how customers’ emotion regulation impacts customer satisfaction and behavioural responses (e.g. repurchase intentions and negative word-of-mouth).

A scenario-based survey was used to elicit responses in a hospitality setting. Structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results show that both positive and negative emotions mediate the relationship between perceived injustice and customer satisfaction. The emotion regulation of customers through suppression and reappraisal influences the effects of satisfaction on both negative word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions.

This study advances service managers’ understanding of customer experience during service failure by demonstrating how emotion regulation influences customer response behaviours. With a better understanding of customers’ emotion regulation strategies, managers and frontline employees can more effectively develop and execute recovery strategies which adapt to customer emotions while eliciting more satisfying outcomes.

This research is one of the first to examine the moderating role of customers’ emotion regulation strategies in determining their behavioural responses. Conducted in the hospitality services context, this study provides support for relationships among perceived injustice, customer emotions, emotion regulation, customer satisfaction, negative word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions.

Customers often experience negative emotions during service experiences. The ways that employees manage customers’ emotions and impressions about whether the service provider is concerned for them in such emotionally charged service encounters (ECSEs) is crucial, considering the criticality of the encounter. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study proposes that two key competencies – employee emotional competence (EEC) and employee technical competence (ETC) – affect negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee response in ECSEs.

This study relies on a video-based experiment that depicts a customer involved in an ECSE as a service provider delivers bad news to him. The hypothesis tests use a two-way independent analysis of covariance.

Both emotional and technical competencies must be displayed to improve the customer experience in an ECSE. When EEC is low, ETC does not decrease negative customer emotions or increase customer satisfaction with employee response. When EEC is high, ETC instead has a significant impact on both customer outcomes.

Managers must train employees to develop both technical and emotional competencies. Employees who demonstrate only one type cannot temper customers’ emotions or enhance their perceptions of the employees’ response as well as can those strong in both competencies.

Using a video-based experiment, this study examines the moderating role of EEC in the relationship between ETC and two key aspects of the customers’ experience in an ECSE (negative customer emotions and customer satisfaction with employee responses) following the delivery of bad news.

A combined model involving the intensity of negative emotions and the strategic combinations (timing and means) of service recovery is developed. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performances of these different combinations through customer satisfaction, repurchase intention and fitting curves between the two under hotel service scenarios.

A 2 (recovery timing: immediate/delayed) × 2 (recovery means: psychological/economic) × 3 (type of service failure: failure in a delivery system/failure in responding to customer needs/improper employee behavior) between-subject experimental design was used with 456 participants.

The results suggest that immediate and economic recovery effectively raises the service recovery evaluations from customers with low-intensity negative emotions, whereas delayed and psychological recovery helps customers with high-intensity negative emotions to give higher evaluations.

When service failures happen, the strategies for and timing of recovery directly influence customers’ service recovery evaluations. This study sheds light on the role that negative emotions play in the process of service recovery and provides implications for service industry managers.

The objective of this paper is to test the validity and reliability of a SOS construct and its dimensions (i.e. self, other and situational) of negative emotions in the context of consumers' service experience (CSE) and the following processes of service recovery by firms (SRF).

A triangular approach was used, based on interviews and a survey in the Norwegian tourism industry. This paper reports the results from the survey consisting of 3,104 customers.

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have been used to examine and test the SOS construct of negative emotions in CSE and SRF. The SOS construct tested has indicated an acceptable fit, validity and reliability.

The SOS construct of CSE and SRF may be seen as a seed for future research in refining and extending endeavors of managing critical incidents in CSE and SRF.

Strategies to manage CSE and SRF should be aimed at solving the three different SOS dimensions of negative incidents in service encounters, namely those that are caused by the customer, the company, or the situation.

The SOS construct brings together, complements and fortifies existing theory and previous research in the context of negative emotions in CSE and SRF.

The purpose of this paper is to explore influencing factors that affect the effectiveness of service recovery strategies using social network from operations management perspective. Specifically, the authors study the relationships between social media agent responses to customer complaints, customer emotion changes and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors investigate the roles of recovery speed and failure severity in the service recovery process using social network platform.

The results are based on 347 mini cases drawn from the Twitter accounts of a sample of airlines. Grounded theory approach is used to conduct qualitative analysis using NVivo 9, a qualitative data analysis program. A conceptual framework was developed, then tested using χ² analysis.

Agent responses that do not require customers to take further initiatives for problem solving have positive effects on customer emotion alleviation and satisfaction. In contrast, responses that provide further directions poses negative effect on service recovery outcomes. There is a strong positive linkage between customer emotion change and customer satisfaction. Surprisingly, the direct effect of recovery speed on customer emotion and satisfaction is not supported by the data. Rather, it plays a moderating role in affecting the relationship between agent responses and customer satisfaction. The qualitative data further reveals the pivotal role of failure severity, one of key service failure attributes.

The authors study service businesses’ recovery strategies using social media. A conceptual framework is developed to link agent responses, customer emotion changes and customer satisfaction from the lens of service providers, using an operations-oriented approach. Finding on recovery speed and failure severity reveal that these variables play different roles when service recovery is operated on social media platform as compared to traditional channels. Additionally, relying on tweets as data sources has constrained us from assessing other long-term service recovery outcomes such as loyalty, repurchase intent and word of mouth. The drawback is resulted from the limited information conveyed through tweets, which tends to be short and brief. The study focusses on the airline industry, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other service industries.

The authors highlight the value and potential of service recovery strategies using social network and provide insights for recovery operations where agent responses should be focussing on real time problem solving. The findings support the benefits of empowering social network agents for service recovery operations. Improving recovery speed should be less of a priority as it serves as a qualifier when service recovery is operated via social network. Given the pivotal role of failure severity, it is critical for social network agents to stand in the shoes of the complaining customers, making imminent assessment of the actual failure severity and taking action accordingly in real time. In the meantime, effective communication through social network may help to lower perceived magnitude of failure by customers, which in turn enhance the effectiveness of other service recovery efforts.

This study is the first attempt to investigate the service recovery process using social media from an operations-oriented perspective. The results supports the potentials of employing service recovery strategies using social media.

While research evidences how customers’ emotions can influence their consumer experience, understanding of how employees’ displayed emotions affect the customer service experience is more limited. Drawing on affect transfer theory, the authors test for the mediating role of attitude towards the employee, which is proposed to mediate the effect of employees’ displayed emotion on customers’ satisfaction with recovery. As service recovery entails a critical service experience in which emotions can easily rise, this paper aims to highlight the pivotal role of employee-displayed emotions during service recovery.

A scenario-based experiment in the context of an airline service failure recovery (3 × 2 between-subjects design) manipulates frontline employees’ emotions (anger vs happiness vs no specific emotion) and the quality of the solution (bad vs good).

Employees’ displayed emotions directly affect attitude towards the employee and indirectly affect service recovery satisfaction. Moreover, attitude towards the employee is affected more by the employee’s displayed emotion when the solution offered is bad compared to good.

Employees’ emotions displayed during service recovery can enhance or damage service recovery strategies. Employees should control for negative emotions in the case of service failure, especially when unable to provide a good solution.

Emotions displayed by employees can influence the customer’s service recovery evaluations. There is an interesting interaction between the quality of the solution and employees’ displayed emotions. Additionally, the mantra of “service with a smile” may not be valid in the case of service recovery: rather, employees should avoid displaying negative emotions.

A pesar de que la literatura ha demostrado la importancia que tienen las emociones en los consumidores, se sabe poco acerca de cómo influyen las emociones de los empleados. Basándonos en la teoría de la transferencia de afecto, testamos el papel mediador de la actitud hacia el empleado. Ésta se propone como mediadora del efecto que tiene la emoción mostrada por el empleado en la satisfacción del cliente. Este trabajo resalta el papel fundamental de las emociones mostradas por el empleado durante la recuperación del servicio.

Experimento (3x2 entre sujetos) basado en el fallo de una aerolínea. Se manipulan las emociones del empleado (enfado vs alegría vs ninguna emoción específica) y la calidad de la solución (mala vs buena).

Las emociones mostradas por los empleados afectan directamente a la actitud hacia el empleado e indirectamente a la satisfacción con la recuperación del servicio. La actitud se ve más afectada por la emoción mostrada por el empleado cuando la solución ofrecida es mala.

Las emociones mostradas por los empleados pueden contribuir o dañar las estrategias de recuperación del servicio. Los empleados deben controlar las emociones negativas, especialmente cuando no pueden ofrecer una buena solución.

Las emociones mostradas por los empleados influyen en la recuperación del servicio. Existe interacción entre la calidad de la solución y la emoción del empleado. Además, la consigna de “atender al cliente con una sonrisa” puede no ser válida en este contexto, siendo más relevante que los empleados no muestren emociones negativas.

虽然研究证明了顾客的情绪如何影响他们的消费体验, 但对员工所表现出的情绪如何影响顾客服务体验的理解却比较有限。借鉴情感转移理论, 我们测试了对员工态度的中介作用, 提出了员工表现出的情绪对客户对服务补救满意度影响的中介作用。由于服务补救涉及情绪容易上升的关键服务体验, 本文强调了员工表现出的情绪在服务补救过程中的关键作用。

在航空公司服务故障补救的背景下, 一个基于场景的实验（3x2主体间设计）操纵了一线员工的情绪（愤怒vs快乐vs无特定情绪）和解决方案的质量（差vs好）。

员工表现出来的情绪直接影响顾客对员工的态度, 间接影响对服务补救的满意度。此外, 当所提供的解决方案质量是差的, 而不是好的, 顾客对员工的态度受员工所表现的情绪的影响更大。

员工在服务补救过程中表现出来的情绪可以增强或破坏服务补救策略。在服务失败的情况下, 员工应该控制消极的情绪, 特别是在无法提供一个好的解决方案时。

员工表现出来的情绪会影响顾客的服务补救的评价。解决方案的质量和员工表现的情绪之间存在着有趣的互动。此外, “微笑服务 “的口号在服务补救的情况下可能是无效的：相反, 员工应该避免表现出负面情绪。

Extant literature holds contradictory views about the brand love’s moderation effect in the link between brand failure and consumer’s retaliation. This paper aims to first examine how failure severity correlates with negative emotions and how negative emotions lead to retaliation intention. Then, it probes into opposite moderation effects of brand love in these two stages. Further, it explores contingent factors, including perceived fairness, inferred goodwill, aggressive personality and brand trust, which may moderate “love is blind” effect or “love becomes hate” effect.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among the sample of 293 responses from Thailand, and 239 responses from China. A total of eight hypotheses were tested by adopting hierarchical regression technique and slope analyses.

The results show that consumers facing brand failure suffer negative emotions and then generate retaliation intention. Brand love positively moderates the link between failure severity and negative emotions, which is called “love becomes hate” effect. Meanwhile, brand love negatively moderates the link between negative emotions and retaliation intention, which is called “love is blind” effect. In addition, perceived fairness and inferred goodwill alleviate “love becomes hate” effect, and aggressive personality decreases “love is blind” effect.

This study makes contribution to brand failure literature by revealing twofold moderating roles of brand love in arousing retaliation behavior of consumers who encounter product/service failure, as well as contingent factors of these roles. Also, the research findings provide managerial implications to brand managers as to how to manage brand failure and reduce consumers’ retaliation by manipulating brand love and relevant contingent variables.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on failures in online flash sales (OFS) and to explore why consumers participate in an OFS even after experiencing service failure. It also examines the role of deal proneness, attribution, and emotions.

Using a mixed method approach to gain insights into this relatively unexplored phenomenon of OFS, this research uses netnography followed by a survey study.

The findings show that deal-prone customers tend to ignore service failures during OFS and re-participate in the future. In the context of OFS, failures attributed to internal locus of attribution (LOA) also have a negative effect on re-participation compared with failures attributed to external LOA. Furthermore, there is a three-way interaction among deal proneness, LOA, and past emotions. The results show that negative past emotions further exacerbate the impact of attribution on the link between deal proneness and re-participation.

In contrast with prior research, the paper shows that consumers participate even after service failure. The proposed difference is between customers who experience different LOA and past emotions offers insights into their behavior after service failure in a new context of an online/electronic commerce event – flash sales. This paper specifically explores the role of internal LOA and finds that it has a more negative impact than external LOA on re-participation.