PurposeEmploying a service-profit chain (S-PC) framework, this manuscript investigates the relationship between employee engagement (EE) and customer engagement (CE) within service contexts and explores how a mediating mechanism, service employee work performance (SEWP), links EE with CE.Design/methodology/approachMeta-analytic procedures ascertain the magnitude of the relationship between EE and SEWP (k = 102, ρ^ = 0.45) and between SEWP and three dimensions of CE: customer purchases (k = 42, ρ^ = 0.47), customer knowledge (k = 4, ρ^ = 0.33) and customer influence (k = 7, ρ^ = 0.42). The current meta-analysis reports an effect size for the EE-overall SEWP relationship nearly 1.50 times greater than related extant meta-analyses.FindingsResults suggest SEWP, consisting of service employee task performance and contextual performance, serves as an important intervening mechanism between EE and CE by considering nine dimensions of SEWP. Such findings suggest that to maximize SEWP, service employees must go beyond simply being satisfied in their work roles; instead, service employees must feel energized, find fulfillment and meaning and be engrossed in their work to maximize the service they provide to customers.Originality/valueThis research extends previous meta-analytic efforts, bridges the multi-disciplinary gap between EE and CE research, provides an empirical link allowing for informed decision-making for managers and stakeholders, underscores the importance of service employees surpassing required job responsibilities to meet and exceed customer needs and suggests an agenda for future service research integrating EE and CE.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how perceptions of employee authenticity and customer–employee rapport influence customers’ interactional justice assessments and related service evaluations, and how customers’ need for uniqueness impacts these relationships. Design/methodology/approach A multi-method, three-study design is used to test the research model. Specifically, structural equation modeling provides tests of the main hypotheses, and two supplemental experimental studies tease out conditional effects providing insightful managerial contributions. Findings Results indicate that customers’ perceptions of employee authenticity affect customers’ interactional justice evaluations, particularly when customers identify high levels of customer–employee rapport. Additionally, the aforementioned relationships are contingent upon customers’ need for uniqueness, such that customers with higher levels of need for uniqueness experience lower levels of customer–employee rapport and, consequently, provide poorer interactional justice assessments. Finally, conditional effects are found given the type of provider and frequency of visit. Originality/value This research extends prior efforts to understand how customer–employee dynamics influence customers’ service encounter evaluations. In particular, it furthers understanding of authentic FLE–customer encounters, explores drivers of interactional justice and explicates how consumers’ varying levels of need for uniqueness have differential effects on service outcomes.

Developing rapport during the "moment of truth" when frontline employees (FLEs) interact with customers has long been an important topic for researchers and managers. We suggest incidental similarities-seemingly trivial shared points of comparison between customers and FLEs-can play a vital role during this juncture in service failure and recovery contexts. Across two experimental studies, we investigate several relationships impacted by the presence or absence of an incidental similarity between FLEs and customers for their effect on satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Results suggest incidental similarities can reduce failure attributions toward service providers and improve these important customer-related outcomes (study 1). Results of study 2 extend our findings, demonstrating that rapport can serve as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between incidental similarities and these key service outcomes. Study 2 also reveals that FLE authenticity acts as a boundary condition of this relationship, accentuating the indirect, conditional relationships between incidental similarities, and satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Critically, we demonstrate that an incidental similarity can be even more effective when there is no recovery. By pointing out the role of incidental similarities in service encounters, our research makes significant contributions to aiding understanding of how rapport can be developed during the relatively brief time customers interact with service employees.

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