Interpersonal exchanges between customers and frontline service employees increasingly involve the use of technology, such as point-of-sale terminals, tablets, and kiosks. The present research draws on role and script theories to demonstrate that customer reactions to technology-infused service exchanges depend on the presence of employee rapport. When rapport is present during the exchange, the use of technology functions as an interpersonal barrier preventing the customer from responding in kind to employee rapport-building efforts, thereby decreasing service encounter evaluations. However, during service encounters in which employees are not engaging in rapport building, technology functions as an interpersonal barrier, enabling customers to retreat from the relatively unpleasant service interaction, thereby increasing service encounter evaluations. Two analyses using J.D. Power Guest Satisfaction Index data support the barrier and beneficial effects of technology use during service encounters with and without rapport, respectively. A follow-up experiment replicates this data pattern and identifies psychological discomfort as a key process that governs the effect. For managers, the results demonstrate the inherent incompatibility of initiatives designed to encourage employee-customer rapport with those that introduce technology into frontline service exchanges.

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A truism in the marketing literature, and among many marketing practitioners, is that requiring consumers to wait negatively impacts quality evaluations, purchase intentions and a range of other important outcomes. However, it is also true that consumer waiting or queuing has historically been considered from an operations perspective. The present research takes a different approach and examines waits in the context of their ability to function as a signal of quality. Four experiments demonstrate a required wait can indeed signal quality to consumers and increase, rather than decrease, both purchase intentions and actual experienced satisfaction. Three moderators of this effect are examined: preexisting knowledge, consumption motivations, and the extent to which quality is difficult to objectively determine. The results suggest in situations where quality is important, unknown or ambiguous, managers may increase consumer satisfaction by making consumers wait.

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Interpersonal exchanges between customers and frontline service employees increasingly involve the use of technology, such as point-of-sale terminals, tablets, and kiosks. The present research draws on role and script theories to demonstrate that customer reactions to technology-infused service exchanges depend on the presence of employee rapport. When rapport is present during the exchange, the use of technology functions as an interpersonal barrier preventing the customer from responding in kind to employee rapport-building efforts, thereby decreasing service encounter evaluations. However, during service encounters in which employees are not engaging in rapport building, technology functions as an interpersonal barrier, enabling customers to retreat from the relatively unpleasant service interaction, thereby increasing service encounter evaluations. Two analyses using J.D. Power Guest Satisfaction Index data support the barrier and beneficial effects of technology use during service encounters with and without rapport, respectively. A follow-up experiment replicates this data pattern and identifies psychological discomfort as a key process that governs the effect. For managers, the results demonstrate the inherent incompatibility of initiatives designed to encourage employee-customer rapport with those that introduce technology into frontline service exchanges.