Why does service with a smile make employees happy? A social interaction model.

Abstract

Drawing on the social interaction model, we examine the mediating role that the customer's display of positive emotions plays on the relationship between the employee's display of positive emotions and the employee's positive mood. We also examine the moderating role that the customer's personality traits-agreeableness, extraversion, and emotional stability-play on the relationship between the employee's display of positive emotions and the customer's display of positive emotions. The results show that the customer's display of positive emotions mediates the relationship between the employee's display of positive emotions and the employee's positive mood. In addition, the customer's personality traits moderate the relationship between the employee's display of positive emotions and the customer's display of positive emotions. The customer's display of positive emotions depends less on the employee's display of positive emotions when the customer has high levels of agreeableness and emotional stability than when the customer has low levels of agreeableness and emotional stability.

Customer Mistreatment: A Review of Conceptualizations and a Multilevel Theoretical Model

“…In addition, the affective work event conceptualization aligns well with research documenting that employees and customers share similar emotions due to emotional contagion (Barger & Grandey, 2006;Elfenbein, 2014;Kim & Yoon, 2012;Tan, Der Foo, & Kwek, 2004), which can be thought of as the "tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally" (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994, p. 5). Recent conceptual work (Van Kleef, Homan, & Cheshin, 2012) also posits that emotions have interpersonal affective consequences, which in turn drive individuals' behavioral responses.…”

Interpersonal Process of Emotional Labor: The Role of Negative and Positive Customer Treatment

“…Accordingly, the current findings suggest that our understanding of emotional labor's effects could benefit from applying the social interaction model of emotion regulation (Côté, ) and integrate the intrapersonal and interpersonal perspectives. The social interaction model has been used in recent research to demonstrate the affective links between employees and customers (e.g., Kim & Yoon, ), whereas the current research is among the first attempting to capture behavioral responses from customers to different emotional labor strategies. Although Kim and Yoon () found that service with a smile made employees happy, our findings suggest that this link might only exist when employees’ smile is authentic.…”

“…The social interaction model has been used in recent research to demonstrate the affective links between employees and customers (e.g., Kim & Yoon, ), whereas the current research is among the first attempting to capture behavioral responses from customers to different emotional labor strategies. Although Kim and Yoon () found that service with a smile made employees happy, our findings suggest that this link might only exist when employees’ smile is authentic. Instead, when employees display faked positive emotions through surface acting, they tend to experience negative reactions from customers and, subsequently, negative affect.…”

“…Furthermore, this research provides another reason for both service employees and companies to pay attention to emotional labor selection and training. Past research has found that employees’ positive emotional expressions may predict customers’ display of positive emotions and employees’ positive mood (e.g., Barger & Grandey, ; Kim & Yoon, ). Such findings support the practice of “service with a smile” in the service industry.…”

The role of employee attractiveness and positive emotion in upscale restaurants

“…The positive emotion displayed by service employees has been recognized to evoke positive emotions in customers which ultimately lead to positive response (Kim & Yoon, 2012;Wu & Shen, 2013). During service encounters, the display of positive emotion by an employee triggers positive feedback from the customer.…”