The Influence of Customer-Directed Employee Extra-Role Behavior on Customer Gratitude
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Kang, Chia-Yu
Abstract
Customer gratitude has long been considered the emotion core of reciprocal behaviors. Past research regarding customer gratitude mainly focused on long-term customer relationship marketing initiated by service firms. Even though recent studies have brought customer gratitude from organization level to frontline employee level, having indicated that short-term employee extra-role behavior in service encounters could lead to customer gratitude, the concept of employee extra-role behavior still requires further examination. In view of this, the research aims to identify different aspects underlying frontline employee extra-role behavior, categorizing it into pampering behavior and adaptive service behavior. A theoretical framework was developed to explore the influence of the behaviors on customer gratitude, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Data collected from 204 customers was examined through structural equation modeling (SEM). Results indicated that two kinds of employee extra-role behaviors effectively led to customer gratitude, customer satisfaction, and further influenced customer loyalty.
Subjects
Service encounter
Customer gratitude
Employee extra-role behavior
Customer satisfaction
Customer loyalty
Type
thesis