Customers’ sensitivity to employee displayed authenticity
A simple smile, a warm welcome or a genuine empathic response can make all the difference to customer experience. These are all examples of positive emotional displays, and many organisations make it a key strategic goal to ensure their frontline staff are successfully delivering these displays to create exceptional customer service.
These positive emotional displays can be either authentic or inauthentic – typically perceived as ‘authentic’ when the expressed emotion is being genuinely experienced by the staff expressing it. This may occur naturally when the staff is expressing an emotion they are experiencing in the moment (joy at greeting someone new, empathy when responding to an upset customer), but can also be evoked by the staff through deep acting techniques such as visualising a past happy event, or a time when the staff was in a similar situation to the customer. However, when the expressed emotion is not experienced genuinely by the staff, such as a fake smile or an insincere interaction, this is interpreted as inauthentic and can negatively influence customer experiences.
However, not all customers react negatively to these inauthentic displays, and despite the importance of authenticity to customer service we do not yet know why this difference has emerged.
Drawing on emotion as social information theory, this research investigates the role of motivation orientations (the degree to which a customer feels the need to prevent negative outcomes, or their ability to pursue positive ones) to explain these individual differences in reactions to authentic and inauthentic displays of emotion.
Method and sample
This research examines responses to authentic and inauthentic emotional displays across four studies, also capturing individual differences that may account for different responses. One key difference this research focused on was motivation orientation, measured via survey with customers identifying either a prevention focus (risk adverse) or a promotion focus (risk accepting).
Study one examined consumer responses to emotional displays in a German café (N=118), and included measures of tipping, motivation orientation, and demographic information.
Study two involved a controlled experiment in which a German consumer panel (N=190) was shown films of authentic and inauthentic service encounters in a restaurant setting preformed by a trained actor.
Study three involved a UK consumer panel (N=106) shown authentic and inauthentic service encounters in a hotel. However, this panel was primed beforehand to adopt a risk adverse or risk accepting motivation orientation by writing down two past and present duties and obligations (risk adverse) or two past and present hopes and goals (risk accepting).
Study four was similar to study three, involving a UK consumer panel (N=144) who reacted to images of a simulated service encounter (a restaurant server offering a new brand of grape juice) after motivation orientation priming. However here, primming for motivation orientation was achieved through the product descriptions’ focus on health benefits (risk adverse) or pleasure benefits (risk accepting). The panel’s assessment as to whether they felt deceived by the encounter was also directly assessed.
Key findings
1. Across the four related studies, it is shown that inauthentic emotional displays have a stronger negative effect on service performance when customers feel risk adverse (looking to minimise negative outcomes), compared to when they are more accepting of risk (looking to maximise positive outcomes).
2. Risk adverse customers are less likely to tip when they perceive inauthentic emotional displays, while risk accepting customers’ tipping behaviour remained unchanged. This highlights that the impact of authenticity on service outcomes is influenced by the customer’s motivational orientation as well as the emotional display itself.
3. This motivational orientation can be manipulated via priming, with customers encouraged to be more accepting of risk through thought experiments and product descriptions that focus on pleasure benefits. Customers who were primmed to be more risk accepting in the short term reacted less negatively to inauthentic emotional displays, similarly to customers who were naturally more accepting of risk.
4. How customers react to service performance is also influenced by whether they feel that the inauthentic interaction was deceptive or not, with risk adverse customers more likely to feel deceived after such an encounter than promotion focused customers.
Recommendations
This research provides further support for the importance of authenticity in customer service, suggesting that frontline staff should receive training in deep acting to better communicate authentically. However, situational demands make the display of authentic emotional responses challenging (such as misbehaving customers or emotionally drained employees).
Fortunately, this research highlights that a customer’s motivational orientation (how risk adverse they are) influences their reaction to inauthentic displays. Priming customers to be more accepting of risk through advertising and product descriptions that draw attention to future benefits and away from negative outcomes can reduce the negative impact of inauthentic emotional displays. For example, highlighting how a product contributes to future health rather than how it can prevent future illness.
This research also highlights that the negative response to inauthentic emotional displays is the result of feeling deceived, and that risk adverse customers are more likely to feel deceived by an inauthentic emotional display. Where it is not feasible to prime a customer to be more accepting of risk, managers can reduce perceptions of deception directly through setting clear expectations around authenticity with their customers and discouraging any abuse or hostility towards staff. For example, campaigns around preventing workplace harassment and highlighting the lengths that employees go to for customers even when emotionally drained and unable to communicate authentically.
Authenticity is a critical component of positive customer experience, but managers can and should plan for when this authenticity is not possible through proactive management of customers’ expectations and motivational states.
Lead Researcher
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.