Fake smiles. Customer reactions to employees’ display inauthenticity and choice restrictions
Frontline employees’ fake smiles, also called positive emotion display inauthenticity, are common despite firms’ efforts to ensure real smiles in service delivery. This may be detrimental to service performance and, in turn, customers’ satisfaction or spending. Previous research on factors impacting this relationship mainly focused on stable and dispositional factors, which are out of managerial control. This study takes a holistic approach to examine choice restrictions that may dynamically affect service performance, including restrictions in terms of service providers available for selection (Study 1) and restrictions due to a limited number of offerings by a service provider (Study 2 and 3).
Drawing on EASI theory (Emotion as Social Information), which suggests that employees’ emotion displays signal their intentions, thus affecting customer reactions, this research investigates how service performance is affected by display inauthenticity. Specifically, it proposes a conceptual framework through which display inauthenticity negatively impacts service performance with low choice restrictions, and this effect is mediated by interdependent self-construal, or the degree to which a customer views the self as being separate (independent) from or interconnected (interdependent) with others.
Method and sample
Study 1 conducted a laboratory experiment with university students in Germany (N=209). Participants were asked to imagine looking for suitable materials to study Italian through consultation with a local bookstore via a simulated interactive phone call. To manipulate display inauthenticity and choice restrictions, the bookstore employee applied surface and deep acting during consultations and the number of available bookstores were altered. A questionnaire then measured customer satisfaction with four items.
Study 2, with a sample of N=282 participants from the online panel Clickworker, replicated Study 1’s design. However, this time participants imagined looking for Italian learning materials at a digital kiosk, then were presented with pictures of an employee in a real bookstore. Choice restriction was manipulated by altering the number of textbooks displayed to participants on the digital kiosk during the service encounter. Satisfaction was measured using the same scale in Study 1. Interdependent self-construal was measured as a state using a 4-item, 7-point bipolar scale.
Study 3 recruited a sample of N=474 participants via Amazon Mechanical Turk and offered them an additional bonus of US$0.15 on top of their incentive of US$1.00 for participating in the study. Participants were asked to put themselves in a situation of wanting to order a meal kit online, with a series of pictures of an employee guiding them and asking them to select their preferred meal kit. To manipulate choice restrictions, participants were shown either one (of four) or four available meal recipes. They were then asked whether they wanted to use part of the additional bonus of US$0.15 to purchase lottery tickets (one cent each), with each ticket increasing the chance they would win a real meal kit. After indicating their highest willing-to-spend amount on lottery tickets, participants received payment and the rest of the bonus. Customer spending was measured in Cents, ranging from 0 to 15, and interdependent self-construal was measured similarly to Study 2.
Key findings
Study 1 found that the negative effect of display inauthenticity on service performance only occurred when choice restrictions were low but not when they were high. Choice restrictions thus mitigated the negative effect of inauthenticity on service performance.
Consistent with Study 1, Study 2 showed the negative effect of inauthenticity on service performance only in the low but not high choice restriction condition. Choice restrictions during service delivery but before encounter thus also had a mitigating role. Interdependent self-construal was also found to mediate the effect of inauthenticity and choice restrictions on service performance.
Similarly, Study 3 found frontline employees’ display inauthenticity negatively affected spending as an objective indicator of service performance only in the low but not high choice restriction condition. Moreover, a high choice restriction buffers the inauthenticity effect by prompting a customer’s interdependent self-construal.
Recommendations
Managers should leverage the effects of different types of choice restrictions during service predelivery (as in Study 1), during delivery and before service encounter (Study 2), and during encounter (Study 3). For instance, service firms may operate in flexible hours, such as opening earlier and closing later than others, or consider limiting the number of offerings when inauthentic displays are rampant, like at the end of a working shift.
Managers are also recommended to prompt customer’s interdependent self-construal by encouraging them to think of others. This may improve service performance when inauthenticity is common. For instance, digital kiosks may be used to communicate dynamically with customers at a low cost and direct their focus to other service aspects, such as service quality and ambiance.
Finally, market shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic may challenge frontline employees’ ability to be authentic and cause choice restrictions through global supply chain disruptions and restrictions to service operations. To mitigate the effects of inauthenticity, service firms operating under these conditions should factor in relevant contextual cues, such as choice restrictions, when planning, managing, and evaluating service performance.
Researcher
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.