Clothes, condoms, and customer satisfaction: The effect of employee mere presence on customer satisfaction depends on the shopping situation

Abstract

Few studies have examined how customers respond to the mere presence of others in the shopping environment, and only one article (Söderlund, ) has investigated the unique impact that employee presence has on key customer outcomes. Söderlund () found that customers entering a store with an employee present (vs. absent) reported significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction, with their increased levels of pleasurable feelings mediating this effect. However, similar to the majority of theorizing on customer satisfaction, that article was restricted to data collected in a Western society. Given the rapid economic growth in many Asian regions, there is a need to examine the applicability of such Western‐based findings from an Asian perspective, and hence include participants from Eastern societies. Accordingly, the present research investigated whether Söderlund's () results could be replicated among Asian customers. The current work also sought to extend prior findings beyond pleasure and customer satisfaction while simultaneously documenting a boundary condition for the hitherto positive employee mere presence effects. To this end, two between‐subjects experiments with a total sample of 498 Chinese customers were conducted. Study 1, which involved a shopping situation in a clothing store, replicated Söderlund's () main results and further found that employee mere presence (vs. absence) had a significant positive impact on customers’ loyalty intentions. These results were reversed in Study 2, in which the shopping situation involved the purchase of an embarrassing product. Under such circumstances, employee presence (vs. absence) consistently produced negative effects on customers’ levels of pleasure, satisfaction, and loyalty intentions.

Does the Effect of Customer Experience on Customer Satisfaction Create a Sustainable Competitive Advantage? A Comparative Study of Different Shopping Situations

“…Sebald and Jacob [10] held that customer experience stems from consumers' feelings of different levels, including rationale, emotion, psychology, and mentality. Otterbring and Lu [1] maintained that customer experience involves all contact points that are inherently integrated from the initial research of products to the ensuing consumption. In this study, we investigated customer experience from a retail perspective and classified customer experience into four categories based on the literature: product experience, experience with the service procedure, experience with the shopping environment, and experience with staff service.…”

“…With the rapid development of online shopping and traditional physical store shopping interweaving to form different shopping situations [1], customer experience has gradually become the main source of retailers' sustainable competitive advantage through differentiation [2]. For example, according to iMedia Research, the amount of global retail sales in 2018 totaled USD 24.86 trillion, of which e-commerce reached USD 284 million, accounting for 11.4% of the total.…”

A contemporary review of three types of social influence in consumer psychology

“…Although these retail examples focus on the impact of another shopper, a sales associate can also serve as an influential passive social presence. Indeed, across a variety of different product categories, the mere presence of a sales associate in a retail outlet can positively impact a focal consumer's state of mind and satisfaction (Söderlund, ) as well as loyalty intentions (Otterbring & Lu, ). Similar to the in‐flight context, a social presence is highly influential in determining how consumers behave in retail.…”

Customer satisfaction in Asia

“…Otterbing and Lu () investigate the effect of employee mere presence on customer satisfaction and loyalty at retail stores in China. Specifically, they investigate whether mere presence of employees at a store affects customer satisfaction and whether such effects vary according to the shopping situation.…”