Retail disturbances: how should employees respond?

Abstract

Purpose The customer retail experience is frequently interrupted by disturbances such as ringing phones and other people. Employees must be able to respond to retail disturbances effectively to ensure that customers have a satisfactory experience in the retailer. Using Affective Events Theory as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model for understanding how retail disturbances affect customers outcomes and how retail employee response mitigates the negative impact of retail disturbances. Design/methodology/approach The model was tested using a pre-study of retail managers and consumers, a survey study and four experimental studies. Findings Retail disturbances reduce interactional justice and customer positive emotions. Customers pay attention to how employees address retail disturbances, even when they are not directly involved. Research limitations/implications The research experiments focus on sound-based disturbances. Other stimuli (e.g. olfactory or visual) should be examined in more detail. Practical implications Employees can mitigate the negative effects of retail disturbances on customers with a positive response to the disturbance and to customers. Employee responses influence customers currently receiving service and nearby shoppers. Social implications The findings demonstrate the deleterious effect of solicitation calls on small retailers and provide recommendations for reducing solicitation calls. Originality/value This research shows that retail disturbances reduce customer outcomes, employee response becomes part of the disturbance event, and that it is possible for employees to address a group of nearby customers indirectly through unintentional observation.

Naming product colors with an individual’s identity and product evaluation: self-referencing as a mediator

“…For activities that depend on cognitive capacity, individual's reactions are predicated on the fit between accessible and needed resources (Hagtvedt, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Wen and Lurie, 2019). During a task, individuals can be distracted or interrupted, and such distractions may bring about increased cognitive demand that can alter the activity results (Arndt et al, 2021). This means that consumers under high cognitive load, with reduced capacity to deeply consider information (Gilbert et al, 1988), are expected to demonstrate lower likelihood for self-referencing thought, even in response to product color names that incorporate one's self-concept.…”

The retail environment design (RED) scale: conceptualization and measurement

“…Early research in this area focused on crowding, including either actual shopper density or perceived crowding (Turley and Milliman, 2000). Research on the social aspect has gained momentum with a more recent study examining retail disturbances caused by other customers or employees (Arndt et al , 2021). Further, another study highlights consumers’ “corporeal responses to employees of” Hollister (Stevens et al , 2019, p. 817).…”