Salesperson Empathy and Listening: Impact on Relationship Outcomes

Aggarwal, Praveen; Castleberry, Steven B.; Ridnour, Rick E.; Shepherd, C. David

doi:10.1080/10696679.2005.11658547

Cited by 152 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Although the marketing literature emphasizes the relevance of empathy in customer-employee interactions (Aggarwal et al 2005;Giacobbe et al 2006;Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1988), systematic investigations on the nature of empathy and its effects remain limited. This study addresses these shortcomings in several ways.…”

Section: Research Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In employee-customer interactions, employee empathy is vital for identifying and satisfying customer needs (Aggarwal et al 2005;Giacobbe et al 2006). The more accurately frontline employees sense how a customer receives the service, the more precisely they can react to these perceptions and target their interaction behavior to customer expectations (Bettencourt and Gwinner 1996;Gwinner et al 2005).…”

Section: Model and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multidimensional construct, comprising empathic emotions and intellectual empathy Dymond (1949) Personal trait, cognitive phenomenon Accurate perception of others Eisenberg and Strayer (1987) Ability, affective phenomenon An emotional response to another's emotional state or condition that is congruent with the other's emotional state or situation Feshbach (1978) Ability, comprising cognitive and affective components Ability to discriminate and identify another's emotions, to take the perspective of another person, and to evoke a shared affective response Gladstein (1983) Multistage interpersonal process, containing both cognitive and affective components A way of knowing and understanding another person as if one were that person through emotional contagion, identification, and role-taking Hogan (1969) Ability, cognitive phenomenon Ability to intellectually or imaginatively apprehend another person's condition or state of mind; comprising social acuity, social knowledge and social skillfulness Mehrabian and Epstein (1972) Ability, affective phenomenon A person's ability to imaginatively assume the role of another and to understand and accurately predict that person's thoughts, feelings, and actions, comprising elements such as ''susceptibility to emotional contagion,'' ''extreme emotional responsiveness,'' or ''sympathetic tendency'' Domain: Sales and marketing Aggarwal et al (2005) Ability, comprising cognitive and affective components…”

Section: Effects Of Empathy In Service Encountersmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

On the Role of Empathy in Customer-Employee Interactions

Wieseke

Geigenmüller

Kraus

2012

Journal of Service Research

281

211

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While the service literature repeatedly emphasizes the role of empathy in service interactions, studies on empathy in customeremployee interactions are nearly absent. This study defines and conceptualizes employee and customer empathy as multidimensional constructs and empirically investigates their impact on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. A quantitative study based on dyadic data and a multilevel modeling approach finds support for two effects of empathy in service interactions. The study reveals that customer empathy strengthens the positive effect of employee empathy on customer satisfaction, leading to more ''symbiotic interactions.'' The findings also indicate that empathic customers are more likely to respond to a dissatisfying encounter with ''forgiveness,'' in the sense that customer empathy is able to mitigate negative effects of customer dissatisfaction on customer loyalty. From these empirical results, the authors derive several implications for service research and the management of service encounters. In particular, the present study provides a valuable basis for strategies of ''interaction routing,'' that is, matching customers and employees on the basis of their psychological profiles to create smooth and satisfying service interactions. The authors elaborate on approaches to implement this strategy in service organizations.

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Section: Research Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model and Hypothesis Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effects Of Empathy In Service Encountersmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the Role of Empathy in Customer-Employee Interactions

Wieseke

Geigenmüller

Kraus

2012

Journal of Service Research

281

211

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“…But it's more than that, as researchers in many fields-for example, medicine (see Shapiro 2002) and business (Aggarwal et al 2005)-have discovered. Journalist Maria Shriver pointed up the importance of developing empathy especially in this time of discord: BDuring this volatile political season I think a conversation about empathy is a good one for all of us to have-in our homes, in our workplaces and, most importantly, with ourselves^ (Shriver 2016).…”

Section: Develop Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching in a Time of Discord: Six Strategies for Learning Design and Practice

Walling¹

2017

TechTrends

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“…Maintaining positive relationships with salespeople is argued to impact on salespeople's empathy with customers (Aggarwal et al, 2005).…”

Section: Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

The moderating effect of cost orientation on RMO adoption in the hospitality industry

Lee

Pires

Rosenberger

2017

IJEBR

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This study explores insights on the effect of relationship marketing orientation (RMO) implementation in the hotel industry when competitive pressures compel hotels to trade off longer-term gains from relational strategies for transactional profit measures aligned to a cost-orientation (CO) implementation. When relational practices succumb to price/cost-based competitive pressures, a focus on cost cutting moderates the importance afforded by business to service quality and customer satisfaction. Developing theory to examine CO's moderating effect on RMO implementation for enhanced business performance can clarify RMO adoption efficacy. This study contributes to enhancing understanding of the essentiality of long-term consistency of RMO strategies implementation in the hotel industry, and how these can be compromised by temporary adoption of CO.

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Salesperson Empathy and Listening: Impact on Relationship Outcomes

Cited by 152 publications

References 39 publications

On the Role of Empathy in Customer-Employee Interactions

On the Role of Empathy in Customer-Employee Interactions

Teaching in a Time of Discord: Six Strategies for Learning Design and Practice

The moderating effect of cost orientation on RMO adoption in the hospitality industry

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