The Value of Knowing What Customers Really Want: Retail Associate Interpersonal Sensitivity as an Environmental Cue

Despite recognition of the importance of the retail environment to customer experience, relatively little systematic research considers how social environmental cues might affect this experience. On the basis of preliminary research, three studies test the relationship between employee ability to read customer affect and service quality. Consistent with the hypotheses, employee ability determines customer perceptions of service quality in a hospitality setting in one nonverbal domain but not in multiple domains (study 1). In an interpersonal context, the findings replicate those from study 1 when customers rate interactions by others but not when they rate those interactions involving themselves (study 2). Finally, in a retailing context, when an employee’s reading ability is high in multiple domains, it enhances their service quality (study 3). The authors discuss implications for retail strategy.