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Work Climate and Customer Satisfaction: The role of trust in the retail context
Long W Lam
Faculty of Business Administration, Universidade de Macau, Taipa, Macau
Dora C Lau
Department of Management, Faculty of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Shatin NT, Hong Kong
Abstract
We propose that a trust climate will help the employee–customer interface in the retail context. Specifically, we argue that a work climate that is based on trust induces the exercise of discretion by retail managers and discretionary behavior by front-line staff.
Managerial and staff discretion is necessary for retail stores to become locally responsive, as store responsiveness is linked to customer satisfaction. Our propositions are derived from interpersonal trust and social exchange theories.
The use of a trust climate to analyze the antecedents of customer satisfaction offers another theoretical perspective to study the interface dynamics between employees and customers and thus this paper contributes to ‘linkage research.’
Keywords
trust climate, relational exchanges, customer satisfaction, store responsiveness, organisational citizenship behavior, managerial discretion
Article Text
How employees behave will impact whether customers will feel satisfied in the consumption process. This is especially important in the retail context in which front-line staff members have frequent interactions with customers. Most companies understand the importance of employee behavior but their responses in dealing with this challenge can be drastically different. The Ritz-Carlton’s motto of personalised service is ‘We are ladies and gentleman serving ladies and gentleman’ (Metters, King-Metters, Pullman, & Walton 2006: 209). Nordstrom’s first rule in serving guests is ‘Use your good judgement in all situations. There will be no additional rules’ (Pfeffer 1994: 42). The investigation into the interface between employees and customers is known as ‘linkage research’ (Wiley 1996). Studies of the employee–customer interface offer fruitful information to retail firms through which they can ‘find ways to effectively manage their customer-contact employees to help ensure their attitudes and behaviors are conducive to the delivery of quality service’ (Hartline & Ferrell 1996: 52).
Previous studies on service climate have shown that employees working under such a context tend to exhibit more service behaviors, which helps to improve customer satisfaction (eg Liao & Chuang 2004; Hui, Chiu, Yu, Cheung & Tse 2007). For example, a recent empirical study by Schneider, Ehrhart, Mayer, Saltz and Niles-Jolly (2005) suggested that a work climate with a strong service orientation did induce more service-focused behaviors among employees, which resulted in greater customer satisfaction. Their basic premise is that the work climate affects how employees feel in the workplace. The behavior of employees then influences how customers feel during the service encounter.
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Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Greg Dess, Sharon Foley, Vilmos Misangyi, Leonard Love, David Nino, and the Behavioral Research Group participants of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for their valuable input and comments.
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