The facilitating dynamic of customer-employee satisfaction: contributions from the person-centred approach to service encounters

Abstract

Given that the quality of the service experience is constructed in the interaction between the customer and the employee, gaining insights on customer-employee satisfaction in service encounters is relevant to advance the knowledge of the service experience area of research. Building on this perspective, the present study aimed to identify a model of the facilitating dynamic of customer-employee satisfaction in service encounters. A qualitative instrumental case study was developed from 15 cases of different contexts in order to identify common patterns and propose a theoretical model. The findings indicate that the attitudes from the person-centred approach of the humanistic branch of psychology - empathy, acceptance, and authenticity - facilitate the satisfaction of both the customer and the employee in service encounters; foregoing conditions of these facilitative dynamic and specific impacts on customer-employee satisfaction were also identified.