The impact of perceived customer delight on the frontline employee

Abstract

A plethora of research has investigated the impact of the frontline employee on the customer, with the consensus that employees can have a tremendous impact on the customer. What remains to be discovered is the extent to which this relationship exists in the reverse. Utilizing broaden-and-build and emotional contagion theories, this study suggests that employee perceptions of a specific customer emotion (delight) have an impact on the frontline employee. Specifically, results from a structural equations model reveal that employee perceptions of customer delight lead to employee positive affect, which in turn positively influences commitment and job satisfaction as well as creates stronger external representation behaviors, internal influence behaviors, and service delivery behaviors from the employee. These findings contribute new evidence to the debate of the viability of providing customer delight and extend our knowledge beyond emotional contagion in explaining how positive customer emotions manifest in employees.