The Benefits of Synchronized Genuine Smiles in Face-to-Face Service Encounters
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Picard_Benefits of Synchronized.pdf
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681.54 KB
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Author(s)
Picard, Rosalind W.
Kim, Kyunghee
Eckhardt, Micah Rye
Bugg, Nandi G.
Date Issued
August 2009
Journal
International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, 2009. CSE '09.
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Citation
Kim, Kyunghee et al. “The Benefits of Synchronized Genuine Smiles in Face-to-Face Service Encounters.” Computational Science and Engineering, 2009. CSE '09. International Conference on. 2009. 801-808.
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
This paper examines the role of facial expressions in dyadic interactions between a banking service provider and customer. We conduct experiments in which service providers manipulate their facial expressions while interacting with customers in one of three conditions: In the neutral condition the banker tried to maintain a neutral facial expression; in the smiling condition the banker tried to smile throughout the interaction; in the empathetic condition the banker tried to respond with the same or complementary facial expressions. Results show that the customers (n = 37) were more satisfied with the service provider interaction when they perceived the service provider was empathetic. More significantly, the service provider and customer shared synchronized genuine facial expressions with many prolonged smiles, when customers said the service provider was empathetic. According to the analysis of the interactions, smiling bankers who did not share smiles with customers were appraised worse than non-smiling bankers.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSE.2009.415
