Eeva-Liisa Oikarinen

Preferential treatment in the service encounter

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine reactions when customers in service encounters receive preferential treatment (i.e. something extra in relation to other customers). The examination is conducted in a social context that allows the customer to compare what he or she receives with what other customers receive. The main effect variables are perceived justice and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental method is employed to examine the effects of providing customers with preferential treatment. The study involves four treatment groups with various combinations of receiving or not receiving preferential treatment. Findings – Customers perceived preferential treatment as relatively unjust. This was true for customers who received the preferential treatment and for those who did not. However, customer satisfaction among those receiving preferential treatment was enhanced, thus signaling that preferential treatment affects perceived justice and satisfaction differentl...

Jokes in the store and its effects on customer satisfaction

Abstract This study assesses the impact of employee use of jokes embedded in face-to-face conversations with customers. Our main finding – derived from experiments in which employee use of jokes was manipulated – was that jokes reduced customer satisfaction. This reduction occurred regardless if jokes were related or unrelated to the employee’s overall message. Our results also indicate that the use of jokes had a negative impact on perceived message relevance, and that perceived relevance mediated the link between employee use of jokes and customer satisfaction. In addition, our results show that no joke usage vs. joke usage did not produce different emotional responses. This suggests that the impact of jokes on affect is attenuated when jokes are embedded in conversational content.

Micro-Enterprises’ Digital Marketing Tools for Building Customer Relationships

The digital marketing environment is changing rapidly, and, for micro-enterprises, digital marketing is currently a vitally important opportunity. However, most digital marketing studies have focused on larger companies, and, therefore, little research focused on micro-enterprises has been done in this area. Attracting customers, engaging customers’ interest and participation, retaining customers, learning customers’ preferences and relating to customers are key strategies in building strong customer relationships. However, many enterprises appear to focus only on attracting and engaging customers and ignore longer-term aspects of managing customer relationships. The existing research lacks information on how digital marketing tools are used by micro-enterprises when building customer relationships. The present study sought to contribute to a more in-depth understanding of microenterprises’ current strategies in terms of new digital marketing tools that foster stronger customer relationships. Based on interviews of two digital marketing service providers, this paper describes how their microenterprise clients use digital marketing tools through the selective lens of the five aforementioned elements of building customer relationships. The findings highlight the importance of a practical understanding of digital marketing tools, as the digital marketing environment continues to change rapidly. In particular, the smallest group of micro-enterprises – solo-entrepreneurs – do not utilise digital marketing tools effectively enough. The human capital and digital tool knowledge of micro-enterprises’ owner-managers have a great impact on these firms’ digital marketing and, ultimately, their success.

The Moderating Role of Congruence between Humor and Fun Climate of the Company on the Effects of Humor in Internet Job Ads

Humor has been acknowledged as a common practice in advertising (Eisend, 2009; Weinberger and Gulas, 1992) and recognized as one of the most widely studied advertising appeals (Voss, 2009). Humor has become more relevant in the modern workplace, when new generations, who value fun at work (Romero and Pescosolido, 2008; Lamm and Meeks, 2009) have entered job markets. Thus, humor could be seen as congruent value promise of fun climate of the company to the job seekers and humor usage might be a prominent tool for recruiters, who are seeking job applicants who are emphasizing fun aspects at work.

You Are Joking, Right? — Connecting Humour Types To Innovative Behaviour And Innovation Output

While humour is present in everyday business in practice, its strategic meaning and effectiveness are rarely investigated in relation to innovation processes or their management. In this study, we suggest that different types of humour can have both positive and negative effects on innovative work behaviour and the innovation output of individuals, and that the nature of the effects depends to an extent on whether these types of humour are present in interaction within or across organisational boundaries. Theoretical discussion and empirical evidence derived from a quantitative analysis illustrate the diversity of relationships. The results indicate that while humour is, in general, more relevant for innovation within organizations, it also bears importance with regard to external relationships, especially considering innovative work behaviour. Likewise, generally speaking, aggressive humour has negative connotations while, affiliative, coping, and reframing types of humour are associated with positive undertones. However, these connections are not self-evident. Acknowledging differences helps managers to monitor and encourage the use of humour in varying forms of interaction within and beyond their organisations for creating supportive conditions for innovation.