title: Developing Customer-Employee Rapport in Multichannel Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Service Settings
Creators: name: Hammad, Mohamed
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2027

description: This thesis investigates rapport development in multichannel business-to-consumer (B2C) service settings. Previous studies on rapport have adopted a unidirectional, single perspective (mostly the customer’s), although rapport is dyadic in nature and converges the behaviours of and outcomes for both customers and service employees. Moreover, research in recent years has focused on how rapport develops predominantly in the face-to-face channel of interaction and disregards other channels (i.e., voice-to-voice, online), despite contextual differences among the interaction channels that might influence the way rapport is built in each. In addition, with online service encounters growing rapidly, it is surprising that research around rapport development in the online channel of interaction is scarce. These are the three gaps in the literature that the thesis aims to address, which led to three research questions (RQs) being identified: 1) What are the shared rapport-building behaviours and outcomes for customers and service employees?, 2) How does rapport development vary across the different channels of interaction?, and 3) How does rapport develop in the online channel of interaction? Drawing on social exchange theory and following a Service Logic perspective, the thesis seeks to answer the three RQs by adopting an interpretive approach using two interlinked qualitative empirical studies. In study one (addressing RQ1 and RQ2), semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 45 participants from the telecom (11 customers and 10 employees) and banking (11 customers and 13 employees) sectors. Thematic analysis revealed four rapport-building behaviours (i.e., emotional oscillation, homophily, mutual attentiveness, benevolent acts beyond the ‘call of duty’), and two outcomes (i.e., commercial friendships, mutual satisfaction with the service encounter) of rapport that are shared between customers and employees during service interactions. Moreover, four differences between the channels of interaction were uncovered (i.e., interaction space, speed of rapport development, emotional display, degree of friendliness). Study two (addressing RQ3) used netnography to examine 600 exchanges (four tweets per exchange on average) from Twitter, which were collected from 12 companies in six service sectors (two companies per sector who are leading exponents of building rapport using Twitter). Thematic analysis of the exchanges uncovered two sets of rapport-building behaviours (one used by service employees and the other by customers) that are characteristic of the online channel, as well as three potential outcomes of rapport. Six employee-initiated (i.e., emojional contagion, interjections, tools of wider engagement, netspeak ‘lingo’, use of humour, expressive speech acts), and four customer-initiated (i.e., capturing the moment, graphics interchange formats, anthropomorphism, proactive self-disclosure) rapport-building behaviours were identified. In addition, one employee- (i.e., job satisfaction) and two customer-related (i.e., customer satisfaction, future loyalty intentions) outcomes of rapport in the online interaction channel were revealed. This research adds to the growing body of literature on rapport development and contributes to our understanding of value co-creation and Service Logic online. More specifically, the study is the first to look at rapport as a holistic process that accounts for the interaction channel as well as the behaviours and outcomes of both interacting parties at the same time, thereby accounting for the reciprocal, dyadic nature of the concept. From a theoretical standpoint, this thesis makes three contributions to the service marketing literature. First, it takes a bidirectional approach to investigating shared rapport-building behaviours and outcomes. By looking at the perspectives of both customers and service employees in line with the principles of social exchange theory, a more accurate assessment of rapport development is made. Second, this is the first study to compare between the different channels of interaction regarding rapport development. This gives service companies insights into those rapport-building behaviours that are most appropriate for each channel of interaction so that customers enjoy a seamless service experience across the different touchpoints. Third, the study introduces the online rapport framework (ORF), which portrays two sets of online rapport-building behaviours (one initiated by service employees and the other by customers), as well as three possible outcomes of rapport (one for service employees and two for customers). The ORF is the first comprehensive assessment of rapport development as a holistic process that accounts for the reciprocal, dyadic nature of the concept in the online channel of interaction. The framework demonstrates how rapport can still develop successfully in online service encounters between customers and employees despite the absence of key social cues (e.g., facial expression, voice tone). Managerial implications and study limitations are discussed at the end of the thesis.