Service providers' use of emotional competencies and perceived workgroup emotional climate to predict customer and provider satisfaction with service encounters

We use the customer service context to examine the impact observations of other's emotional displays have on people from multiple perspectives, including customers' observations of service provider displays, service providers' observations of customer displays in response to their displays in service encounters, and service providers' observations of aggregate emotional displays in their workgroup. Emotional displays are described in terms of Goleman's notion of personal and social emotional competencies. The concept of emotional climate is used to describe individuals' observations regarding aggregate emotional displays in their workgroup. An Experience Sampling Method study of 120-service encounters show that providers' perceptions of the quality of workgroup emotional climate predicted positively their overall job satisfaction. The provider's emotional competence affected the outcome of the encounter in a complex way and predicted positively the workgroup emotional climate. The predictive nature of these results is encouraging, suggesting that a more detailed analysis would be rewarding.