LINKING CONTACT EMPLOYEE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO CUSTOMER PERCEPTIONS

Contact employees play a critical role in creating favorable customer perceptions. We aim to understand to which extent contact employee emotional intelligence relates to customer perceptions of rapport, and their satisfaction and behavioral intentions. We developed a causal model and tested it with PLS. We found that customer perceptions of contact employee emotional intelligence influence their perceptions of rapport. In turn, rapport influences cognitive and emotional satisfaction. Both types of satisfaction lead to behavioral intentions. In order to improve customer perceptions of rapport, managers could focus on contact employees’ emotional intelligence when hiring and training them.