Loading…

“You Lost Me at Hello”: How and when accent-based biases are expressed and suppressed

This research examines customer biases relating to employee accents in call service encounters. Extant research and practitioners generally assume that customers automatically evaluate call service employees with a nonstandard accent lower than employees with a standard accent. However, using the ju...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of research in marketing 2013-06, Vol.30 (2), p.185-196
Main Authors: Wang, Ze, Arndt, Aaron D., Singh, Surendra N., Biernat, Monica, Liu, Fan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This research examines customer biases relating to employee accents in call service encounters. Extant research and practitioners generally assume that customers automatically evaluate call service employees with a nonstandard accent lower than employees with a standard accent. However, using the justification–suppression model as a framework, we argue that customers frequently suppress accent biases toward call service employees. We conduct three empirical studies, and our findings indicate that customers rate employees with an accent receiving a negative bias lower only when a service outcome is unfavorable for customers. In contrast, accents receiving a positive bias only impact customer evaluations when service outcomes are favorable for customers. Additionally, we demonstrate that the suppression and justification of accent biases rely on both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Finally, we show that customers who are informed of the frequency of a favorable vs. unfavorable outcome are more likely to suppress biases. ► This research examines customer biases relating to call service employee accents. ► Customers frequently suppress accent biases towards call service employees. ► Bias suppression depends on service outcome and information availability.
ISSN:0167-8116
1873-8001
DOI:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2012.09.004