Effects Of Smile Intensity Of Hotel Employees On Customers' Purchase Intentions

"Accommodation" is one of the key factors in determining the satisfaction and comfort of tourists during the tourism.In recent years,with the rapid expansion of Chinese hotels,competition in the industry has become increasingly fierce.Hence,hotel operators have begun to realize that customer satisfaction is gradually shifting from gorgeous hardware facilities to "software" provided by hotels – quality of service.For high-customer contact service industries like hotels,the emotional state of service providers is the most direct and strong decisive factor in the perception of service quality.The emotional labor that service with a smile has become a golden rule and necessary sales skills for many hotels,such as Hilton Hotel which advocates the impact of smile all the time.Companies firmly believe that smile can bring positive effects,and employees should smile as broadly as possible during service encounter.Through reviewing previous researches,this article finds that previous studies of smile and service mainly focus on the positive effects that can be brought about by smiles,whereas ignore the possible adverse effects.In addition,the studies that investigate the different effects among different level of expressions are relatively limited.This research will explore the different valences(positive/negative)of different smile intensity in hotel service encounter.More importantly,this study discusses the boundry conditions of smile effects from internal(consumers' sense of power)and external(corporate reputation)facters.The article uses a combination of situational experiments and questionaires to test following questions:(1)whether the interaction between smile intensity and sense of power affects consumers' social judgments-warmth perceptions and competence perceptions(study 1A),moreover,whether consumers' social judgments futher influence their purchase intention(study 1B);(2)Whether the interaction between smile intensity of staff and corporate reputation affects consumers' social judgments and repurchase intention(study 2).After data collection,the SPSS 22.0 is used to verify our hypotheses.The findings of study 1A suggest that the interaction of smile intensity(slight vs.broad)and consumers' sense of power(low vs.high)affects consumers' social judgments significantly.Specifically,a broad smile(vs.slight smile)enhances warmth perceptions when consumers are in low power,whereas undermines competence perceptions when consumers are in high power.Study 1B futher suggests that the interaction of smile intensity and chronic power will continue to affect consumers' purchase intention,and results from a mediation analysis reveal that social judgments are the underlying mechanism that explains these effects.Powerless consumers increase their purchase intention through higher warmth perceptions,but powerful consumers decrease purchase intention through lower competence perceptions.Study 2 primarily test the external factor: corporate reputation.The finding indicates that the interaction of smile intensity and corporate reputation significantly influences consumers' repurchase intention with the mediating role of social judgments.The results contribute to theories of power and corporate reputation.This research also provides a scientific reference for hotel companies to apply power and corporate reputation to train service providers and enhance hotels' service marketing performace.