The role of age and gender in the retail service encounter

Foster, C ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2462-5155 and Resnick, S ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4471-7594, 2011. The role of age and gender in the retail service encounter. In: 16th Conference of the European Association for Education and Research in Commercial Distribution, University of Palma, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, June 2011.

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Abstract

Research typically explores the service encounter in relation to the soft and hard skills of front line staff, yet has neglected the role the visible diversity of sales staff have on the interactions between the service deliverer and receiver. This paper therefore attempts to address this gap in knowledge by reporting on how the age and gender of customer facing staff can influence customer evaluations of the retail service encounter in a health and beauty retailer. An analysis of qualitative interviews with forty customers and twenty store staff propose that customers attempt to 'match' and 'mirror' the age and gender of sales staff with their expectations of who should deliver good retail service during the retail service encounter.

Item Type: Conference contribution
Creators: Foster, C. and Resnick, S.
Date: 2011
Divisions: Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by: EPrints Services
Date Added: 09 Oct 2015 10:55
Last Modified: 09 Jun 2017 13:44
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/20031

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