High-quality connections in retail stores

Abstract

Reflecting upon the gap in the literature regarding how high-quality connections between employees and customers in retail stores may look like, and how these potentially may affect organizational performance outcomes, the aim of this present thesis is to add insight into this particular field. Considering that we wanted to learn more about employees’ and customers’ specific thoughts and experiences regarding the employee-customer relationships, we have applied qualitative research methods and strategies in order to come up with five processes that looks at the small, but important actions that may determine how the connection between them further develops. These five processes are therefore drawn out of the semi-structured interviews we have conducted with both employees and customers (mystery shoppers). The five processes identified are as following: 1) interacting through product knowledge sharing, 2) help seeking/help giving, 3) interacting through fostering perspective taking, 4) adapting to personality and style, and 5) signal availability. Building our research and the presented processes on studies by prominent authors, we may argue that the present thesis supports and adds insight into these studies. Specifically, the present thesis describes both how these processes enable high-quality connections between employees and customers to be developed, and how they potentially contribute in creating customer experiences of high quality. Additionally, the processes presented also describe and look into how high-quality connections foster strong relationships- and how these connections may affect the overall organizational performance outcomes. In order to understand the role of how high-quality connections between employees and customers in retail stores better, we have also discussed implications for theory and practice.