PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

The manager as matchmaker: Finding the best fit between employee and customer

Managers need to know their employees just as well as they know their customers

2012-07-27
(Press-News.org) CHESTNUT HILL, MA (July 27, 2012) – Matchmaking managers can improve customer relations and increase repeat business by pairing employees and customers with similar personalities, according to a report in the latest edition of the Journal of Service Research.

The study by three German researchers suggests that managers use role-playing exercises, videotaped rehearsals and on-site evaluations to better determine the service experience from the customer's perspective. Then match the right employees with the right customers, report marketing professors Jan Wieseke, of Ruhr-University of Bochum, Anja Geigenmüller, of Ilmenau University of Technology, and Florian Kraus, of the University of Mannheim.

Central to improving service is fostering an empathic relationship between employees and customers. The researchers found a direct link between employee empathy, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. The more empathic an employee is toward a customer, the happier the customer will be, and the more likely he or she will be to come back.

To successfully match make, the researchers suggest managers undertake "interaction routing," or pairing customers and employees based on their personalities.

The professors recognized one firm, eLoyalty, for its Integrated Contact Solutions business, which optimizes customer experience by directing each caller to the employee who best matches the caller's psychological profile. "The firm employs several linguists, behavioral scientists, and statisticians to elaborate communication patterns and algorithms to predict customer interaction behavior," Wieseke said.

But there are other, less complex and less expensive measures businesses can take.

Simple surveys can be used to prompt customers to reveal their personality types. Wieseke, Geigenmüller and Kraus also recommended educating employees about the impact of personality traits and providing routes to respond effectively to certain customer characteristics. They emphasized the importance of training employees to respond appropriately both verbally and non-verbally in a service setting, which can certainly make or break a customer's experience.

"The authors' results show that this eHarmony-like matching of employees and customers is a very effective tactic," said Katherine Lemon, editor of the Journal of Service Research and Accenture Professor of Marketing at Boston College. "Empathic customers are much more likely to forgive a spilt coffee or undercooked steak, and empathic employees are much more likely to respond sensitively to customer requests and complaints. This then mitigates the negative effects of customer dissatisfaction on customer loyalty."

### END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Georgia forests, 2011

2012-07-27
Georgia contains the largest area of forest cover of any state in the South, with forests making up 67 percent of land cover or 24.8 million acres, according to a Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) Factsheet just released by the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS). While this land area remains stable, timber inventory has increased. "Forest area in Georgia remained relatively stable over the last 50 years," says Richard Harper, SRS forester and author of the analysis. "While forest area stayed about the same, timber inventory more than doubled over the same ...

BUSM researchers find link between childhood abuse and age at menarche

2012-07-27
(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found an association between childhood physical and sexual abuse and age at menarche. The findings are published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Researchers led by corresponding author, Renée Boynton-Jarrett, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at BUSM, found a 49 percent increase in risk for early onset menarche (menstrual periods prior to age 11 years) among women who reported childhood sexual abuse compared to those who were not abused. In addition, there was a 50 percent increase ...

Swaziland HIV incidence results announced at AIDS 2012

2012-07-27
The results from a nationally representative HIV incidence study in Swaziland indicate that the national rate of new HIV infections is 2.38% among adults ages 18-49. This figure, comparable to the 2009 UNAIDS estimate of 2.66% for Swaziland adults ages 15-49, suggests that the HIV epidemic in Swaziland may have begun to stabilize in the past few years. The findings of the Swaziland HIV Incidence Measurement Survey (SHIMS) were presented today at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington DC. "The country continues to have very high HIV incidence rates. Since ...

Estimate: A new Amish community is founded every 3 and a half weeks in US

2012-07-27
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new census of the Amish population in the United States estimates that a new Amish community is founded, on average, about every 3 ½ weeks, and shows that more than 60 percent of all existing Amish settlements have been founded since 1990. This pattern suggests the Amish are growing more rapidly than most other religions in the United States, researchers say. Unlike other religious groups, however, the growth is not driven by converts joining the faith, but instead can be attributed to large families and high rates of baptism. In all, the census counts ...

Bone marrow transplant eliminates signs of HIV infection

2012-07-27
Boston, MA – Two men with longstanding HIV infections no longer have detectable HIV in their blood cells following bone marrow transplants. The virus was easily detected in blood lymphocytes of both men prior to their transplants but became undetectable by eight months post-transplant. The men, who were treated at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), have remained on anti-retroviral therapy. Their cases will be presented on July 26, 2012 at the International AIDS Conference by Timothy Henrich, MD and Daniel Kuritzkes, MD, physician-researchers in the Division of Infectious ...

Repetitious, time-intensive magical rituals considered more effective, study shows

2012-07-27
AUSTIN, Texas — Even in this modern age of science, people are likely to find logic in supernatural rituals that require a high degree of time and effort, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. The study, published in the June issue of Cognition, is the first psychological analysis of how people of various cultures evaluate the efficacy of ritual beliefs. The findings provide new insight into cognitive reasoning processes — and how people intuitively make sense out of the unknown. "One of the most remarkable characteristics of human cognition ...

BUSM study identifies receptor's role in regulating obesity, type 2 diabetes

2012-07-27
(Boston) – A recent study led by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) demonstrates that the A2b-type adenosine receptor, A2bAR, plays a significant role in the regulation of high fat, high cholesterol diet-induced symptoms of type 2 diabetes. The findings, which are published online in PLoS ONE, also identify A2bAR as a potential target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Katya Ravid, DSc/PhD, professor of medicine and biochemistry and director of the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research at BUSM, led this study. Colleagues from Ravid's lab ...

Researchers unveil molecular details of how bacteria propagate antibiotic resistance

2012-07-27
Fighting "superbugs" – strains of pathogenic bacteria that are impervious to the antibiotics that subdued their predecessor generations – has required physicians to seek new and more powerful drugs for their arsenals. Unfortunately, in time, these treatments also can fall prey to the same microbial ability to become drug resistant. Now, a research team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) may have found a way to break the cycle that doesn't demand the deployment of a next-generation medical therapy: preventing "superbugs" from genetically propagating ...

Climate concerns

2012-07-27
For decades, scientists have known that the effects of global climate change could have a potentially devastating impact across the globe, but Harvard researchers say there is now evidence that it may also have a dramatic impact on public health. As reported in a paper published in the July 27 issue of Science, a team of researchers led by James G. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, are warning that a newly-discovered connection between climate change and depletion of the ozone layer over the U.S. could allow more damaging ultraviolet (UV) ...

Research links sexual imagery and consumer impatience

2012-07-27
How do sexual cues affect consumer behavior? New research from USC Marshall School of Business Assistant Professor of Marketing Kyu Kim and Gal Zauberman, associate professor of marketing at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, reveals the reasons why sexual cues cause us to be impatient and can affect monetary decisions. Their paper, "Can Victoria's Secret Change the Future: A Subjective Time Perception Account of Sexual Cue Effects on Impatience," departs from earlier theories indicating that impatience in response to sexual cues is solely an outcome ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Could we use eye drops instead of reading glasses as we age?

Patients who had cataracts removed or their eyesight corrected with a new type of lens have good vision over all distances without spectacles

AI can spot which patients need treatment to prevent vision loss in young adults

Half of people stop taking popular weight-loss drug within a year, national study finds

Links between diabetes and depression are similar across Europe, study of over-50s in 18 countries finds

Smoking increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of its characteristics

Scientists trace origins of now extinct plant population from volcanically active Nishinoshima

AI algorithm based on routine mammogram + age can predict women’s major cardiovascular disease risk

New hurdle seen to prostate screening: primary-care docs

MSU researchers explore how virtual sports aid mental health

Working together, cells extend their senses

Cheese fungi help unlock secrets of evolution

Researchers find brain region that fuels compulsive drinking

Mental health effects of exposure to firearm violence persist long after direct exposure

Research identifies immune response that controls Oropouche infection and prevents neurological damage

University of Cincinnati, Kent State University awarded $3M by NSF to share research resources

Ancient DNA reveals deeply complex Mastodon family and repeated migrations driven by climate change

Measuring the quantum W state

Researchers find a way to use antibodies to direct T cells to kill Cytomegalovirus-infected cells

Engineers create mini microscope for real-time brain imaging

Funding for training and research in biological complexity

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: September 12, 2025

ISSCR statement on the scientific and therapeutic value of human fetal tissue research

Novel PET tracer detects synaptic changes in spinal cord and brain after spinal cord injury

Wiley advances Knowitall Solutions with new trendfinder application for user-friendly chemometric analysis and additional enhancements to analytical workflows

Benchmark study tracks trends in dog behavior

OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Google vary widely in identifying hate speech

Research spotlight: Study identifies a surprising new treatment target for chronic limb threatening ischemia

Childhood loneliness and cognitive decline and dementia risk in middle-aged and older adults

Parental diseases of despair and suicidal events in their children

[Press-News.org] The manager as matchmaker: Finding the best fit between employee and customer
Managers need to know their employees just as well as they know their customers