The influence of frontline employee self-disclosure about products in a retail store on customer trust in the retailer in the context of service encounters

The current research investigates how customers respond to self-disclosure by frontline employees in the service encounter context of retailing. Three scenario-based experiments demonstrate that self-disclosure by frontline employees related to the promoted products in a retail store has a beneficial impact on the trust which customers feel in the store. This effect is mediated by both perceived employee effort and intimacy toward employees. However, this self-disclosure effect is mitigated when customers perceive strong persuasive intent via persuasive attempts by employees. From a practical viewpoint, our investigations offer applicable tactics for producing desired outcomes regarding relational benefits (i.e., trust) during service encounters.