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International Journal of Hospitality Management 39 (2014) 50–52

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Hospitality Management

jou rn al hom ep age: www.elsev ier .com/ locate / i jhosman

esearch note

sing verbal attention to enhance restaurant customer satisfactionnd behavior

éline Jacoba, Nicolas Guéguenb,∗, Gaëlle Boulbryb

Université de Bretagne-Sud, IUT de Vannes, 56000 Vannes, FranceUniversité de Bretagne-Sud, UFR DSEG, Campus de Tohanic, 56000 Vannes, France

r t i c l e i n f o

eywords:mployees

a b s t r a c t

Managing and developing positive customer relationships is a critical factor in the success of a restaurant.

estauranterbal interactionommunicationustomer behavior

In this study, waitresses either asked customers about their satisfaction with the food or service beforeproposing tea or coffee, or they directly proposed coffee or tea without asking about satisfaction. It wasfound that the number of customers who ordered coffee/tea was significantly higher when the waitressasked the customers about their satisfaction. The theoretical and practical interest of studying the effectof verbal communication toward customers is discussed.

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Research has found that verbal and nonverbal behaviors ofmployees toward their customers are positively associated withustomer behavior in a restaurant. It has been reported in severaltudies that a waiter or waitresses’ nonverbal behavior is asso-iated with a positive evaluation from the customers as well asositive customer behavior. Tips increased when the employeeave customers big, open mouthed smiles (Tidd and Lockard, 1978),rouched next to the table (Davis et al., 1998), or maintained a shortnterpersonal distance from the patrons (Jacob and Guéguen, 2012).everal studies found that customers touched by the waiter or theaitress gave bigger tips to the employees (Crusco and Wetzel,

984; Hornik, 1992; Guéguen and Jacob, 2005; Lynn et al., 1998;tephen and Zweigenhaft, 1986). Some research also reportedhat tactile contact enhanced customer behavior. Kaufman and

ahoney (1999) found that patrons of cocktail lounges who wereriefly touched by the waitress when taking their order, consumedore alcohol than patrons who were not touched, while Guéguen

t al. (2007) reported in a restaurant that tactile contact made by aaiter or a waitress toward a patron led him/her to respond more

avorably to a suggestion made by the employee.Research has also found that verbal communication with the

ustomers was associated with later positive customer behavior

nd tipping. A waiter or waitress’s suggestion to order a certainish led customers to choose the target dish more often (Guéguent al., 2007). Rodrigue (1999) reported that thanking customers by

∗ Corresponding author.E-mail addresses: celine.jacob@univ-ubs.fr (C. Jacob),

icolas.gueguen@univ-ubs.fr (N. Guéguen), gaelle.boulbry@univ-ubs.fr (G. Boulbry).

ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.02.004278-4319/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

name (e.g., “Thank you Mr. Jones”) when returning credit cards andreceipts was associated with customers giving higher tips. Ingratia-tion also had an effect on customers’ tipping behavior. Seiter (2007)examined the behavioral effect of compliments on tipping behaviorin restaurants. In his study, 2 waitresses served 94 couples eat-ing dinner, and either complimented (“You made a good choice!”)or did not compliment the couples on their dinner choices. It wasfound that the waitresses received significantly larger tips whencomplimenting their customers than when not complimentingthem. A second study by this author (Seiter and Weger, 2010) con-firmed the effect of compliments on tipping behavior with waitersand waitresses. Research has also reported that verbal mimicryinfluences customer behavior. In a study by Van Baaren et al. (2003),a waitress was instructed to mimic the verbal behavior of half ofher customers by literally repeating their order. It was found thatthe waitress received significantly larger tips when she mimickedthe patrons than when she did not.

Overall, the studies mentioned above showed that various formsof nonverbal behavior between the servers and the patrons influ-enced customer behavior. Verbal communication is also associatedwith the same effectiveness. However, in these studies, only tip-ping behavior was measured and other customer behaviors werenot examined. However, it could be expected that these verbaland nonverbal communication and behavior could further influ-ence their behaviors. For example, we reported that tactile contactincreased tips but it was also found that this nonverbal behav-

ior increased the customers’ alcohol consumption (Kaufman andMahoney, 1999) or led the customers to order a certain dish rec-ommended by the employees (Guéguen et al., 2007). In the sameway, compliments not only appear to be associated with patrons

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iving bigger tips (Seiter, 2007; Seiter and Weger, 2010) but alsoppear effective at influencing consumer buying behavior. Dunyont al. (2010) reported that during telephone interactions, fitnessquipment salespeople sold more add-on merchandize when com-limenting their customers than when not doing so.

Congruent with such studies examining consumer buyingehavior, it could be expected that the effect of various forms oferbal communication shown by employees toward customers in

restaurant is not limited to tipping behavior and could have a pos-tive effect on consumer buying behavior. This was examined in thiseld study where, at the end of the meal, the employee asked theustomer several questions about the service and the meal beforesking if he/she wanted tea or coffee. It was expected that moreompliance with the coffee/tea suggestion would be found if themployee asked these preliminary questions than without askinghem.

. Method

.1. Participants

The participants were 70 restaurant customers who were ran-omly assigned to two groups. All of them were seated alone at aable in a restaurant in a medium-sized city (about 75,000 inhabi-ants) in a very attractive spot on the West Atlantic coast in France.n this restaurant most of the customers were sales representativesr heads of small firms that would visit their clients or firms allround the town area. Thus, they were used to having lunch alone.he participants were not informed that they were taking part in atudy.

.2. Procedure

Two waitresses (20 and 21 years old), regularly employed,ere used as confederates in this experiment. However, they wereot aware of the goals of our experiment. The waitresses were

nstructed to act in their usual manner and to wait until the cus-omer finished his/her main course before asking or not askingbout the customer’s satisfaction with the quality of service. Thexperiment was conducted every day for two weeks (excludingaturdays and Sundays) during lunch hour because there was aufficient number of lone diner at that time (the restaurant wherehe experiment was carried out is patronized by many businessravelers who have lunch alone).

In the experimental condition (preliminary questions), whenhe waitress came to clear the table, she asked three questions (i.e.,Is everything okay?” “Did you enjoy your meal?,” and “Did youike the service?”), waiting for an answer each time (always “yes”).ext, the waitress asked the customer the target question, “Wouldou like a cup of tea or coffee?” and then, with a smile, waited forhe customer’s response. In the control condition (no preliminaryuestion), the waitress did not ask the first three questions concern-

ng the meal and the service, but directly asked the customer with smile “Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?” and then waitedor the customer’s response. The control condition was strictly theame as the one typically used by employees. In France, waitersnd waitresses are instructed by their manager to systematicallysk the patrons if they want to end their meal with a cup of coffeer tea.

In both conditions, if the response was “yes”, the waitress saidI’ll bring it right away Sir/Madam.” If the customer responded “no,”

he waitress said “Ok, thanks” and left the customer’s table. Theustomers were selected to be in one of the two experimentalonditions based on random distribution: each day, tables with cus-omers eating alone were given a number and we assigned the table

itality Management 39 (2014) 50–52 51

numbers to either the experimental condition or control conditionusing a randomizing software.

2. Results

In the experimental preliminary questions condition, 42.1%(16/38) of the customers ordered a cup of tea or coffee whereas12.5% (4/32) did so in the control, no preliminary questions condi-tion. A chi-square independent test revealed a significant differencebetween the two conditions (�2(1, N = 70) = 7.46, p = .006, � = 31).

3. Discussion

Our hypothesis was supported by the results. More customersordered coffee or tea at the end of their meal when the waitresshad asked them several questions about their satisfaction with themeal and service before making the proposition.

The results are interesting for practical reasons. From a theoret-ical point of view, these results seem to show that three questionsrelated to customer satisfaction addressed at the end of the mealinfluenced his/her later ordering behavior. The previous researchpresented above has shown that employees’ nonverbal and verbalbehaviors toward customers were associated with larger tips left bysaid customers. However, studies testing the effect of such behav-ior on consumer buying behavior are scarce in the literature. Aspreviously mentioned, patrons receiving physical contact consumemore alcohol and accept server suggestions more readily (Guéguenet al., 2007; Kaufman and Mahoney, 1999). However, only tactilecontact was used to influence customer behavior in these studies.Our results seem to show that this behavioral effect is not limitedto employees’ nonverbal behavior. Obviously, it seems that mani-festing verbal interest in the customer’s satisfaction at the end ofthe meal is positively associated with receptivity to a later sugges-tion made by this employee; here it is whether or not to acceptcoffee or tea. It could now be interesting to examine the mediat-ing effect associated with this verbal communication made by theserver about the customer’s satisfaction. Perhaps this behavioraleffect is mediated by a more positive perception of the employee orthe restaurant (or both), given that it was previously found that thenonverbal behavior of the employees was associated with both anincrease in the evaluation of the server and the restaurant (Hornik,1992).

From a practical point of view, it was found that the number ofcustomers who ordered tea or coffee dramatically increased whenseveral questions about the meal and the service were addressedbefore asking the customer about coffee/tea. This technique is reallyeasy for employees to use and its cost is null for the owner of therestaurant and the employees. It could also be used to influenceadditional orders such as desserts.

This experiment had a number of limitations. The waitresseswere not informed about the real objective of the study and of pre-vious research on this topic. However, they may have unconsciouslybehaved differently, depending on the experimental condition,which in turn could have influenced the patrons’ behavior. Addi-tionally, only lone diners were tested in this experiment, and thegeneralization to group diners remains in question.

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Davis, S.F., Schrader, B., Richardson, T.R., Kring, J.P., Kiefer, J.C., 1998. Restaurant

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Dunyon, J., Gossling, V., Willden, S., Seiter, J.S., 2010. Compliments and purchasingbehavior in telephone sales interactions. Psychological Reports 106, 27–30.

Guéguen, N., Jacob, C., 2005. The effect of touch on tipping: an evaluation in a Frenchbar. International Journal of Hospitality Management 24, 295–299.

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