Hospitable Non-verbal Staff Behaviour as a Means to Create Value to Customers

Abstract

Background and aim:

Service providers need to be competent in the provision of hospitality. However, the question is, how to operationalize the experience of hospitality? Existing literature shows limited concrete service characteristics that lead to a hospitable experience in service environments. This article presents user-centred research into human-related aspects that influence the hospitality experience of guests.

Methods/methodology:

Four case studies were performed in a public swimming pool and a catering setting. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, in three of the four cases, regular customers of the organizations were approached by email and asked to rate the importance of behaviours related to hospitable service. In the case of the public swimming pool, part of the data was collected prior to closing of the pool, allowing data collection via survey, on site or via email, depending on visitors’ preferences.

Results:

The results show which non-verbal employee characteristics contribute to the distinctive factors of hospitality, especially observable behaviour. The factors ‘modest appearance’ and ‘representative appearance’ seem to be of medium importance, and the factor ‘paralanguage’ seems to be the least important factor.

Practical implications:

This article shows that it is possible to identify concrete characteristics of employee behaviour that people associate with hospitality.

Keywords

Hospitality non-verbal behaviour customer experience service

Introduction

Today, hospitality is important for service companies to create value for their customers (Lynch et al., 2011; Pijls, 2020). People like to feel at ease, in private as well as in service environments. The service industry is well aware that their customers appreciate the experience of pleasant and appropriate sensations that makes them feel welcome and comfortable. Not the service itself, but the way the service is delivered determines whether customers connect to an organization (Cetin, 2020; McColl-Kennedy et al., 2015). Therefore, service providers need to be competent in the provision of hospitality, in order to create value for their customers. This is necessary to attract customers in increasingly competitive markets.

Tasci and Semrad (2016) distinguish four layers of hospitality. Layer 1 concerns the provision of basic needs (e.g., the provision of food, drink, shelter and hygiene). Layer 2 is about entertainment (e.g., TV, pool and playground). Layer 3 concerns the provision of services, such as housekeeping maintenance and front office. Finally, layer 4 is about taking care of needs by serving with hospitableness.

However, when is service staff experienced as hospitable? Operationalization of hospitable service staff has resulted in several distinguishing dimensions of hospitality (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Pijls et al., 2017; Steffen et al., 2020; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). However, in order to improve the hospitality provided by service staff, organizations need to know what specific employee characteristics influence the experience of these various hospitality dimensions. However, knowledge does not extend much further than ‘keep smiling’ and ‘shake hands’. So far, academic research into hospitality has yielded little concrete insights in this area. Additional knowledge is needed to express hospitality in services in, for example, tourism, transport and hospitality. Only concrete insights will help these sectors to create more value for their customers.

There is ample research into factors that influence customer satisfaction with services, most often based on the concept of servicescape (Bitner, 1992; Pizam & Tasci, 2019). The research concerning the servicescape has been commonly operationalized into instruments measuring constructs such as satisfaction (Brunner-Sperdin et al., 2012; Moon et al., 2016) and service quality, often measured by SERVQUAL and its derivatives (Kirillova & Chan, 2019; Sari et al., 2016). One of SERVQUAL’s underlying dimensions is ‘tangibles’, and visible employee characteristics, like appearance and behaviour, is a subject of research in this area. See, for instance, Jung and Yoon’s investigation of the effect of non-verbal behaviour on customer satisfaction, and the article by Quach et al. (2017) on the effect of aesthetic labour in service encounters. However, such research is not available on the experience of hospitality. There are few instruments developed to measure this concept, and none of them contain a comprehensive measurement of the effect of specific aspects of non-verbal behaviour.

Pijls et al. (2017) have developed a holistic scale to measure how people experience the hospitality and its underlying dimensions such as care, comfort and inviting. ‘Inviting’ refers to the experience of inviting, openness and freedom; ‘care’ is about experiencing empathy, servitude and acknowledgement; and ‘comfort’ refers to feeling at ease, relaxed and comfortable. The scale was developed and validated by performing studies in various types of organizations, such as hotels, hospitals, public transport, catering (Pijls et al., 2017). However, what makes that we experience care, comfort and inviting? This has not yet been concretized in hospitality research. In this article, this hospitality model has been used to operationalize the experience of hospitality further. Two different types of service organizations shared the aim to improve the hospitality performance of their employees. Therefore, this article presents four case studies on improving the experience of hospitality by identifying aspects of the human touch and by uncovering concrete employee characteristics that contribute to people’s experience of hospitality in service environments.

Literature Study

Until recently, we had little knowledge about the meaning of hospitality for service guests. However, the growing academic attention to the meaning of the concept of hospitality is gradually decreasing the knowledge gap on this topic. Academics have addressed the meaning of the concept of hospitality, predominantly in the context of the hospitality business, such as hotels or restaurants (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Ariffin et al., 2018; Steffen et al., 2020; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). However, with the growing interest in hospitality outside the hospitality sector, more academic attention has also been paid to the concept of hospitality for the service sector in general (Pijls et al., 2017). The focus in the literature is mostly on hospitable service staff behaviour, by identifying separate dimensions of hospitality.

In conceptualizing and measuring customer experience, some authors only use experience-related variables to define the experience (Heide & Gronhaug, 2009; Pijls et al., 2017; Tasci & Semrad, 2016). Others also include service aspects that influence the experience (Ariffin & Maghzi, 2012; Brunner-Sperdin & Peters, 2009; Steffen et al., 2020). However, they often combine different levels of concretion, without making a distinction between experience-related variables that concern feelings of the customer and concrete aspects of the service delivery that influence the customer experience.

Scales that incorporate both aspects related to the physical environment and aspects related to social interaction often identify service characteristics for the physical component, such as lighting, colour, scent and sound, whereas they use experience-related items for the social component, such as friendly, helpful, empathy and responsiveness (Brunner-Sperdin & Peters, 2009; Slåtten et al., 2009). Furthermore, in their hospitality scale for hotels, Ariffin and Maghzi (2012) also use a mixture of experience-related items (e.g., ‘giving a warm welcome’, ‘treated as a friend’ and ‘care for their guests’) and service characteristics (e.g., ‘the hotel staff gave me authentic smiles all the time’, ‘the hotel staff knew my name and/or nationality’ and ‘the hotel staff made eye contact with me during conversations’).

The research presented in this article clearly distinguishes between the perceptions of hospitality and the characteristics of employees that will influence (dimensions of) the experience of hospitality. These characteristics are the humanic clues in Berry, Wall and Carbone’s differentiation of factors that influence customers’ service experience. Besides functional clues (calculative quality perceptions), they distinguish emotional perceptions of quality, subdivided in humanic clues (related to employees’ behaviour) and mechanic clues (sensory information). These emotional clues may be noticed consciously, but they also influence one’s perceptions on a subconscious level (Berry et al., 2006). What, then, are potential employee characteristics influencing the experience of hospitality? The studies focus on non-verbal communication, which accounts for nearly 70% of all communication (Barnum & Wolniansky, 1989; Darioly & Mast, 2013). However, although extensive research on non-verbal communication is available in several academic fields (Jung & Yoon, 2011), studies of non-verbal behaviour in relation to the hospitality discipline remain limited. This article aims to fill this gap.

Islam and Kirillova (2020a) state that non-verbal aspects of employee–customer interactions are relatively unexplored in the service and marketing literature, despite its importance regarding the outcome of service encounters. Non-verbal behaviour helps communication become meaningful and successful (Islam & Kirillova, 2020a). It also contributes, among others, to hospitality-related perceptions of courtesy (Ford, 1995), interpersonal warmth (Bayes, 1972), friendly welcome (Kattara et al., 2008), feeling at home (Islam & Karillova, 2020a) and empathy (Vogel et al., 2018). Additionally, Gabbott and Hogg (2000) stress the importance of non-verbal communication in service evaluation, because interpersonal interactions are essential in services. Furthermore non-verbal behaviour contributes to the alignment between customers and frontline service employees by expressive similarity in non-verbal communication (Lim et al., 2017).

Non-verbal aspects may be subdivided into kinesics, proxemics, paralanguage and physical appearance (Berry et al., 2006; Islam & Kirillova, 2020b; Jung & Yoon, 2011; Sundaram & Webster, 2000). According to Jung and Yoon (2011), kinesics concern aspects such as eye contact, nodding, handshaking and smiling. The literature suggests that kinesics of employees can induce feelings of hospitality. Smiling, for example, induces interpersonal warmth (Bayes, 1972) and customer satisfaction (Grandey et al., 2005). Eye contact links to likeability, believability (Beebe, 1980) and assurance (Magnini et al., 2013).

Proxemics concern the proper distance between employee and guest, and proper physical contact (Sundaram & Webster, 2000). It needs to be noted that these aspects have acquired new connotations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Values for personal and social distance, as defined by Hall (1966), already partly determined by personal preference, are now tainted by fear of COVID-19, and can under the present circumstances not be measured. Touch is for the same reason out of the question. Therefore, proxemics will not be taken into account in this article.

The third category is paralanguage, which includes vocal pitch, vocal loudness or amplitude, pitch variation, pauses and fluency of speech (Jung & Yoon, 2011). Based on these speech characteristics, two communication styles can be distinguished. A conversational style is characterized by lower pitch, slower rate, low-to-moderate volume and less inflexion; this style is associated with trustworthiness, kindness, warmth, friendliness and pleasantness. In contrast, a public speaking style is characterized by higher pitch, faster, high vocal intensity and higher inflexion (Sundaram & Webster, 2000); this style is associated with dynamism, dominance and competence (Pearce & Conklin, 1971). Although there is no empirical evidence, a conversational style is expected to be perceived as more welcoming because it is associated with friendliness and warmth.

The fourth element of non-verbal behaviour is appearance. During interpersonal interactions with service employees, customers automatically appraise service performance (Koernig & Page, 2002). Appearance is indeed a part of the first impression a customer or guest gets when entering the premises of an organization. Company clothing and uniforms provide an identity with the organization and also enhance the appearance of the employees; for example, several service companies have manipulated the clothing of employees to determine the most effective style and way of dressing concerning the customers’ perception of the employee’s professionalism (Sundaram & Webster, 2000).

Physical appearance represents specific information regarding a person’s grooming and dress codes (Islam & Kirillova, 2020a). According to Söderlund and Julander (2009), there is a positive correlation between the physical attractiveness of employees and customer satisfaction. This refers to aesthetic labour, ‘looking good’ and ‘sounding right’ (Warhurst & Nickson, 2007).

This first impression leads to a first appraisal of the organization, based on expectations and prior experiences. Given that employees’ appearance influences customer satisfaction, it is no surprise that appearance matters to employers; according to Warhurst et al. (2000), this refers to clothing style, jewellery, make up/personal grooming, hair style and length and general tidiness. Appearance is a part of the ‘tangibles’ in SERVQUAL and its derivates, that among other things refers to appearance, which includes the physical appearance of members of staff. Hightower and Shariat (2009) refer to how ‘neat and well-dressed employees add to perceived service quality’.

Method

Four case studies in both a tourism (a swimming pool) and in a hospitality (restaurants) service environment have been performed to explore what employee behaviour contributes to people’s experience of hospitality. Because this article focusses on the role of non-verbal behaviour, data regarding non-verbal behaviour have been selected and included in the analysis. The number and type of non-verbal characteristics that were included in the studies vary due to the number of items that could be included in the questionnaire on this topic, which depended on the preferences of the organizations involved.

Public Swimming Pool

Case Study 1

In March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey was conducted among visitors of a public swimming pool, to measure the experience of hospitality reception staff at a particular moment using the experience of hospitality scale (EH-scale) (Pijls et al., 2017), consisting of 13 statements that were rated on a 5-point scale. Furthermore, respondents evaluated the contact with staff on 6 non-verbal employee characteristics. Furthermore, participants were asked to select three factors of non-verbal behaviour of employees that they think contribute most to a hospitable experience.

A total of 245 questionnaires were collected at the spot. Using this method, hospitable non-verbal behaviour was measured both explicitly (by mentioning non-verbal behaviour related to hospitality) and implicitly (by calculating correlations between the experience of hospitality and non-verbal behavioural characteristics).

Case Study 2

In October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, another survey was conducted to further explore non-verbal behaviour related to hospitality of the reception staff of the public swimming pool. Because the study took place during a lockdown, which means that people could not visit the swimming pool, the experience of hospitality could not be measured at the spot; instead, customers of the swimming pool were approached by social media platforms of the organization. A total of 113 customers of the public swimming pool responded and participated in the online survey on hospitable behaviour. Seventeen items concerned non-verbal behaviour of reception staff. On a 5-point scale, participants estimated to what extent 17 particular non-verbal behavioural characteristics are related to hospitality.

Restaurants

Case Study 3

In October 2020, an online survey was conducted among restaurant visitors to explore the role of non-verbal behaviour of restaurant staff in the experience of hospitality for a company in hospitality consultancy for restaurants. The study took place during a lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that restaurants were closed. As a result, the questionnaire could not be administered at restaurants; instead, what non-verbal behaviour people in general associate with hospitable behaviour of restaurant staff was investigated. Via social media of the consultancy company, people were asked to participate in a survey on the experience of hospitality performance of restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 125 people participated and rated, among others, to what extent 8 non-verbal behavioural characteristics are relevant for a hospitable experience. Participants indicated the relevance of the characteristics on a 5-point scale (1 was totally not relevant, 5 was totally relevant).

Case Study 4

In October 2020, an online survey was conducted among customers of a catering company that delivers food to educational institutions to further explore non-verbal behaviour related to hospitality. This study took also place during a lockdown and, therefore, concerned an online questionnaire. The survey was distributed to students and staff at six educational institutions and was secondly also distributed via LinkedIn to increase the number of participating staff of educational institutions. A total of 125 students (15 students at post-secondary vocational institutions and 108 university students) and 54 employees (37 employees of secondary schools, 7 employees at post-secondary vocational institutions and 10 university employees) participated in the study. Four items on non-verbal behavioural characteristics related to hospitality were included in the survey. Participants were asked to rate the relevance of the characteristics on a 5-point scale, from 1 (totally irrelevant) to 5 (totally relevant).

Results

To explore the underlying structure of the characteristics of non-verbal behaviour, a factor analysis (PCA with varimax rotation) was performed on the data of case study 2, which included the most characteristics of non-verbal behaviour. Factor loadings above 0.30 were included. The analysis showed four factors of non-verbal behaviour (see Table 1), which can be named ‘behaviour’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.71), ‘modest appearance’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.80), ‘representative appearance’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.71) and ‘paralanguage’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.73).

The factor ‘behaviour’ refers most to actual behaviour. Taking time for customers, greeting, not interrupting customers and being visible for customers are aspects that require action of the employee. The factor ‘modest appearance’ concerns a first impression of the employee based on visible characteristics of employees that show a servicing attitude of employees. Unobtrusive appearance of employees by showing limited make-up and accessories, fixed hair and appropriate wearing of company clothing, together with eye contact and nodding when appropriate, communicates modesty. In this way, the employees do not draw attention to themselves, but show that the customer comes first. The factor ‘representative appearance’ also concerns a first impression but refers to how an employee should come across according to the rules. A representative employee is well-groomed, is wearing a name badge to be recognizable and stands upright to serve the customer. The fourth factor ‘paralanguage’ relates to vocal characteristics. Instead of to what is said, it focusses on the way things are said. Table 1 shows that the factor ‘modest appearance’ is clearly most relevant for the experience of hospitality (explained variance of 29.94), followed by the factors ‘behaviour’ (9.82), ‘representative appearance’ (8.10) and ‘paralanguage’ (6.42). Modest appearance, referring to the servant attitude, is perhaps in its content the most related to hospitality.

Table 2 shows the results on the four case studies. The four-factor structure based on case study 2 was used to present the results. For the case studies 1, 2 and 4, the mean estimated importance of characteristics of non-verbal behaviour are presented. These are customers’ expectation on what non-verbal characteristics contribute to a hospitable experience.

Table 1.

Results of PCA (varimax rotation) Case Study 2 (public swimming pool, n = 113).

Non-verbal Characteristic	Factor Structure
	Behaviour	Modest Appearance	Representative Appearance	Paralanguage
Taking time	0.85
Greeting	0.76
Not interrupting	0.56
Visibility	0.54
Limited make-up		0.82
Limited accessories		0.73
Fixed (long) hair		0.70
Appropriate dress		0.68
Eye contact		0.47
Nodding		0.44
Standing posture			0.68
Well-groomed appearance			0.66
Name badge			0.56
Well-groomed nails			0.42
Smiling			0.36
Speech pause				0.82
Slow speech				0.80
Percentage of variance	9.82	29.94	8.10	6.42
Cronbach’s α	0.71	0.80	0.71	0.73

Source: The authors.

Note: Factor loadings >0.30 are included.

For case study 1, the percentage of participants that selected the various non-verbal characteristics as belonging to the top three of most influential non-verbal characteristics are given. Additionally, correlations between the rated non-verbal behavioural aspects and the rated experience of hospitality are shown. These additional figures were available because this study also evaluated the experience of hospitality and the actual behaviour of workers. This was possible because in contrast to the other three case studies, this study took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, when the public swimming pool was open to customers.

Results of the four exploratory studies (Table 2) show that with regard to non-verbal behaviour, hospitality goes beyond smiling and eye contact. Although people associate smiling (study 2, 3 and 4) and eye contact (all four studies) with hospitality (Li et al., 2016), also additional characteristics of non-verbal behaviour contribute to people’s experience of hospitality. All the four factors of non-verbal behaviour appear to contribute to customers’ experience of hospitality.

However, the factors seem to vary in their contribution to hospitality. As can be seen in Table 2, the factor ‘behaviour’ seems to be the most important factor in the perception of hospitality. The factors ‘modest appearance’ and ‘representative appearance’ seem to be of medium importance, and the factor ‘paralanguage’ seems to be the least important factor.

Table 2.

Results of the Four Case Studies on the Importance of the Characteristics of Non-verbal Behaviour for the Experience of Hospitality.

	Case Study 2 (n = 113)	Case Study 1 (n = 245)		Case Study 3 (n = 125)	Case Study 4 (n = 179)
Non-verbal Behaviour	Mean Estimate of Importance	Percentage	Correlation with Hospitality	Mean Estimate of Importance	Mean Estimate of Importance
Behaviour
Taking time	4.48
Greeting	4.50				3.89
Not interrupting	4.30
Visibility	4.30
Mean	4.45				3.89
Modest appearance
Limited make-up	3.52
Limited accessories	3.32
Fixed (long) hair	3.39
Appropriate dress	4.01	15	0.389*	2.81
Eye contact	4.40	55	0.397*	3.59
Nodding	4.06	15	0.474*
Mean	3.78	35	0.420*	3.20
Representative appearance
Standing posture	3.37
Well-groomed appearance	4.33	23	0.410*	3.54	3.66
Name badge	3.77
Well-groomed nails	4.17
Smiling	4.32			3.48	4.08
Mean	3.99	23	0.410	3.51	3.87
Paralanguage
Speech pause	3.58	2.5	0.357	2.65
Slow speech	3.43	2.5	0.209	2.17	3.10
Fluent speech				3.02
Speech at low pitch				1.7
Mean	3.51	2.5	0.283	2.24	3.10

Source: The authors.

Notes: For case studies 2, 3 and 4, the table presents the mean scores of the estimated importance (scale 1 to 5). For case study 1 the table presents the percentage of respondents that selected an item in the top three of most important characteristics and the correlations with the overall experience of hospitality. * Means significance level p < 0.01.

Conclusions and Discussion

The service sector is striving to further improve its service performance in order to increase customer value. In doing so, organizations not only focus on service satisfaction, but also use other measures to evaluate their services. Hospitality is such a measure. Instead of concentrating on the service itself, hospitality focusses on how the service is performed. Organizations in hospitality, tourism, leisure and travel, among others, are paying increasingly attention to hospitality. However, additional knowledge is needed to improve the hospitality performance of organizations. Adding concrete insights on hospitable (non-verbal) behaviour to the field would offer the opportunity to make great progress in increasing the value of services for customers.

This article offers a step towards understanding what concrete behavioural characteristics of service employees lead to the experience of hospitality in tourism and hospitality service environments. Hospitality is not just about smiling, eye contact and shaking hands, but it is more than that. The four case studies performed in two different types of service environments show a considerable consensus about what non-verbal employee characteristics induce feelings of hospitality. Furthermore, the studies presented in this article are a first attempt to identify what non-verbal employee characteristics contribute to the experience of hospitality. This is of value for service organizations in hospitality and tourism, as it gives them concrete tools to improve the hospitality performance of their organization.

The insights on the concrete non-verbal behavioural aspects that convey hospitality can be specifically used in hospitality training of service staff. The results suggest that customers experience service employees when they show servitude by a modest appearance (e.g., eye contact, nodding, appropriate dress and limited make-up and accessories), representativeness (e.g., smiling, a well-groomed appearance and a name badge) hospitable non-verbal behaviour (e.g., greeting, being visible and taking time) and particular speech-characteristics (slow and fluent speech, with pauses and at a low pitch). Further research on the effects of the ‘hospitable nonverbal behaviour’ will be of great value to further strengthen the understanding of the role of non-verbal behaviour in the hospitality performance of organizations in tourism, leisure and hospitality.

The COVID-19 pandemic limited the methods that could be used to measure both the experience of hospitality and the experience of non-verbal behaviour in the case studies 2, 3 and 4. Therefore, after the pandemic, the results found in these case studies need further validation by measuring experiences on the spot. The next step in this research will be to create an instrument that will contain both the three factors of hospitality according to Pijls et al. (2017), namely inviting, care and comfort and the non-verbal behaviour specified in this article, resulting in the combination of observable behaviours with a holistic measure of hospitality, which may be applied in all kinds of service environments that want to convey a hospitable experience.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, proxemics could not be studied in three of the four case studies. Once the pandemic is under control, also proxemics needs to be studied in relation to hospitality. Due to the pandemic, proxemics could be even more relevant than before in relation to hospitality.

To conclude, the industry and academic researchers need each other in gaining practical knowledge on how organizations can improve their hospitality performance and thereby create value for customers. The case studies in this document provide this much-needed practical knowledge on aspects of non-verbal behaviour of service employees.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

R. Pijls

B. H. Groen

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