Engaging With You Because I am Amused by You: A Multi-Method Approach Exploring the Effect of Frontline Employee Humor on Customer Service Engagement

Motivating customers to proactively engage in service with frontline employees (FLEs) is essential for contemporary hospitality organizations. Existing literature has well documented that customer service engagement is associated with a wide range of desirable outcomes. However, there is limited knowledge about the interpersonal-related antecedents of customer service engagement. Drawing on social exchange theory, this research develops an interpersonal-based model to explore why, how , and when FLE humor facilitate customer service engagement. This research employed a scenario-based experiment and a multi-source field survey, sampling 294 participants via a Chinese online survey platform and 611 FLE-customer dyads in two Chinese scenic spots, respectively. Results reveal that FLE humor has a positive impact on customer service engagement, and customer relational energy mediates this relationship. In addition, customers with stronger sensitivity to interpersonal treatment will generate more relational energy. Our multi-method research extends customer engagement literature by explicitly examining one critical interpersonal-based antecedent and the corresponding reciprocal process.