Guests’ Perceptions of Hospitality Employees’ Non-Verbal Behavior: Insights from a Restaurant Sector

EasyChair Preprint 4778

Abstract

Existing literature in services management and marketing acknowledges the role of non-verbal communication. Lin & Lin (2011) advocate the use of non-verbal cue to transmit positive emotions from service employees to customers, while Gabott and Hogg (2000) demonstrate the effect of service providers’ non-verbal behavior on service quality evaluation by customers. In the hospitality context, Jung and Yoon (2011) report that kinesics and proxemics have significant effects on customer positive emotions, whereas kinesics and paralanguage affect restaurant patrons’ satisfaction. In another instance, Yuksel, (2008) shows that restaurant employees exhibiting certain non-verbal cues are perceived as more competent and trustworthy. Although valuable, these studies do not provide a deeper understanding of how customers experience or perceive non-verbal behavior of service personnel. Therefore, the study sets a broad objective to explore customer’ perceptions of nonverbal behavior of restaurant employees, by considering the four groups of non-verbal communication: kinesics, proxemics, paralanguage, and physical appearance. With this, the research is expected to contribute to the hospitality industry by developing nonverbal communication competencies, or inventory, to be used as goals in employee training.

Keyphrases: Restaurant, consumer perception, hospitality employees, nonverbal behaviour

@booklet{EasyChair:4778,
  author    = {Mohammad Shahidul Islam and Ksenia Kirillova},
  title     = {Guests’ Perceptions of Hospitality Employees’ Non-Verbal Behavior: Insights from a Restaurant Sector},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 4778},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}