고객접점에서 공감능력과 성과간의 관계: ‘기업-고객’간의 관계성과를 중심으로

Abstract

This research is designed to contribute on Korean marketing literature which lacks research on emphatic ability even though there are not only academic emphasis but also social needs on the topic. emphatic ability appears on some research in the area of sales management. However, those research is limited in that mixed terms have not clearly defined the concept, the focus is just on individual performance, and real world implication is lacking. We subdivided the dimension of emphatic ability into two, both cognitive emphatic ability and affective emphatic ability. Furthermore, we suggest cognitive and affective trust which mediates between emphatic ability and performance, and empirically test relationship between two emphatic ability variables and two trust variables since we strongly believe that cognitive and affective aspects fit better with interpersonal context. Next, instead of using individual level performance of salesperson, this study extend the performance concept to encompass the relational performance between the firm and the customers. Whenever a customer face the sales person, the customer perceive the service is from the firm since ever time she gets the service, the sales person will be different person in real world. Empirical results show all hypotheses on emphatic ability and trust are supported, and both cognitive and affective trust positively affect relational performance. We expect this research adds on understanding on how emphatic ability reinforce relationship between the firm and customers.