Customer-Employee Social Bond Scale

What it measures

Measures the strength of a customer's social bond with employees at a specific retail or service location. Importantly, the scale targets attachment to staff at a particular venue rather than to employees across a chain or to staff in general. Developed as part of a broader sense-of-place framework in which social bonds with employees represent one dimension driving place attachment and, in turn, customer loyalty behaviours such as word of mouth and reduced switching intentions.

Response format

7-point Likert-type

Scale items

• The employee relationships I have in this [place] are important to me.
• The employees in this [place] are like family.
• I feel a social connection to the employees at this [place].
• I have a bond with the employees in this [place].
• I am not willing to go to another [place] because of the relationships I have with the employees here.
• I have a special relationship to the people that work at this [place].

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Authors referred to this as the 'social bonds with employees' scale. Developed through a rigorous multi-stage process including domain specification, focus groups, expert review, and item adaptation from related scales. CFA confirmed good model fit in both studies. Convergent and discriminant validity supported. AVE = .74 (Study 1) and .82 (Study 2). Reliabilities reported are attenuated. Scale is intended to be location-specific — not a measure of general tendency to bond with employees or attachment to a brand's staff across all outlets.

Citation

Brocato, E.D., Baker, J., & Voorhees, C.M. (2015). Creating consumer attachment to retail service firms through sense of place. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(2), 200-220.

Keywords