Employee Rapport Scale

What it measures

Measures a customer's evaluation of the rapport-building behaviours displayed by a business's frontline staff during a service encounter. Items assess staff courtesy, responsiveness, knowledge, and warmth. Higher scores indicate a more positive perception of employee rapport. Versions with three items (Study 1) and four items (Study 2) have been used.

Scale items

• Thinking about your __________ experience, how would you rate the courtesy of the staff?
• Thinking about your __________ experience, how would you rate the responsiveness of the staff?
• Thinking about your __________ experience, how would you rate the knowledge of the staff?
• Thinking about your __________ experience, how would you rate the warmth of the staff? [item 4, used in 4-item version only]

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

Usage notes & scoring

The 3-item version (items 1–3) was derived from J.D. Power North American Hotel GSI studies (2011 and 2012), with analyses based on over 86,000 hotel guest responses. The 4-item version (all items) was used in Study 2 with 156 MTurk participants. The scale stem includes a blank for a contextual word or phrase (e.g., 'check-in', 'check-out'); items are amenable to adaptation across hospitality and service contexts including restaurants, cruise lines, and theme parks.

Citation

Giebelhausen, M., Robinson, S. G., Sirianni, N. J., & Brady, M. K. (2014). Touch versus tech: When technology functions as a barrier or a benefit to service encounters. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 113–124.