The influence of frontline employee self‐disclosure about products in a retail store on customer trust in the retailer in the context of service encounters

Abstract The current research investigates how customers respond to self‐disclosure by frontline employees in the service encounter context of retailing. Three scenario‐based experiments demonstrate that self‐disclosure by frontline employees related to the promoted products in a retail store has a beneficial impact on the trust which customers feel in the store. This effect is mediated by both perceived employee effort and intimacy toward employees. However, this self‐disclosure effect is mitigated when customers perceive strong persuasive intent via persuasive attempts by employees. From a practical viewpoint, our investigations offer applicable tactics for producing desired outcomes regarding relational benefits (i.e., trust) during service encounters.