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Shen and Ball (2009) argue that personalized interaction by the service personnel may
provide the customer experience of being treated with respect and concern – even if no
additional service or attention would be given to that customer. Also for example,
Dimitriadis (2011) argues that when customers know the employee in question
personally, they often already consider that to be a high level of special treatment.
Secondly, (2) personal bonds also play a vital role with regards to personal employeecustomer relationships. Gremler et al. (2001) state that phrases such as “we clicked” or
“I connected with him/her” are signs of personal connection between two individuals.
Information communicated during initial encounters are used to assess the common
ground for the individuals – and two people with common ground (i.e. interests,
personality and attitudes) are more likely to “connect”, hence to form personal bonds.
Finally, Gremler et al. (2001) define (3) care to be the customer’s perception on
someone having a genuine concern of the well being of the customer. It is their
assumption, that interpersonal genuine interaction triggers caring in any relationship.
The perception of caring is likely to have a positive influence on mutual trust in the
relationship, which has been identified to be one of the most important elements of a
successful relationship.
Gremler et al. (2001) believe that the best way to develop interpersonal bonds and their
components is to design the relationship environment to enable both formal and
informal interaction opportunities between the employees and the customers. They
further argue, that employees should feel encouraged to take part in versatile
interactions with the customers. According to Gremler et al. (2001), a company with a
relationship-focused strategy should not only enable these opportunities, but create them
for their employees.
In conclusion, it appears that interaction creates value for customers in multiple ways
and therefore should play the fundamental role in a customer-centric communication
strategy. However, managing interaction is not easy even with the help of CRM systems
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