Smile or pity? Examine the impact of emoticon valence on customer satisfaction and purchase intention

Emoticons are pictorial/textual depictions of facial expressions used in marketing communications. Little is known about how customers interpret positive or negative emoticons by customer service employees failure contexts. We investigate the impact emoticon type on satisfaction and re-purchasing intention, examine sequential mediating role perceived sincerity willingness to forgive. Results show that use a response leads higher level intention than responses with emoticon. further demonstrate perceive presence more sincere generates forgiveness those emoticons, but only when communal relationship salient customer’s mind. Our findings offer important theoretical practical implications