Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Table 1 
Staff’s Affective Qualities 
Positive 
Negative 
t 
Sig 
Credible 
6.1087 
1.8641 
51.199 
.000 
Friendly 
6.1902 
1.9239 
48.807 
.000 
Competent 
6.1141 
1.9239 
45.187 
.000 
Empathic 
6.1304 
1.9293 
46.833 
.000 
Courteous 
6.0707 
1.9620 
44.674 
.000 
Trustworthy 
6.1902 
1.8207 
48.314 
.000 
Table 1 shows that an open body posture, accompanied with an appropriate eye contact would lead to 
favorable perceptions of the service personnel. The findings clearly indicate that staff displaying such a positive 
NVB is likely to be seen more credible, competent, courteous and trustworthy by the customer. In contrast, a 
negative NVB would result in negative perceptions of staff affective qualities. This is important for proper managing 
of service recovery encounters, as the outcome in such situations relies heavily on the development of positive 
perceptions of service providers. That is, appropriate NVB would imply the competency in providing services, 
which would influence likelihood of positive perception of a recovery effort. Our findings provide support for the 
contention that non-verbal of the employees will have a great impact on the success of a service recovery encounter. 
How staff is perceived during the recovery encounters will largely determine how customers would perceive the 
quality level of the transaction. Thus, the quality of service recovery rendered cannot be separated from the 
favorability of the NVC displayed by the service provider (George and Berry, 1981). The service provider’s 

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