The role of the customer contact person's age in service encounters

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether older customers prefer older customer-contact persons and whether younger customers prefer younger customer-contact persons in a variety of service settings with different search, experience, and credence qualities. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based on a statistical analysis of data from a survey of younger and older Finnish customers using a structured questionnaire. Findings - Older customers prefer older customer-contact persons to younger customer-contact persons in all the studied service settings. Younger customers prefer younger customer-contact persons to older customer-contact persons in all the studied service settings, with the exception of services high in credence qualities in which they preferred older customer-contact persons. Practical implications - Age is a relevant factor in service design. Service providers therefore need to: take age into account in service design: adapt their service offerings according to the age of the clientele; and consider having both younger and older customer-contact persons in their workforce. Originality/value - Research into the role of age in service encounters is scarce. This study contributes to the field of services marketing by investigating this issue. The study provides empirical support for the commonly accepted presumption that customer-contact persons closer in age to the customer are perceived by the customer as being better at adapting service.