An executive sum m ary for

m anagers and executive Antecedents to consumers’

readers can be found at the
end of this article disclosing intimacy with service
employees
HaÊvard Hansen
Doctoral candidate, Norwegian School of Management, Department of
Marketing, Sandvika, Norway

Keywords Disclosure, Customer relations, Services marketing, Consumer behaviour

Abstract The paper presents a model that suggests that four relationship variables
traditionally found to affect behavior beneficial to the firm also increase consumers’
disclosing intimacy. Employee benevolence, credibility, image, and consumers’
satisfaction with the relationship to the employee are all proposed to increase intimate
disclosures by the consumer. The model is tested in a sample of retail bank customers
using structural equation modeling. The findings support the important role of
benevolence and image, but do not confirm the hypothesized effects of credibility and
satisfaction. The results and managerial implications are discussed and limitations and
suggestions for future research presented.

Long-term relationships To be able to initiate and maintain long-term relationships with preferred
customers, acquiring information about these individuals is one of the main
tasks of any marketing department. The ever-improving ability to acquire
behavioral data with technologies like POS-systems, the Internet, and other
databases logging customer behavior, has drawn attention to the use of
marketing activities where knowing the customer is a prerequisite. For
example, the success of any CRM-program is based on the ability to
distinguish between customers based on, amongst others, individual needs,
wants and preferences. Owing to the impact of marketing activities that draw
on individual level customer data, detailed customer information is often
positioned as one of the keys to competitive advantage in today’s
marketplace (Deighton, 1996; Peppers and Rogers, 1993). Moreover, for
service firms who want to be market oriented, achieving this goal implies
collecting, disseminating, and responsiveness to customer information
(Kohli and Jaworski, 1990). Hence, being a market oriented firm brings forth
a need for good knowledge about the customer, and good information
intelligence strategies.
Unfortunately, the information gathered by computerized systems like POS
and the Internet does not give managers the full picture of their customers.
While an airline company might read from its database the number of flights
a given customer has flown on a given route, such behavioral data will give

The author greatly appreciates the helpful comments from KaÊre Sandvik,
Bendik M. Samuelsen, Leif E. Hem and Tor W. Andreassen. This research was
funded by a grant from ``The fund for the promotion of studies in banking and
financing services’’ at the Norwegian School of Management. The manuscript was
prepared while the author was an International Scholar at the Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven, Belgium.

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 no indications of future flight pattern changes that stem from job change,
change of holiday preferences, events in the customer’s family, or other
phenomena that the customer is aware of but the airline is not. Similarly, a
retail bank might learn from its CRM-system that a customer has a sound
credit profile, that she/he uses certain services more or less than others, and
the bank can also check the rate of ATM usage. However, whether the
customer is planning to buy a new house and thus is a prospect for a
mortgage cannot be inferred from information on past behavior only. These
brief examples accentuate the need to integrate behavioral data with
information on more covert facets like needs, wants, attitudes, norms and
preferences. In the personalization of services and in one-to-one marketing,
the better one knows each customer the higher the potential to improve
customer value and firm performance (Moon, 2000). Especially, in service
industries where the provider is expected to judge the needs and preferences
of each individual customer and adapt the delivered service according to this
(Lovelock, 1983), knowing the customer is unsurprisingly of severe
importance. The more personal kind of information can most successfully be
collected by direct face-to-face interaction between individuals, and some
kind of self-disclosure is often required from the customer if the firm wants
to be able to obtain more covert intimate information. In this paper we seek
to extend the existing knowledge on intimacy in B-t-C marketing
relationships, thereby adding to the understanding of the mechanisms
underlying information sharing by consumers.
Relationship m arketing In contemporary relationship marketing and services marketing literature,
different strategies directed at cultivating long-term loyalty from the
customers have been extensively researched, and variables regarded
important include (but are not limited to) benevolence (Selnes and
Grùnhaug, 2000) credibility (Ganesan, 1994), image (Andreassen and
Lindestad, 1998) and satisfaction (Fornell, 1992; Yi, 1990). However, while
variables like these have been shown to influence the customer’s motivation
to continue a relationship (Fornell, 1992; Richins, 1983), to talk favorably
about the supplier (Blodgett et al., 1993), and to expand the scope of the
relationship (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), no study has explored the extent to
which these variables increase the customers disclosing intimacy. If
customer information is of substantial importance to the firm, and increased
disclosing intimacy is one means to acquire more information, then studying
whether established predictors of other beneficial behaviors also influences
intimacy should be warranted. Hence, the purpose of our research is to
explore the effects benevolence, credibility, image and satisfaction has on
customers’ self-disclosure. The paper departs with a presentation of a set of
hypotheses linking the aforementioned variables to customers disclosing
intimacy. Based on empirical data from a retail-banking context, the
hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling. Finally, the results
are reported and their implications for theory and practice discussed.

Theoretical model
Privacy The concept of relationship intimacy has been defined in terms of revealing
personal information to the relationship partner that will not be revealed to
others (Simmel, 1964). The rule on which this concept is based is the rule of
privacy that both promotes and protects intimacy (McCall, 1970). According
to social psychologists, the level of relationship intimacy will be determined
by the degree to which the partner possesses information that is not intended
for parties outside the relationship (Simmel, 1964; McCall, 1970; Gupta,
1983). This implies that for information sharing to be labeled intimate, there

5 74 JO U R N A L O F S E R V IC E S M A R K E T IN G , V O L . 17 N O . 6 20 03
 should be some level of risk associated with an unintended exposure.
Drawing on these descriptions, we conceive of disclosing intimacy as
sharing information with your business partner that you would normally not
share with a merchant. Examples of intimacy according to this definition
would be a customer who tells his hairdresser that the family is expecting a
baby, or a customer who tells the travel agency employee she/he is getting
married next June.
Current knowledge Previous marketing research has extended the current knowledge on such
disclosing intimacy from a number of perspectives. According to Moon
(2000), these streams of research have focused on issues like social
desirability biases, the effect of interviewer variability on disclosure, and
mode of data administration in disclosing contexts. Moreover, Moon’s
(2000) own study brought the attention to how computers can be used to
elicit self-disclosure from consumers. However, no study has yet integrated
the concept of disclosing intimacy and the most central variables scrutinized
within the field of buyer-seller relationship maintenance.
In a buyer-seller relationship, the level of intimacy will change as the
relationship moves through different relationship phases (Wilson, 1995).
First, at least some minimum level of information sharing is necessary for the
relationship to be initiated. However, the information shared in this phase is
more generic and less personally unique than what is revealed in later stages.
It is therefore uncertain whether this information can be classified as
intimate. For example, when a first-time customer tells the hotel clerk that
she/he wants a non-smoking room, this is not a very intimate confession.
Second, we find reason to believe that more intimate disclosure is
determined in part by early stage characteristics within the relationship.
Em ployee benevolence We will argue that the more employee benevolence experienced by the
customer, the more likely it is she/he will reveal personal information.
Within relationships in general, behavior is greatly guided by the norm of
reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960). This norm describes how a benefit from one
party encourages compensation from the receiver. Previous disclosure
research (Moon, 2000) has found reciprocity to motivate the consumer to
reveal personal information. While such responses usually result from the
partner’s disclosure (called disclosure reciprocity), we will argue that
reciprocity is a mechanism that works in different ways within the
relationship. According to Mittal and Lassar (1996, p. 105):
Personalization ± the positive social content in service encounters ± is the reason
why customers seek familiar, likable, friendly service providers and retail clerks.
Personal com mitm ent We believe this results, in part, from benevolent employees implicitly
signaling a caring attitude and a personal commitment to the best of the
customer. In other words, employees who signal an ability to make sacrifices
or go out on a limb for the customer will be perceived as very benevolent. In
such instances we argue that the norm of reciprocity will guide the consumer
to reciprocate the perceived benevolence by seeking repeated interactions
and disclose information to the employee if this seems natural. Selnes and
Grùnhaug (2000) found that experienced benevolence from a supplier
representative creates positive affect and thus a liking of the other party. We
will argue that consumers who find a service employee to be friendly and
benevolent are likely not only to seek repeated interactions with this
individual, but also to share personal information with him/her.
A service employee’s credibility is the extent to which the employee is able
to perform the service delivery effectively and reliably (Ganesan, 1994). In

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 practical terms, this refers to the quality of the service delivered, both in
terms of objective and subjective evaluations of employee performance in
relation to his or her efforts. When a customer perceives the employee to be
both helpful and benevolent, and also able to provide the service she/he has
promised, this will increase the customer’s liking of, and respect for, the
employee. In a previous study, Gwinner et al. (1998) found that the
utilitarian value of a personal relationship was closely connected to positive
experiences with the competence of the employee. Hence, as the customer
experiences the employee repeatedly providing services according to what
has been promised, the level of risk will be gradually reduced relative to the
time of relationship initiation (Bauer, 1960). As the customer relaxes more,
as she/he gets to know the employee better, the resistance towards exposing
personal information is probably also significantly decreased. Thus, it should
be easier for the employee to elicit information from the customer, while
she/he on the other hand should be more inclined to increase the level of
intimacy in the relationship.
Intim ate exchanges The role played by the image of the employee is also likely to be of
importance when customers choose to participate in intimate exchanges.
Image is defined as the overall perception of employee quality outside the
relationship between the individuals. Hence, image is frequently used as an
external source of validation of one’s own perceptions (Zeithaml, 1988). If a
firm’s employees have an image of being honest, trustworthy and
professional, this should be a further endorsement to relax the constraints on
information sharing. Following the descriptions of Rusbult and Buunk
(1993), disclosing intimacy could be viewed as a relationship investment
because the consumer places an asset with the partner, but also because this
asset will be of no value to the parties if the relationship is terminated. As for
most other investments, placing an asset like personal information is more
likely to take place if the investment object has a positive image.
Finally, we will argue that the more satisfied the customer is with his/her
relationship to the service employee, the more likely she/he is to share
personal information. Again we base our arguments on the positive effects of
being in a relationship with someone who is liked (Selnes and Grùnhaug,
2000). Notice that we focus on satisfaction with the relationship to the
employee. While a large amount of previous satisfaction research has
focused on the satisfaction with the outcome of the relationship (i.e. the
quality of the service), we concentrate on how satisfied the customer is with
the relationship per se. This distinction is based on two arguments: one, we
believe that the concept of outcome satisfaction to a large extent is covered
by the credibility variable previously described. Second, as service
encounters are intrinsically social by nature (McCallum and Harrison, 1985)
we will argue that an important aspect often neglected in service research is
the customer’s satisfaction with the relationship shared with the employee.
Thus, we focus on the relationship itself, and not its outcome.
Pro-relationship behavior The notion of satisfaction has in former research been found to be a key
determinant of pro-relationship behavior (Bitner, 1990; Fornell, 1992). Being
satisfied with a relationship implies that it is associated with feelings of
pleasure and liking. These are emotionally derived phenomena that put the
consumer in a mental state more favorable towards the relationship shared
with the employee. When a consumer feels that she/he really enjoys (as
opposed to dislikes) the interaction with the service employee, the propensity
to reveal more intimate information increases as uncertainty diminishes. The
impact of satisfaction on behavior beneficial to the firm is documented in a

5 76 JO U R N A L O F S E R V IC E S M A R K E T IN G , V O L . 17 N O . 6 20 03
 vast amount of previous research (Oliver, 1980; Rusbult, 1980; Yi, 1990;
Ping, 1993; Bloemer and Kasper, 1995; Oliver, 1997), and we believe
satisfaction will also have a positive effect on disclosing intimacy.
Hypotheses The arguments presented in the previous paragraphs can be encapsulated into
the following hypotheses:
H1. The employee’s benevolence has a positive effect on customer
disclosing intimacy.
H2. The employee’s credibility has a positive effect on customer disclosing
intimacy.
H3. The employee’s image has a positive effect on customer disclosing
intimacy.
H4. The customer’s satisfaction with the relationship to the employee has a
positive effect on disclosing intimacy.
In addition to the predictor variables presented in the hypotheses, there are
reasons to include the customer’s level of product category knowledge as a
covariate. In this research we conceive of knowledge as the customer’s own
perception of how knowledgeable she/he is within a given product category,
both related to the product itself and compared with an expert in the field
(Park et al., 1994).
Level of knowledge The level of knowledge might have different effects on intimacy, based on
different lines of reasoning. First, one might expect knowledge to have a
negative effect in that the consumer develops an understanding of what
information is sufficient for the service provider to offer the service. In such
instances high knowledge consumers might limit the level of information
disclosure to what they find relevant, and better knowledge enables the
consumer to fine-tune this screening process. Similarly, customers with low
levels of knowledge might not be able to perform this screening process
equivalently, and thus reveal more than what is essential or whatever the
employee asks for. Second, knowledge can also have a positive effect. One
might argue that increased levels of knowledge make the customer realize
that the service employee uses the information to provide higher service
quality (Zeithaml, 1981). Low-knowledge consumers without this awareness
might not grasp the firm’s need and wish for information in a similar manner.
In a scenario like this, high-knowledge consumers should be more confident
with self-disclosure and thus increase revelation while less knowledgeable
consumers should constrain their disclosing intimacy with the service
employee.

Methodology
The data used to test the hypotheses were collected in a telephone survey of
retail banking customers. The sampling frame was a European bank’s
database of consumer customers. Before sampling took place, some
restrictions were put on the sampling frame. First, all persons below the age
of 18 were excluded, along with all bank accounts belonging to charity
organizations, sports teams, and the like. Second, bank accounts without any
transactions the previous three months were deleted. Since customers
sometimes shift to alternative banks without closing their current accounts,
some will always be registered as customers although they are not actively
so. Finally, the account numbers were checked against the social security
numbers of all the customers. This was done to make sure that customers

JO U R N A L O F S E R V IC E S M A R K E T IN G , V O L . 17 N O . 6 20 03 5 77
 with multiple accounts were listed only once in the sampling frame. A
sample of 2000 customers was drawn from the remaining accounts.
Telephone interviews A professional marketing research firm performed the telephone interviews,
and the final sample consisted of 461 respondents, which corresponds to a
23.1 per cent response rate. The final sample was compared with the
population on demographics such as age, sex, and geographic location. No
substantial differences were found between the sample and the population,
suggesting that non-response bias is unproblematic.
All variables were measured with multi-item scales and, except for
knowledge, they were all were measured with seven-point Likert-type scales,
indicating level of agreement. Knowledge was measured with seven-point
scales anchored ``to a large degree’’ and ``to a small degree’’. The scales
were assessed by bank executives, front-line personnel and customers to
secure face validity. Items found difficult to understand, or in other ways
perceived as problematic, were semantically altered. The revised scales were
subjected to further review by several independent marketing scholars.
Finally, a pretest was conducted on a sample of 50 customers not part of the
final sample. This pretest did not result in any changes of the measurement
scales.

Results
The data was analyzed by use of structural equation modeling (Lisrel 8.30),
since this approach allows the simultaneous investigation of the measures
and the hypothesized model.

Measurement model
Guidelines The initial measurement model was evaluated using the guidelines provided
by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). To meet the requirements of
unidimentional measures, some items were deleted from the analysis.
Among these was one of the two image items, leaving a single-item scale for
this construct. As the paths for single-item scales are fixed in structural
equation models, we fixed the error term to 0.19 to impose measurement
error on the scale and thus enforce a stronger test. After the removal of items,
the measurement model had a good fit (see Appendix for the list of
measures). The final measurement model had a À2 value of 105.22 with 51
degrees of freedom, and a p-value of 0.00. The other fit indices were
RMSEA of 0.047, a CFI of 0.97, and NNFI of 0.96, which meet the
requirements for a well fitting model (Browne and Cudeck, 1993; Hu and
Bentler, 1999).
Standardized coefficients Reliability information is presented in Table I using standardized
coefficients. The composite reliability is satisfactory for all constructs, while
average variance extracted is considered fairly good for all constructs, except
for intimacy (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). However, lack of high reliability is to a
great extent accounted for when using structural equation modeling
(JoÈreskog and SoÈrbom, 1982), and all items are thus included in the model to
maintain the domain of the constructs. The correlation matrix for the
constructs is presented in Table II. According to Anderson and Gerbing
(1988), discriminant validity can be claimed if no single pair of variables is
perfectly correlated within the range of random error. While the correlations
between some of the variables are in excess of what is preferred, all of them
possess the obliged distance to j1j when adjusted for ‹ 2 standard deviations.

5 78 JO U R N A L O F S E R V IC E S M A R K E T IN G , V O L . 17 N O . 6 20 03
 Average
Factor T- T- Item variance Composite
Item loadinga value Error terma value reliability extracted reliability
Benevolence 0.53 0.67
Ben 1 ¶1;1 0.52 10.93 ³1;1 0.73 13.90 0.27
Ben 3 ¶2;1 0.89 17.98 ³2;2 0.21 3.29 0.79
Credibility 0.58 0.80
Cre 1 ¶3;2 0.80 19.66 ³3;3 0.36 11.07 0.64
Cre 3 ¶4;2 0.74 17.55 ³4;4 0.45 12.51 0.55
Cre 4 ¶5;2 0.75 17.99 ³5;5 0.43 12.27 0.57
Image ± ±
Ima 1 ¶6;3 0.90b ± ³6;6 0.19b ± ±
Satisfaction 0.52 0.60
Sat 2 ¶7;4 0.60 12.42 ³7;7 0.64 12.64 0.36
Sat 3 ¶8;4 0.83 16.75 ³8;8 0.31 5.30 0.69
Intimacy 0.44 0.54
Int 1 ¶9;5 0.72 14.44 ³9;9 0.49 9.28 0.51
Int 2 ¶10;5 0.76 15.21 ³10;10 0.43 7.99 0.57
Int 3 ¶11;5 0.48 9.53 ³11;11 0.77 13.63 0.23
Knowledge 0.54 0.69
Kno 1 ¶12;6 0.85 7.46 ³12;12 0.28 1.50 0.72
Kno 3 ¶13;6 0.57 6.81 ³13;13 0.67 7.13 0.33
Notes: a = standardized coefficients; b = fixed parameter

Table I. Reliability information for the measurement model

Benevolence Credibility Image Satisfaction Knowledge

a b
Credibility 0.79 (0.04)
Image 0.49 (0.04) 0.72 (0.03)
Satisfaction 0.64 (0.05) 0.73 (0.04) 0.59 (0.04)
Knowledge 0.22 (0.06) 0.23 (0.06) 0.10 (0.05) 0.24 (0.06)
Intimacy 0.56 (0.05) 0.45 (0.05) 0.39 (0.05) 0.42 (0.06) 0.23 (0.06)
a b
Notes: = correlation coefficient; = standard error

Table II. Correlations among latent variables

Test of the structural model

The hypothesized model had a satisfactory ability to explain the observed
variance covariance matrix. The À2 for 51 degrees of freedom was 105.22
(p = 0.000), the RMSEA was 0.047, the NNFI was 0.96, and the CFI was
0.97. All of the fit indices are above the cut-offs for good fit (Hu and Bentler,
1999).
Disclosing intim acy In accordance with our expectations, benevolence had a positive effect on
disclosing intimacy (0.60, p < 0.01), thus supporting H1. Credibility was not
found to have a significant effect on intimacy, and H2 was not supported.
Image had a significant and positive effect on intimacy (0.36, p < 0.01)
supporting H3. However, the effect of satisfaction to the relationship gained
no support from the data, and H4 was thus not supported. Finally, the control
variable (knowledge) was found to be significantly and positively related to
disclosing intimacy (0.14, p < 0.05).
The explanatory power of the model is satisfactorily, with squared multiple
correlations of 0.37 (Table III).

JO U R N A L O F S E R V IC E S M A R K E T IN G , V O L . 17 N O . 6 20 03 5 79
 Hypothesis Path Estimatea
H1 Benevolence ! Intimacy 0.60**
H2 Credibility ! Intimacy NS
H3 Image ! Intimacy 0.36**
H4 Relationship satisfaction ! Intimacy NS
Covariate
Knowledge ! Intimacy 0.14*
Squared multiple correlations
Intimacy 0.37
a
Notes: = standardized coefficients; * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; n = 461;
À2 (51) = 105.22 (p = 0.00); RMSEA = 0.047; NNFI = 0.96; CFI = 0.97

Table III. Structural equation model results

Discussion and implications

M ethodological lim itations
Standard operating
procedures
The model tested four hypotheses that related benevolence, credibility,
image and satisfaction to customers’ disclosing intimacy with service
employees. The results are mixed in terms of support for the model. While
the fit indices for both the measurement model and structure model are
satisfactory, only two of the four hypotheses are supported. In addition, the
discriminant validity of the measurement model could preferably have been
better.
Given the inherent methodological limitations related to the latter issue, the
results should be interpreted with some caution. However, the positive effect
of benevolence on disclosing intimacy extends previous research. Selnes and
Grùnhaug (2000) found benevolence to be an important antecedent to
pro-relationship behavior, and the results of this study are in line with these
previous findings. If service firms are to increase the level of information
sharing among its customers, the results indicate that benevolent employees
is a major asset. Not only do they influence the consumers’ affect and liking
(Selnes and Grùnhaug, 2000), but they also inspire them to reveal
information that in turn may help the firm reach for higher service excellence
(Zeithaml, 1981). Furthermore, benevolence is often brought to fruition
when the standard service delivery is not fitting the needs or wants of the
customer, or when there is a service failure. Being able to adapt to the
different needs and wants depends on the firm’s level of market orientation,
and its ability to adapt to different customers’ preferences. Our results
suggest that benevolent employees may accelerate the information gathering
part of a market orientation process, and the strong impact of benevolence
relative to the other variables tested in our model further suggests that this is
a key concept is any service relationship.
What, then, could a service firm do to stimulate benevolence? First, we
believe firms should empower front-line personnel and thereby enable them
to make the decisions necessary to meet customer demands or rectify service
failures. Today, standard operating procedures often constrain employees
from taking on actions that might both increase service quality and customer
perception of employee benevolence. We believe firms are likely to benefit
significantly from giving front-line personnel more freedom in the execution
of service delivery, and following a strategy like this firms are likely to see
that customers and employees interact more closely, work out the service
delivery to the interests of both parties, and share information on a number of
facets that would otherwise not be disclosed.
Second, we suggest firms should signal their benevolent intentions more
explicitly. While customers may experience benevolent behaviors from

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 service employees in a variety of ways, there are naturally also lots of ways
in which firms may signal benevolence. For example, the car rental firm
AVIS’ slogan ``we try harder’’ is an example of how to signal benevolence to
the firm’s customers. AVIS explicitly states that they will try harder than
their competitors to meet customer needs and wants, that they care for each
customer as an individual, and that they will do what is necessary to meet
customer demands (see www.avis.com). If employees who actually go out on
a limb for their customers accompany statements and goals like these, the
perception of benevolence is likely to be high. And so, we believe, will the
level of disclosing intimacy.
Non-significant estim ates We are surprised by the non-significant estimates regarding H2, which
proposed a positive effect of credibility on intimacy. Some intuitive
explanations for this are justifiable, but also face the risk of being
speculative. Consumers who experience the service employee as highly
credible might not find a reason to reveal any information. If the utilitarian
value of the relationship is judged to be satisfactory, and the consumer likes
the ways things are being handled, she/he may not even consider extending
the boundaries of the relationship. Hence, consumers might reveal
information about themselves if they think this is necessary to improve the
service performance, but otherwise not.
The non-significant effect of credibility in this particular research does not,
however, imply that credibility is not important. Existing literature (Gwinner
et al., 1998) suggest that aspects like credibility will be of importance when
consumers evaluate the value of their relationship to the service firm,
implying that the overall evaluation of the service received will depend on
the level of credibility associated with the front-line personnel. Hence, we
suggest that firms should strive for an increasing level of competency and
skills among its employees.
Im age on disclosure Our third hypothesis proposed a positive effect of image on disclosure. The
results support our arguments that consumers would rather share personal
information with someone whose appearance to others has also been judged
positively. We depicted image as a means for external verification of the
impression of the employee, and that such a validation would influence the
openness of the consumer. Again we emphasize the importance of having
employees who are able to impose a positive emotional feeling among
customers, so that positive word-of-mouth contributes to a supplementary
effect on disclosure beyond the effects traditionally expected, e.g. customer
loyalty.
We believe several actions can be taken by firms that whish to increase
customers’ information sharing by means of the firms’ image. First, any
service firm that is aiming for higher levels of intimacy should emphasize the
importance of constraining its employees from any actions that consumers
might find unfair or unethical. Recalling our definition of intimacy, sharing
information with a service employee includes some level of risk. Evaluating
the image of the employee might be seen as a risk reduction strategy, and
reduction of the perceived risk may cultivate intimacy. Related to this,
negative PR or word-of-mouth might not only damage the brand name of the
service firm, but also negatively influence customers’ wish to disclose
information that might be important to the firm. On the contrary, firms
should educate their employees on the benefits of a positive image among
customers, aim for positive relationships between front-line personnel and
customers, and by so doing enable the employees to build themselves a
positive image in the eyes of the customers.

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 Second, endorsing testimonials from ``normal’’ customers could be a viable
strategy to increase intimacy by directing attention to a firm’s image. This
would be an application of the social validation principle, since other
customers of the firm are used to promote information sharing by exposing
their own experiences. For example, in ads a selected customer can explain
how much better the service delivery got when she/he finally sat down and
talked openly to the employee, and how much she/he trusts this firm and its
employees not to violate the rule of privacy that the two parties now share.
Applying the social validation principle is commonly found to be an
effective persuasion technique, and we believe it is also applicable to
increase disclosure.
Relationship satisfaction The level of intimacy found in interpersonal relationships in general might
explain the missing effect of relationship satisfaction. When distinguishing
different kinds of relationships, the trichotomy of family, friends and
acquaintances are often used. This distinction implicitly indicates the level of
intimacy inherent in the relationship. While we might be really satisfied with
the relationship with an acquaintance, this does not necessarily imply that
personal information is shared on a level equal to disclosure in a closer
relationship, e.g. with a friend. Hence, as business relationships are usually
even more impersonal than the ones shared with acquaintances and friends,
satisfaction with the relationship might be a hygiene factor that ensures
maintenance, but not a motivation factor that motivates an extension of its
boundaries (Herzberg et al., 1959; Grigaliunas and Hertzberg, 1971). Given
this explanation, the customers have to be satisfied with the relationship to
the employees to disclose information at all. However, our findings suggest
that the actual level of disclosure is contingent on other factors. Satisfaction
in itself is of importance for other beneficial behaviors like intentions to stay
and positive word-of-mouth, and should thus not be underestimated although
the direct effect on disclosure is non-significant.
To acquire higher levels of relationship satisfaction service firms are advised
to ensure that front-line personnel are given the power and resources to meet
the demands of the customers. In situations where employees repeatedly
have to check with their superior whether customer requests can be met,
customers are likely to question the existence and role of the employee.
Moreover, they might question why they are being served by someone who
is missing the means necessary to deliver the service. This will make the
customer dissatisfied with the relationship to the employee, as the utilitarian
value of the relationship might be perceived as too low. If relationship
satisfaction operates as a hygiene factor, low satisfaction might constrain
intimate disclosures from taking place at all.
Consum ers’ know ledge The consumers’ knowledge was included in the model as a covariate. The
effect was significant and positive, supporting the arguments that
knowledgeable consumers might reveal information more freely because
they recognize the importance of disclosure for received service quality
(Zeithaml, 1981). Drawing on this finding, service firms are advised to
educate their customers by spending more time explaining the basics of the
service products offered each service encounter. By increasing the level of
product specific knowledge among customers, the firm will presumably find
that a number of customers become more involved in the service delivery,
and as a result of this also disclose more information about themselves.

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 Limitations and future research
The research conducted here encompasses several limitations that must be
accounted for when interpreting the results. First, the reliability of some of
the measures could preferably have been better. Some of the items failed to
be included in the final measurement model, and the reliability test for others
could have been better. Although we believe the measures adequately
represent the constructs included in the model, the measures have to be
further purified to better tap each of the constructs and to better fit general
service relationships.
Discrim inant validity The discriminant validity of the variables was somewhat lower than we
would have preferred. While all variables satisfied the test-value in terms of
intercorrelations less than j1j when corrected for ‹ 2 standard deviations,
some of the correlations are undoubtedly high. Hence, future research
should, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, seek to further purify the
measures so that the unique domain of each construct is better extracted.
These measures should preferably be tested in multiple service industries to
assess their performance across contexts.
Also related to context, our model has been tested with respondents from one
industry only ± retail banking. In order to enhance external validity of the
findings future research should examine several different industries where
customers are likely to share other kinds of relationships with service
employees than the kind investigated here (see Lovelock, 1983).
Buyer-seller relationships Our model tests the direct effect on disclosure of four variables found
important to the wellbeing of buyer-seller relationships in general. However,
these variables are certain to be accompanied by other determinants not
included in the present study. Future research should identify other predictor
variables that can broaden the picture of antecedents to intimate disclosure
among consumers. By so doing, a better understanding of personal
information disclosure among consumers is likely to be accomplished.

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Appendix. List of measures

Benevolence
(1) The bank employee has made sacrifices for me in the past.
(2) The bank employee cares for me (*).
(3) In times of shortages, the bank employee has gone out on a limb for me.
(4) Should a problem occur in the future, I am quite sure the bank employee will do whatever
is necessary to help me (*).
(Items 1-3 are adapted from Ganesan (1994), item 4 is self-constructed.)

Credibility
(1) The bank employee is knowledgeable regarding what products will suit my needs.
(2) The bank employee is not always open in dealing with me (r) (*).
(3) The bank employee has no problems answering my questions.
(4) Should a problem occur in the future, I am quite sure the bank employee will be able to
solve it to the best of my interests.
(Items 1-3 are adapted from Ganesan (1994), item 4 is self-constructed.)

Image
To what extent do you think . . .
(1) The bank employee has a good reputation among the other customers in the bank?
(2) The bank employee’s image is considered positive compared to employees in other
banks (*)?
(Both items are adapted from Selnes (1993).)

Satisfaction
(1) The bank employee displays a sound understanding of my needs and interests in his/her
interactions with me (*).
(2) Interacting with the bank employee is always a nice experience for me.
(3) I always leave the bank employee thinking I did the right thing visiting him/her.
(Items 1 and 2 are adapted from Moorman et al. (1992), item 3 is adapted from Oliver (1980).)

Intimacy
(1) The bank employee knows more about me than most other people with whom I do
business.
(2) I feel I can talk freely to the bank employee on all matters.

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 (3) The bank employee knows things about me that I do not want others to know.
(4) When interacting with the bank employee it falls natural to address him/her by their first
name (*).
(5) I think the bank employee knows more about me than what is needed to handle my
relationship to the bank (*).
(Item 2 is adapted from Gupta (1983), the other items are self-constructed.)

Knowledge
(1) To what degree would you say that you have a good knowledge of financial service
products like savings, mortgages and finances?
(2) Compared to an expert, to what degree would you say that you have a good knowledge of
financial service products like savings, mortgages and finances (*)?
(3) Compared to an expert, to what degree would you say you have insights in economics and
are competent at taking care of your finances?
(All three items adapted from Park et al. (1994).)

Notes
(r) denotes reversed items.
(*) These items were deleted during the validation of the measurement model.
&

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 This summ ary has been Executive summary and implications for managers and
provided to allow managers executives
and executives a rapid
appreciation of the content The value of personal information
of this article. Those with a
The more information a company can acquire on an individual, the better
particular interest in the able it will be to serve his or her needs and so initiate and maintain a
topic covered m ay then read long-term relationship. This is especially the case in service industries where
the article in toto to take the provider is expected to judge the needs and preferences of each
advantage of the more individual customer and adapt the delivered service according to this.
comprehensive description Information gathered by computerized systems such as point-of-sale and the
of the research undertaken Internet does not, however, tend to give managers the full picture of their
and its results to get the full customers or potential customers. While an airline may read from its
benefit of the material database the number of flights a given customer has made on a given route,
present the information is unlikely to include future flight bookings that may stem
from, for example, a new job, change in holiday preferences or events in the
customer’s family.

A definition of ``intimate’’ information

Hansen examines factors that may cause the customer or potential customer
to disclose more of this type of ``intimate’’ information ± classed as
information a person would normally share with his or her business partner
but not with a merchant. Examples, according to this definition, are a
customer who tells his or her hairdresser that the family is expecting a baby,
or the customer who tells a travel agent of plans to get married next June.
Through a telephone survey of a European bank’s retail customers, the
author examines the effect of employee benevolence, credibility, image and
the customer’s satisfaction with the relationship he or she has with the
employee, on the likelihood that the customer will disclose this type of
intimate information.

Benevolence
Employees who signal an ability to make sacrifices or go out on a limb for
the customer will be perceived as very benevolent. The research confirms
that customers tend to reciprocate such perceived benevolence by seeking
repeated interactions and disclosing information to the employee if this
seems natural. Benevolent employees are therefore a key aspect of a
successful service relationship. Firms should empower their front-line
employees to meet customer demands or rectify service failures. And firms
should signal their benevolent intentions explicitly ± as car-rental firm Avis
does when it claims, ``We try harder’’.

Credibility
A service employee’s credibility is the extent to which he or she is able to
deliver the service effectively and reliably. Hansen expects to find that, as the
customer’s confidence in receiving an effective and reliable service from an
individual grows and they get to know each other better, the customer’s
resistance to exposing personal information to the employee will fall. The
research, however, does not back up this theory.

Image
Image is defined as the overall perception of employee quality outside the
relationship between the individuals. If a firm’s employees have an image of
being honest, trustworthy and professional, this should help to make it easier
for the customer to share intimate information. The research confirms this to

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 be so. Firms should therefore constrain their employees from any actions
that consumers may find unfair or unethical. Companies should educate their
employees on the benefits of a positive image among customers, aim for
positive relationships between front-line personnel and customers, and by
doing so, enable employees to build a positive image in the eyes of
customers. Moreover, using testimonials from ``normal’’ customers could be
a viable strategy to increase intimacy by directing people’s attention to the
firm’s image.

Satisfaction
Hansen expects to find that, the more satisfied the customer is with his or her
relationship with the service employee, the more likely the customer is to
share intimate information. Being satisfied with this kind of personal
relationship implies that it is associated with feelings of pleasure and liking.
A customer in this kind of mental state would seem to be more likely to reveal
more intimate information. But the research does not confirm this
hypothesis.

The customer’s knowledge of the product

The research reveals that customers who are knowledgeable about a given
product category are likely to reveal information more freely because they
recognize the importance of disclosure for the quality of service they receive.
Service firms should therefore spend time explaining to customers and
potential customers the basics of the service products offered.

(A preÂcis of the article ``Antecedents to consumers’ disclosing intimacy with

service employees’’. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)

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