Emotional Labor, Rapport, and Word of Mouth in Fitness Organizations

Abstract

The fitness service industry requires employees to interact with members, placing great importance on their emotional expression to manage service quality and the subsequent organizational outcomes. Emotional labor may be a significant psychologically related factor that plays a critical role in building pleasant interactions between a fitness organization’s employees and its members. Thus, grounded in the emotional contagion theory, this study examines the predictability of perceived emotional labor strategies on the development of a rapport between a fitness organization’s employees and its members, and the subsequent effect of this rapport on word of mouth regarding the fitness organization. A total of 353 fitness members in the United States participated in the modified versions of paper-and-pencil surveys pertaining to the proposed variables. The findings showed that perceived surface acting, or superficial interaction, is negatively related to rapport, whereas perceived deep acting, a more profound form of interaction, is positively related to rapport. Furthermore, rapport was positively associated with word of mouth. This result indicates the significance of emotional labor in the service delivery of fitness employees and developing a positive relationship with fitness members.

1. Introduction

Fitness employees who provide frontline services to members play a vital role in building competitive advantage in fitness organizations, as they have the potential to form pleasant relationships with members [1]. Indeed, the previous literature has reported that strong personal bonds between service employees and customers have significant implications for favorable organizational outcomes, such as customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions [2]. Such personal bonds seem more relevant in fitness contexts than in any other service context, as well as in tangible product contexts, because fitness employees generally work with repeat customers who have multi-month/year memberships, rather than with one-time visitors [3]. However, despite the potential importance of personal bonds in fitness services, scholars have neglected to identify the strategies that might improve such bonds between fitness employees and members.

According to a prior study, five factors strengthen personal bonds in the customer context: trust, familiarity, interest, intimacy, and rapport [4]. Among them, rapport, described as a pleasant relationship resulting from service employee-customer interaction [5], was found to improve mutual trust and the quality of interaction between service providers and members and to generate positive word of mouth (WOM) [2,4,6]. WOM may work as an important source of information in the field of fitness services because customers seldom notice differences in the quality of equipment and programs among fitness organizations. Additionally, fitness organizations seldom use traditional promotional tools, such as advertising and one-on-one personal selling, which further stresses the importance of positive WOM as a marketing strategy [3].

Despite the potential roles of rapport and WOM in the growth of fitness organizations, relatively little research has examined the antecedents of these two important customer outcomes. Thus, further study could allow us to understand how to enhance these outcomes, which in turn could help fitness organizations to sustain their businesses. Emotional labor, defined as an employee’s deliberate and purposeful efforts to express certain emotions, as required by their organization, during their interactions with customers [7] may play a critical role in this process, as the service quality is often influenced by the employee’s emotional displays during employee–customer interaction [8]. Although there has been much research on the role of emotional labor in individual outcomes, such as physical and psychological wellbeing in various occupations (e.g., [9,10]), scholars have neglected the role of emotional labor in key customer-focused outcomes. Further, no study has investigated the effect of employees’ emotional labor on customer outcomes in fitness service contexts.

Given this research gap, this study attempts to examine the relationships between the two types of perceived emotional labor strategies among fitness members—perceived rapport and WOM. More specifically, this study examines the relationship between (a) perceived emotional labor strategies and rapport, (b) perceived emotional labor strategies and WOM, (c) rapport and WOM, and the mediating role of (d) rapport alone in the emotional labor strategies–WOM relationship.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Emotional Labor as an Internal Regulation Process

Emotional labor is defined as an employee’s regulation of both felt emotions and experienced emotions in their efforts to comply with a company’s emotional display rules to achieve organizational goals [7]. This definition suggests that employees learn to regulate their internal emotions and emotional expressions due to the implicit or explicit display rules imposed by organizations. For example, flight attendants who display positive emotions toward annoying customers due to their training are said to be engaging in emotional labor.

Grandey and Gabriel [9] have identified two emotional labor strategies for managing employees’ emotions. The first is surface acting, referring to superficial interaction wherein one modifies one’s external expressions, such as a smile or a frown, without modifying one’s internal feelings as a way to abide by a certain display rule. Hochschild [7] proposed a second strategy of deep acting, in which one tries to change one’s feelings according to the display rules in a more profound interaction, meaning that the person attempts to practice the feeling that is appropriate for the moment. Thus, surface acting only manages observable expressions, like facial expressions, whereas deep acting is considered to be “acting in good faith” because of the attempt to change one’s internal emotional state to meet organizational expectations [10].

Previous studies have reported that different types of emotional labor strategies are significantly related to key individual outcomes in different ways. For example, ample evidence exists to demonstrate that surface acting is significantly associated with job burnout and job satisfaction among athletic coaches [11], physical education teachers [12], and fitness employees [13]. In conjunction with key customer outcomes, research has shown that deep acting is a source of favorable customer outcomes, such as customer satisfaction [14] and perceived customer orientation [15], whereas surface acting is not significantly associated with these outcomes. Based on the emotional contagion theory, research has shown that inauthentic displays can affect customers’ service experience and influence their opinions [15,16], including judgments concerning the expresser’s honesty, pleasantness, and likeability [16,17], as well as trust and cooperation [18].

2.2. Emotional Labor and Rapport

Rapport, which in French means “to lay a bridge”, refers to the feeling of mutual closeness in human relationships [19]. This term was first used by the Austrian physician Mesmer to describe empathy between therapists and patients during hypnotherapy. Today, it is widely used in a variety of settings, such as teacher–student relationships in education [20], employee–customer relationships in marketing [21], and interactions between psychotherapists and patients [22]. Looking closely at previous studies, Norfolk, Birdi, and Patterson [23] described rapport as the expression of positive emotions that customers generally feel while interacting with salespeople and conceptualized it as a comfortable relationship between two parties. A good rapport leads to a permissible atmosphere or relationship in which both parties speak openly and without any problems. In this way, rapport can be defined as the process of understanding each other’s viewpoints and creating an atmosphere of trust, based on sympathy and mutual understanding. Although various elements of rapport have been presented by scholars, Gremler and Gwinner [5] looked at it from a relationship-oriented point of view and divided it into two categories: pleasant relationships and personal ties.

Regarding the relationship between emotional labor strategies and rapport, Ford and Etienne [24] noted that courteous and sincere service is an important factor in forming rapport among service recipients. Surface acting is perceived as inauthentic by customers because it creates a discrepancy between what employees internally feel and what they display externally (i.e., emotional dissonance) [7]. Employees displaying surface acting are expected to suppress their inner feelings and fake their outward expressions, making customers believe they are inauthentic [16]. Conversely, as deep acting does not generate emotional dissonance, it will yield authentic emotional displays [25]. When employees perform deep-acting exchanges, they try to match their inner feelings with their outward expression by changing their perception of the situation, which in turn creates congruence between felt emotions and expressed emotions. This process develops a positive perception regarding deep acting among customers and increases their satisfaction with their interactions with an organization’s employees [9]. Thus, this study posits the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1.

Perceived surface acting is negatively related to rapport.

Hypothesis 2.

Perceived deep acting is positively related to rapport.

2.3. Rapport and WOM

WOM is a communication effect derived from the information regarding a product or service passed on from one person to another [26]. According to Westbrook [27], WOM is an experienced process wherein people deliver concerned messages to other individuals. Thus, it is highly likely that a messenger can change, simplify, exclude, and even beautify some content during the delivery process, while information derived by WOM can leave a strong impression on people’s minds and people can easily believe the content. Moreover, due to immediate feedback, WOM greatly influences service recovery, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, and product sales. Indeed, companies make great efforts to attract new customers to generate profits, and, as the previous literature has noted, one of the most effective ways to acquire new customers is the positive WOM effect on existing customers who have experienced the service [28,29]. Above all, customers believe that information from family members or friends around them is more reliable than corporate promotional materials [30,31]. Numerous scholars have empirically studied the effect of WOM as an outcome variable of customer satisfaction and found that it plays an important role in generating favorable organizational outcomes [32,33]. Furthermore, research has shown that respondents who were given positive oral communications about new products were twice as likely to purchase the product than respondents who received negative communications [34].

Regarding the relationship between rapport and WOM, the previous literature has noted that employee-customer rapport has significant implications for customers’ future behavioral intentions [6,35]. The rationale is that customers with high rapport may have positive expectations regarding a future service experience with an employee [16] and positive emotions about that organization [2,6]. Indeed, empirical evidence supports this notion, in that rapport between tour guides and tourists is positively associated with WOM [6], while Macintosh [2] found that customers with high rapport are more likely to spread positive information about the service. Accordingly, it is posited that:

Hypothesis 3.

Rapport is positively related to WOM.

2.4. Emotional Labor Strategies, Rapport, and WOM

Taken together, this study posits that the different types of emotional labor strategies employed by fitness employees have different implications for their rapport with fitness members, which in turn have positive associations with WOM. As fitness employees’ adoption of surface acting is more likely to increase the feeling of inauthenticity, fitness members will experience a low level of rapport with them. Conversely, because deep acting entails a high degree of sincerity, fitness members who encounter fitness employees’ deep-acting behavior will develop a good rapport with them. In turn, rapport with a high level of positive emotions will lead fitness members to engage in positive WOM about the particular fitness organization. Thus, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 4.

Rapport mediates the perceived surface acting–WOM relationship.

Hypothesis 5.

Rapport mediates the perceived deep acting–WOM relationship.

2.5. Development of Research Model

Building upon the above discussions, this study established an integrated research model based on both the existing literature and empirical research, to analyze the relationship between perceived emotional labor, rapport, and WOM among fitness members (see Figure 1). More specifically, rapport is hypothesized to be negatively related to perceived surface acting and positively related to deep acting. As a result of generating inauthentic emotional displays, surface acting may lead members to experience a low level of rapport, whereas deep acting may result in a high level of rapport because of its potential to generate authentic emotional expression. Additionally, as fitness members’ rapport can generate positive expectations and emotions, it is posited to be positively related to WOM.

3. Method

3.1. Procedures and Sample

Participants were recruited from local fitness centers through the convenience sampling method. Upon their acceptance, a paper-and-pencil questionnaire with a cover letter was distributed to the participants, explaining the purpose of the study and instructions about data collection. Informed consent was obtained from the participants, which assured confidentiality, and the participants were encouraged to answer the questions as honestly as possible. All procedures followed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards (protocol number: 064).

A total of 372 respondents initially participated in the survey but we removed 19 questionnaires from consideration because of missing values. Thus, 353 validated participants (response rate = 94.9%) were registered from five local fitness centers in the southeastern United States. Among them, 206 respondents were male respondents (58.4%), 144 were female respondents (40.8%), and 3 (0.8%) did not identify their gender. The participants were between 13 and 76 years of age, with the average age being 34.29 years, with a standard deviation of 12.61. The major ethnic groups in this study were Caucasian (65.2%) and African American (20.7%). Most of the participants were high school (37.7%) or college (53.1%) graduates, and some had a master’s degree or above (9.2%). A few participants were daily users of their fitness club (9.9%), while others visited four to six times per week (25.8%), or two to three times per week (32.5%), and some were weekly users (11.3%), with an average of 36.18 months as registered members of the fitness organizations (

Table 1. General characteristics of the respondents.

Demographic Variables	Frequency (n)	Percentage (%)
Gender
Male	206	58.4
Female	144	40.8
Missing values	3	0.8
Ethnicity
American Indian	4	1.1
African American	73	20.7
Asian and Pacific Islander	6	1.7
Caucasian	230	65.2
Hispanic	27	7.6
Multiple ethnicities	13	3.7
Education
Graduated from high school	133	37.7
Graduated from college	187	53.1
Master’s degree	33	9.2
Visit frequency in a week
Daily	35	9.9
Four to six times	91	25.8
Two to three times	115	32.5
Weekly	40	11.3
Missing values	72	20.5

).

3.2. Instrument

3.2.1. Perceived Surface Acting and Deep Acting

We used two three-item measures from Groth et al. [15], originally developed by Brotheridge and Lee [36], to measure the perceptions of surface and deep acting of fitness employees. The items were modified to fit this study’s context as they involved customers’ interactions with fitness employees. The six items measured surface acting (e.g., “Employees showed feelings to me that are different from what s/he actually felt”) and deep acting (e.g., “Employees worked hard to feel the emotions that s/he needed to show to me”) on a response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Groth et al. [15] showed composite reliability scores of 0.90 and 0.92 for surface acting and deep acting, respectively.

3.2.2. Rapport

Gremler and Gwinner [5] developed a six-item measure with two dimensions—personal connection and enjoyable interaction—for measuring rapport between customers and employees and demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. For the present study, we adapted only three items from the category of enjoyable interaction from the customers’ perspective (e.g., “Employees create a feeling of warmth in our relationship”) and used a response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Arnold and colleagues [37] showed an average variance-extracted (AVE) score of 0.67, while Hwang and Lee [6] showed a composite reliability score of 0.93 and an AVE score of 0.70.

3.2.3. WOM

Three items that were cited from Hennig-Thurau et al. [38] and Hwang and Lee [6] were modified to fit the context of this study and were used to measure the WOM of the fitness-club customers. The respondents were asked to indicate the degree to which they tried to provide their opinions about their fitness club, on a response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A sample item is “I would like to recommend this facility to my friends.” Hwang and Lee [6] reported adequate statistical fitness for a three-item structural model with higher factor loadings (above 0.90), a composite reliability score of 0.95, and an AVE score of 0.88.

4. Data Analysis

A two-step data analysis was performed. In the first step, descriptive statistics, including checking normality and bivariate correlations between the latent variables (i.e., deep acting, surface acting, rapport, and WOM), were calculated to test key assumptions about the data. The proposed model was examined via structural equation modeling (SEM) in the second step. As Anderson and Gerbing [39] suggested, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was first conducted to explore the validity and reliability of the measurement model by examining factor loadings, composite reliability, and AVE scores. Teo et al. [40] suggested factor loadings of 0.40, composite reliability of 0.70, and an AVE score of 0.50 as the cutoff point for adequate psychometric properties. Next, the hypothetical paths for three alternative models, namely, the direct-effects model (Model A), the fully mediated model (Model B, as shown in Figure 1), and the partially mediated model (Model C), were specified based on the measurement model, using Mplus (Version 4.21, Los Angeles, CA, USA). To estimate the parameters and test the model fit, the covariance matrix and the maximum likelihood estimation method were used, and the x² difference test was performed to compare Models A, B, and C. Regarding the mediation effects, a bias-corrected bootstrapping method is recommended to establish confidence intervals for the mediation effect [41,42]. Despite chi-square values of less than 3.0, representing an acceptable fit [43], other fitness indices, such as the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), comparative fit index (CFI), and Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), which is also known as the non-normed fit index (NNFI), were used to evaluate the model fit. Hu and Bentler [44] suggested that the CFI and TLI values should be higher than 0.90 and the RMSEA should be lower than 0.08 to create an acceptable structural model.

5. Results

5.1. Preliminary Analyses

Skewness and kurtosis were checked and confirmed for the normality assumption of the 12 items (

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and correlation between the focal factors.

	1	2	3	4	Mean	SD	Skewness	Kurtosis	Cronbach Alpha
SA					3.22	1.57	0.66	−0.42	0.89
DA	−0.24 **				4.72	1.35	−0.56	−0.23	0.85
RP	−0.13 **	0.56 **			5.23	1.32	−0.96	0.68	0.88
WOM	−0.24 **	0.43 **	0.80 **		5.50	1.27	−1.02	0.82	0.93

Note: SA = surface acting. DA = deep acting. RP = rapport. WOM = word of mouth. Statistical significance at 0.01 is marked **.

). The skewness ranged from −1.02 to 0.66, and −0.42 and 0.82 were the minimum and maximum values of kurtosis, respectively, which satisfied the criteria set (i.e., less than an absolute value of 2 as skewness and of 7 as kurtosis) for a normal distribution [45]. Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics and the correlation coefficients of the latent variables. The internal consistency of the items on the latent variables (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha) was higher than the acceptable level (0.70). Regarding the relationships among the variables, surface acting showed negative relationships with deep acting (r(352) = −0.24, p < 0.001) and WOM (r(352) = −0.24, p < 0.001), while deep acting showed positive associations with rapport (r(352) = 0.56, p < 0.001) and WOM (r(352) = 0.43, p < 0.001). The strength of the relationship between rapport and WOM was highest, r(352) = 0.80, p < 0.001.

5.2. Measurement Model

CFA was performed to confirm the measurement model of surface and deep acting, rapport, and WOM as latent variables. With a total of 12 observations for the first measurement, each of the three observed measures was specified for each latent variable, and the results indicated a good model fit: χ² = 104.309 (df = 47, p < 0.001), CFI = 0.98, TLI = 0.97, RMSEA = 0.06, SRMR = 0.04. As shown in

Table 3. Results from the measurement model.

Factors	Standardized Estimate	SE	Estimate/SE	CR	AVE
Perceived Surface Acting				0.89	0.73
The employee just pretended to have the emotions s/he displayed to me.	0.88	0.07	100.13 ***
The employee put on a “mask” in order to display the emotions his/her boss wants him/her to display	0.89	0.07	100.85 ***
The employee showed feelings to me that are different from what s/he actually felt.	0.80	0.07	110.82 ***
Perceived Deep Acting				0.85	0.66
The employee tried to actually experience the emotions s/he had to show to me.	0.75	0.06	110.85 ***
The employee worked hard to feel the emotions that s/he needed to show to me.	0.83	0.05	140.17 ***
The employee made a strong effort to actually feel the emotions that s/he needed to display toward me.	0.84	0.04	190.19 ***
Rapport				0.88	0.71
The employees create a feeling of “warmth” in our relationship.	0.83	0.03	320.04 ***
The employees relate well to me.	0.86	0.02	390.35 ***
I have a harmonious relationship with the employees.	0.85	0.03	270.85 ***
Word of Mouth				0.91	0.78
I am likely to spread positive word of mouth about this fitness center.	0.89	0.02	470.35 ***
I would recommend this fitness center to my friends.	0.90	0.01	940.08 ***
If my friends were looking for a fitness center, I would tell them to try this facility.	0.86	0.01	720.22 ***

Note: SE = standard error. CR = composite reliability. AVE = average variance extracted. Statistical significance at 0.001 is marked ***.

, all standardized loadings were higher than 0.70, and composite reliability and AVE satisfied the cutoff point for a psychometrically sound measurement model.

5.3. Structural Equation Modeling and Mediation Test

In the Model A specification, WOM was only directly regressed on surface acting, deep acting, and rapport. For the full mediation of rapport, as shown in the hypothesis, WOM was regressed only in terms of rapport, which in turn was regressed on surface acting and deep acting (Model B). In Model C, the direct paths from surface acting and deep acting to WOM were set to examine the partial mediation effect of rapport on the relationship between surface acting and deep acting and WOM. As

Table 4. Fit statistics of the estimated structural models.

Model	χ2	df	χ2/df	CFI	TLI	RMSEA	∆χ2/df	∆CFI	∆TLI	∆RMSEA
A	183.78	47	3.91	0.907	0.869	0.139
B	108.67	47	2.31	0.958	0.941	0.094	10.6	0.051	0.072	0.045
C-1	94.61	45	2.10	0.966	0.950	0.086	00.21	0.008	0.009	0.008
C-2	78.49	43	1.82	0.976	0.963	0.074	00.28	0.010	0.013	0.012

Note. A = the direct model, B = the fully mediated model, and C = the partially mediated model.

shows, the most parsimonious model was the partial mediation model. However, the RMSEA value was 0.086, which was not a cutoff point, as suggested by Hu and Bentler [44]. One covariance between latent variables (i.e., surface acting–deep acting) and one covariance between error variances (i.e., items 4–7) was set based on the model modification indices for model improvement. As a result, the RMSEA value dropped to 0.074.

In the final mediation model (Figure 2), all direct paths except the prediction from deep acting to WOM were significant. These results warrant the acceptance of hypotheses 1–3. Deep acting showed a higher predictive strength. Surface acting negatively predicted rapport (−0.22) and WOM (−0.22), while 0.82 and 0.81 were the coefficients for the prediction from deep acting to rapport and WOM, respectively. In addition, we found a significant correlation between deep acting and surface acting (0.23). Apart from the direct paths, the mediating effects of rapport were significant for hypotheses 4 and 5. The mediating effect of rapport in the relationship between surface acting and WOM was −0.17, and that between deep acting and WOM was 0.66.

6. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived emotional labor strategies, rapport, and WOM among fitness members in the United States. All the hypotheses were supported; perceived rapport was negatively associated with perceived surface acting and positively associated with deep acting. Furthermore, rapport was positively associated with WOM. Mediation analyses also supported the hypothesis that surface acting and deep acting are significantly associated with WOM through the mediating effect of rapport. The results of this study have significant implications for both scholars and practitioners.

First, the findings suggest that different emotional labor strategies as perceived by fitness members generate different customer outcomes in various ways. More specifically, fitness members’ rapport is negatively related to perceived surface acting and is positively related to perceived deep acting. That is, when fitness members perceive that fitness employees suppress their internal feelings and fake their outward emotional expressions, they are less likely to have positive feelings toward their relationships with those employees. Conversely, fitness employees’ authentic displays, derived from their adoption of deep acting, may lead clients to develop a stronger rapport. This is in line with the previous literature, which reported a positive association between employees’ adoption of deep acting and positive service outcomes, such as customer satisfaction, perceived customer orientation, and service quality [14,15]. Because emotional labor can impact the authenticity of the resulting emotional display [15], employees’ emotional labor may result in interpersonal processes that affect service judgments. This is the first study in the fitness service context, demonstrating that the way emotions are displayed (i.e., faking vs. authentic) can generate more favorable customer outcomes than the simple emotions themselves. Thus, the findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the association between emotional displays and customer outcomes in sports marketing, as it is not only the different types of emotions (i.e., positive or negative) that affect customer outcomes but also how these emotions are displayed. This finding also contributes to the emotional labor literature by generalizing the relationship between deep acting and important customer outcomes.

Second, this study found the role of rapport with fitness employees to be an important factor regarding fitness members’ tendency to recommend fitness organizations to others. This finding is consistent with the studies published by Hwang and Lee [6] and Macintosh [2]. This implies that when fitness members have pleasant interactions with fitness employees, they are more likely to disseminate positive information about the fitness centers to others. The positive relationship between rapport and WOM may be due to the positive emotions experienced by members and the customer satisfaction derived from rapport [4]. Gremler and Gwinner [4] noted that when people have a close relationship with others, they have more positive feelings for each other, which leads to dedicational behaviors. Additionally, Collier, Barnes, Abney, and Pelletier [46] indicated a special experience at the service contact point to be a leading variable of positive WOM and noted that the positive emotions formed through this personal experience led customers to convey word of mouth as a form of information provision for others. Indeed, empirical evidence has shown that rapport is directly linked to WOM and is indirectly associated with WOM through positive emotions and customer satisfaction [2,46]. This finding significantly contributes to the service marketing literature, as it finds an important antecedent of WOM. WOM is considered rather difficult to control from a managerial perspective and is simply dependent on customer satisfaction [43]. This study contributes to marketing research in that customer service and efforts to build rapport can have significant and important impacts on WOM.

The current study also found that rapport fully mediated the relationship between perceived surface acting and WOM, as well as between perceived deep acting and WOM. Thus, when fitness members notice sincerity and authenticity in employees’ behavior toward them, they feel a closeness in their interactions, which in turn leads them to talk positively about the organization to others. Conversely, when they feel that the fitness employees’ smiles are fake and are only meant to satisfy them, they will be less likely to feel pleasantness in their relationships with employees, reducing the probability of positive WOM. This finding adds new knowledge to the emotional labor literature, as this is the first study to identify a significant path from perceived emotional labor to positive WOM. This study also identifies the underlying psychological mechanism of rapport, which aids in a deeper understanding of this relationship.

6.1. Practical Implications

This study has various implications. It shows that not only the formation of rapport but also the emotional work of fitness employees should be considered important variables in forming a positive WOM effect. This means that employees who perform emotional labor should be managed and encouraged to use their emotional performance strategically. According to the study’s results, deep acting is positively associated with key customer outcomes, thereby increasing organizational effectiveness, whereas surface acting is highly relevant to negative customer outcomes. In other words, the performance of emotional labor for improving employee–customer relationships is ineffective in the case of superficial behavior (i.e., surface acting), which may impede service delivery and eventually result in deteriorating service quality. Therefore, in the process of conducting emotional labor, it is necessary to use the deep acting method rather than surface acting. To accomplish this, fitness organizations should implement systematic education and training sessions that can help employees to accept organizational emotional display rules and apply them to themselves. In addition, efforts are needed to create and sustain this organizational culture so that the norms of emotional labor can be established as the core values and traditions of the organization.

Furthermore, it proposes a new perspective: that beyond the typical existing brand promotions or advertising strategy, fitness organizations should focus on the management of fitness employees who have direct interactions with members to spread positive information about the fitness center. To this end, it can be said that fitness organizations may implement events designed to shape and sustain positive relationships between their employees and members. For example, they can plan active promotional events that foster a pleasant meeting between fitness employees and members to form positive relationships. This event formation strategy may induce pleasant emotions in the relationship between visiting customers, and pleasant memories in the future of employees who have been encountered can be transferred to pleasant emotions in the region and stores. Additionally, fitness organizations can conduct promotional events on their blogs or homepages, wherein members can describe their memories of positive interactions with the employees. By recalling positive experiences with the employees, they may induce or strengthen positive feelings about the organization.

6.2. Limitations and Future Research Suggestions

Despite the significant theoretical and practical implications, this study also has limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results. First, this cross-sectional study could not infer cause-and-effect relationships between variables. Future studies need to adopt a (quasi-) experimental design to verify the role of perceived emotional labor in key member outcomes.

Another limitation is based on the process through which the data were collected solely from fitness members, although it is the fitness employees who perform emotional labor. Therefore, the study can be more objective when collecting data from emotional labor performers (i.e., fitness employees). However, this study has a limitation in that it asks all questions about independent (i.e., emotional labor strategies) and dependent variables (i.e., rapport and WOM) to the members of the fitness organizations. In future research, data should be collected from both emotional labor performers and receivers to make the research more objective.

Furthermore, this study only used rapport and WOM as mediators and outcome variables in fitness employee–member dynamics. Numerous customer outcome factors can predict the success of organizations, such as customer satisfaction, perceived service quality, and pleasant emotions. Other factors can also be proposed that can mediate the perceived emotional labor–customer outcome variables, such as the detection ability of customers, customer orientation, and the quality of the relationship. Thus, future work should consider adding these variables to further understand the role of emotional labor in influencing customer outcomes.

Finally, as mentioned above, the previously published literature has identified the five factors of trust, familiarity, interest, intimacy, and rapport as the antecedents of personal bonds in the employee–customer interface. This study only used rapport as the main variable and applied it to the fitness context. Future research may use the remaining variables and investigate their implications for important customer outcomes in fitness organizations.

7. Conclusions

Based on the previously published literature that demonstrated the positive role of customer experience on the recipients’ memories, satisfaction, and future behavioral intentions, this study chose employees’ adoption of emotional labor strategies as important variables of customer experience and examined their roles in the promotion of rapport between the fitness employees and fitness members and the generation of positive WOM. This study successfully demonstrated that fitness employees’ authentic emotional displays, produced by deep acting, were positively associated with rapport, which, in turn, was positively associated with WOM. The findings of this study demonstrate that it is important to check the fitness of employees’ competence in communicating with members and developing positive interactions with them, along with the importance of taking the required measures to develop the same. In this regard, it is necessary to re-examine the relevant skills and educate fitness employees when hiring and training them. Simple technical skills and understanding how to use the fitness equipment are only basic knowledge, whereas communication skills and the ability to display their emotions authentically are additional skills that are required and that prove their competence.