This study investigates the effect of linguistic realizations of employee empathy (LREE) on brand trust in email responses to customer complaints. We explore possible mediating effects of perceived empathy and perceived complaint handling quality and we look into moderation effects of compensation (Study 1) or customer’s acceptance of blame (Study 2). Our aim is to find out if LREE have a negative or positive impact on the customer in cases of partial refunds, either because LREE are being perceived as insincere or as genuine expressions of concern. The results of two experiments show that LREE positively influence brand trust through higher perceived empathy and perceived complaint handling quality. However, the expected negative effect is not found, as LREE are more effective in a low versus high compensation condition. The effectiveness itself is not influenced by the acceptance of blame when a partial refund is offered.

本研究调查了员工同理心 (LREE) 的语言实现对客户投诉电子邮件回复中品牌信任的影响。我们探索感知同理心和感知投诉处理质量的可能中介效应，并研究补偿（研究 1）或客户接受责备（研究 2）的调节效应。我们的目标是找出在部分退款的情况下 LREE 是否对客户产生负面或正面影响，因为 LREE 被视为不真诚或真正表达了担忧。两个实验的结果表明，LREE 通过更高的感知同理心和感知投诉处理质量对品牌信任产生积极影响。然而，没有发现预期的负面影响，因为轻稀土在低补偿条件下比高补偿条件下更有效。