The role of rapport in professional services: antecedents and outcomes

Purpose - This research seeks to test a model examining the antecedents and outcomes of interpersonal rapport in a professional service context. The four antecedents examined are familiarity, mutual self-disclosure, extras, and common grounding, and the outcomes examined are trust, satisfaction, and word-of-mouth communication. Design/methodology/approach - The study employs a survey methodology to obtain the opinions of 121 dental patients regarding their relationships with dental professionals. The hypothesized relationships in the model were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings - The research findings indicated that all four antecedents were positively related to rapport. Rapport was also found to be related to customer satisfaction and word-of-mouth communication, but rapport was not found to be related to trust. Post hoc analysis suggests that rapport appears to be related to trust early in relationships, then becomes less important, but re-emerges as a driver of trust in very mature relationships. Practical implications - Since rapport appears to be important to generating word-of-mouth, managers should foster and reward rapport-building behavior. Originality/value - The study empirically verified four antecedents of interpersonal rapport in services, and supports the role of rapport as an important mediating variable in relationship development. The research also supported prior findings on the unique contribution of rapport to positive word-of-mouth communication.