How does salespeople’s personal interaction affect customers’ word-of-mouth in retailing?

<jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title> <jats:p>Drawing on the philosophy of retail service quality, this study aims to empirically investigate how salespeople’s personal interaction affects customers’ positive word-of-mouth (WOM) intention through the lens of affective customer experience and consumers’ cross-cultural attitudes toward domestic or foreign products.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title> <jats:p>The hypothesis was tested with a two-step structural equation model using survey data obtained from 529 shopping center customers in China.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title> <jats:p>The positive impact of salespeople’s personal interaction on customers’ positive WOM intention is fully mediated by affective customer experience. In addition, consumer ethnocentrism strengthens the positive impact of salespeople’s personal interaction on affective customer experience, whereas this study fails to find the moderating effect of foreign product affinity.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Practical implications</jats:title> <jats:p>To increase customers’ positive WOM intention, store managers need to encourage their frontline sales personnel to personally interact with customers to support customers’ problem-solving. Also, frontline salespeople should pay more attention to consumers’ cross-cultural attitudes such as consumer ethnocentrism when interacting with their customers.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title> <jats:p>By linking affective customer experience and consumers’ cross-cultural attitudes of ethnocentrism and affinity toward domestic or foreign products, this study further extends the knowledge of retail service quality on the relationship between salespeople’s personal interaction and customers’ positive WOM intention.</jats:p> </jats:sec>