r Academy of Management Discoveries 2016, Vol. 2, No. 4, 392–403. Online only http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amd.2015.0052 THE EFFECT OF PRIMING AFFECT ON CUSTOMER SERVICE SATISFACTION JELENA BRCIC University of the Fraser Valley GARY LATHAM University of Toronto A quasi-experiment (study 1) and an online true experiment (study 2) examined the effect of priming affect on customer service satisfaction. In study 1, shoppers who received a “happy face” sticker on their retail receipt were more satisfied with the service they received than were those who did not receive a sticker. To determine whether customers were unaware of the influence of the prime on their level of satisfaction, a second study was conducted where customers were randomly assigned to conditions. Again, the re- sults revealed that priming positive affect increased satisfaction with the store’s service without a customer being aware of the influence of the prime. The results of these two studies suggest that a small change in the environment can influence customer satis- faction with the service received. A third experiment involving an exact replication, and an implicit as well as an explicit measure of affect, suggests the robustness of this finding. Editor’s Comment Customer satisfaction drives businesses in many industries. As a result, companies in- vest heavily in sales training to ensure that front-line service employees consistently and consciously “serve with a smile.” In this paper, the researchers discover that surpris- ingly, “service with a smile” need not necessarily mean the positive activation of emo- tional expressions and behaviors of employees. Rather, a supraliminal prime—such as a “happy face” sticker on a retail receipt can induce positive customer satisfaction. Like any important discovery, rigor in evidence is crucial. The researchers conducted a series of field studies to rule out several plausible explanations for the priming effects. We expect the discovery in this paper to spark future inquiry and theorizing into primes and We thank John Bargh, Edwin Locke, and Benjamin Schneider for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. This research was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship to the first author and by a grant to the second author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada. 392 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.