Speak my language if you want my money : service language's influence on consumer tipping behavior

Purpose - Despite the importance of the interaction between consumers and service personnel for how consumers perceive quality, service research assumes that both customers and service provider are perfectly able to interact with each other. This might not be the case on bilingual markets. This paper aims to examine customers' behavioral reactions to being served in their first versus second language. Specifically, the paper tests whether bilinguals who are served in their second language are less likely to tip the service provider. Moreover, it seeks to examine the mediating role of speech accommodation, and the moderating roles of bilinguals' perceived second language proficiency and political considerations. Design/methodology/approach - Study 1 tests the main hypothesis using a scenario-based experiment with adult consumers in two bilingual countries (Belgium, Finland). Study 2 further elaborates on these findings using a retrospective survey of actual customer experiences in Belgium. Findings - Driven by perceptions of speech accommodation, the results consistently show that consumers are more likely to tip if served in their native language compared to when served in their second language. Moreover, this relationship is not dependent on consumers' perceived second language proficiency, but rather upon their political considerations. Originality/value - This is the first study of bilingual customers' behavioral reactions to being served in their second language, among bilingual customers from different countries. Given that more than half the countries in the world are multilingual, service providers need to take customers' native language into account when serving bilingual customers