Emotional work (also known as emotional labour) has been originally defined by Hochschild (Reference Hochschild1979, p.561) as “the act of trying to change in degree or quality an emotion or a feeling.” It is noteworthy that research in that perspective started some thirty years ago, studying smiles of flight attendants, in a face-to-face social setting. But, following Hochschild's early suggestion, one should also consider how the effects of smiles can be effective during phone conversations, in a voice-to-voice setting when no visual information is shared (e.g., Sutton Reference Sutton1991).

Thanks to a substantial amount of field studies, data along that approach became available to support the presence of emotional work within organizations (Fineman Reference Fineman2000), whether for profit (e.g., between a sales representative and a customer; Ashforth & Humphrey Reference Ashforth and Humphrey1993; Rafaeli Reference Rafaeli1989) or not (e.g., between a nurse and a patient; Froggatt Reference Froggatt1998). By focusing on interactions and bodily cues such as facial expressions, eye contact, posture, and gestures, the SIMS model encapsulates the different aspects (and roles) a smile can play in all those contexts.

Nevertheless, the visual modality is not the only one through which smiles can be expressed. There is indeed a more vocal aspect to smiling as illustrated by the development of “smile down the phone” strategies in organizations (e.g., call centres). Because of the absence of face-to-face interactions during phone conversations, those “vocal smiles,” including the tone of voice, constitute one of the keys to understanding emotional work in call centres (Belt et al. Reference Belt, Richardson and Webster2002; Taylor & Bain Reference Taylor and Bain1999). These centres are the illustration of the marketing logic known as Customer Relationship Management, aiming at developing long-term relationships between companies and their customers (Gans et al. Reference Gans, Koole and Mandelbaum2003).

This managerial framework clearly constitutes an expression of emotional work centered around smiles down the phone to create empathy between the client and the sales representative (Richardson & Howcroft Reference Richardson and Howcroft2006). It appears that this vocal aspect to smiling is not considered in Niedenthal et al.'s SIMS. For instance, they focus on face-to-face interactions and do not take into account, so far, how efficient smiles can be in voice-to-voice ones.

Previous studies on emotional work complement the perspective offered by SIMS, especially concerning affiliative smiles (see sects. 2.2 and 6.1.1 of the target article). Hence, we suggest gathering face-to-face and voice-to-voice interactions in an embodied perspective – that is, still in opposition to an “amodal” view of knowledge (Lakoff & Johnson Reference Lakoff and Johnson1999). In our view, Barsalou's (Reference Barsalou1999) simulator would be enhanced by Lakoff and Johnson's theory of conceptual metaphors for it would ground SIMS in natural language – although this theory is not limited to the study of words.

Emotional work sheds new light on the metaphors used by actors in organizations. According to Froggatt (Reference Froggatt1998, p.332), the metaphorical language employed by nurses (e.g., draining and burden) reflects the emotional aspect of their work. Along the same line, Rees et al. (Reference Rees, Knight and Wilkinson2007) argue for the existence of metaphors in describing the relationship between patients and physicians. Some therefore consider the emotional work of the physician towards the patient as a “metaphoric framework of clinical empathy” (Larson & Yao Reference Larson and Yao2005, p. 1104). Here too, the challenge of creating empathy with others can be satisfied by using metaphors given that empathic processes at stake are at the core of the emotional work of the physician (Larson & Yao Reference Larson and Yao2005).

Hence, metaphors are a way to access the emotional work of the actors in that the expression of emotions is metaphorical by essence. In line with Lakoff and Johnson (Reference Lakoff and Johnson1980), Hochschild (Reference Hochschild2005, p. 344) stresses how metaphors “guide feeling, and, of course, feelings also guide metaphors.” Similarly, when addressing emotional concepts, Lakoff (Reference Lakoff1987, p. 377) points that: “When we act on our emotions, we act not only on the basis of feeling but also on the basis of that understanding. Emotional concepts are thus very clear examples of concepts that are abstract and yet have an obvious basis in bodily experience.”

Overall, it is noteworthy in this context that the three key elements used in SIMS to decrypt what lies beneath smiling face-to-face (perceptual cues, experiential cues, and conceptual knowledge; see sect. 6) can be found in voice-to-voice contexts. In our view, perceptual cues can be embedded in tone of voice (see, e.g., Morris & Keltner [Reference Morris and Keltner2000] about aggressive behaviours in negotiation) and experiential ones in the words employed (e.g., Rafaeli & Sutton Reference Rafaeli and Sutton1990). Despite the absence of eye contact, other components of emotional labour (greeting, thanking, and smiling; Sutton & Rafaeli Reference Sutton and Rafaeli1988) are clearly observable in voice-to-voice interactions.

Conceptual metaphors being essential to express emotions (Kövecses Reference Kövecses1990; Reference Kövecses and Gibbs2008; Lakoff Reference Lakoff1987; Reference Lakoff and Pustejovsky1993), a conceptual knowledge of emotions is metaphorical. Of course, a conceptual metonymy such as Face stands for feelings (Yu Reference Yu and Gibbs2008, p. 251; see also, Lakoff Reference Lakoff and Pustejovsky1993, pp. 34–35) illustrates the importance of face-to-face interactions in emotions. But smiles participate to the bodily experience of emotional concepts (e.g., smile and happiness, Lakoff & Johnson Reference Lakoff and Johnson1980, p. 18; see also, Peña Cervel Reference Peña Cervel2001, p. 258). To a larger extent, The body is a container for the emotions (Lakoff Reference Lakoff1987, p. 383).

Conceptually, the link between the metaphorical approach to emotions and emotional work becomes tighter when one considers the role of relationship metaphors in voice-to-voice interactions. Although one has to be careful not to conclude that the emotion and the human relationship domains can be confounded, human relations are conceptually close to that of emotions (Kövecses Reference Kövecses and Gibbs2008, p. 387).

Hence, regardless the modality (visual or vocal), the perception and the understanding of a smile remain embodied. Moreover, the emotional work perspective provides another way to identify “whether a smile is true or false” (sect. 6.2).

For if the issue of emotional work is to make the sales representative's smile sincere to satisfy the consumer (Grandey et al. Reference Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen and Sideman2005), this smile is not always perceived as such. The employee is not necessarily experiencing the emotion conveyed by the expressed smile (Pugh Reference Pugh2001) as it sometimes seems insincere (and therefore false; sect. 2.1) in the customer's eyes. Over the phone, an insincere tone of voice can even lead to a “phone rage” of the customers, i.e., “people losing their temper on the telephone” (see Deery & Kinnie Reference Deery and Kinnie2002, p. 8, reporting a study conducted in 1997 by Reed Employment Services on more than 500 organizations in the United Kingdom).

In summary, emotional work permits one to introduce concepts like sentimental work (how people use their own emotions to influence someone else's emotions; Zapf Reference Zapf2002) and emotional dissonance (how people experience the gap between emotions that are felt and those which are displayed in a given situation; Hochschild Reference Hochschild1983, p. 90). Together with SIMS, emotional work therefore leads to a more complete approach to smiling that encapsulates the vocal modality.