Abstract—The present study examines the impact of the service employee’s emotional intelligence on customer’s evaluation of the service quality. The sample consisted of 63 service employees and 326 customers from hospitality firms in Turkey. Since the nested structure of the data, we conducted hierarchical linear modeling analyses. The results indicated that there exists significant variance in service quality perceptions among customers from different cultural backgrounds. Moreover, the results showed that service employee’s EQ positively influences customer’s assessment of the service quality. This study extends prior research relating to service employee’s EQ on service quality perceptions, and provides important insights for hospitality practitioners.