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Employee revenge against uncivil customers

Akanksha Bedi (Department of Management, California State University Northridge, Northridge, USA)
Aaron C.H. Schat (DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada)

Journal of Services Marketing

ISSN: 0887-6045

Article publication date: 24 October 2017

Issue publication date: 9 November 2017

1254

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the relations between service employee blame attributions in response to customer incivility and revenge desires and revenge behavior toward customers, and whether employee empathy moderated these relations.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used survey data based on the critical incident method provided by a sample of 431 customer service employees.

Findings

The results suggested that blaming a customer was positively associated with desire for revenge and revenge behaviors against the uncivil customer. In addition, the authors found that blame was less strongly associated with desire for revenge when employees empathized with customers. Finally, the results show that an employee who desired revenge against the uncivil customer and who empathized with the customer was more – not less – likely to engage in revenge.

Practical implications

The authors found that when employees experience mistreatment from customers, it increases the likelihood that they will blame the offending customer and behave in ways that are contrary to their organization’s interests. The results suggest several points of intervention for organizations to more effectively respond to customer mistreatment.

Originality/value

In this study, the authors make one of the first attempts to investigate the relationships between service employee attributions of blame when they experience customer incivility, desire for revenge and customer-directed revenge behaviors. The authors also examined whether empathy moderates the relations between blame attribution, desires for revenge and revenge behavior.

Keywords

Citation

Bedi, A. and Schat, A.C.H. (2017), "Employee revenge against uncivil customers", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 31 No. 6, pp. 636-649. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-01-2016-0003

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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