Customer Service Work and the Aesthetics of Resistance

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter seeks to contribute to our understanding of how the delivery of customer service shapes the development and expression by workers of resistance, misbehavior, and accommodation. Workers at three call centers enjoyed customer service and endeavored to enhance its importance. At the same time, however, they knew it to be emotionally wearing and, on occasion, morally dubious.

Methodology – The chapter draws on interviews with and a survey of call center employees and management and trade unions.

Findings – The chapter explores how workers used the aesthetic skills that underpin “good” customer service to subvert management objectives and give vent to their frustration with disgruntled customers.

Social implications – Even in the most closely controlled and monitored situations, people are capable of developing unanticipated and often ingenious responses to regimens that are antithetical to their immediate interests.

Originality – The exploration of how call center workers use their customer service and aesthetic skills to undermine managerial control.

Citation

Barnes, A. (2012), "Customer Service Work and the Aesthetics of Resistance", Barnes, A. and Taksa, L. (Ed.) Rethinking Misbehavior and Resistance in Organizations (Advances in Industrial & Labor Relations, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-179. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-6186(2012)0000019010