Dysfunctional Customer Behavior, Employee Service Sabotage, and Sustainability: Can Social Support Make a Difference?

Abstract

In a restaurant industry, dysfunctional customer behavior damages customer-contact service employees’ mental health which may lead to employee defection. This study examined the effects of dysfunctional customer behavior on service employees’ service sabotage which is a mechanisms for protecting themselves from outside pressures. Additionally, it determined if emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role in the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and employees’ service sabotage and verified the moderating role of social support. The proposed model was tested empirically using the data from 329 restaurant customer-contact service employees in South Korea. The results indicated that dysfunctional customer behavior increased the incidence of employees’ service sabotage. Moreover, emotional exhaustion was a significant mediator in the link from dysfunctional customer behavior to employees’ service sabotage. In addition, social support moderated the effects of dysfunctional customer behavior on service sabotage. This study provides insights into the effects of dysfunctional customer behavior and methods of supporting employees socially.

Dysfunctional customer behavior influences on employees’ emotional labor: The moderating roles of customer orientation and perceived organizational support

“…Third, what had received little attention to the boundary conditions under which DCB exerts more or less detrimental effects on employee emotional labor. Perceived organizational support has been shown to moderate the effects of DCB on employees’ wellbeing and behaviors, such as burnout ( Han et al, 2016 ), employee service sabotage ( Hwang et al, 2021 ), and job anxiety ( Raza et al, 2021 ). Our study demonstrated that POS (as external resources) and customer orientation (as internal resources) attenuate the effects of different types of DCB on emotional labor of frontline employees, provided a better understanding of the mechanism underlying the influence, and contributed to the previous literature.…”

“… Szczygiel and Bazińska (2021) further state that customer incivility’s effect on emotional exhaustion is mediated by surface acting and moderated by emotional intelligence. In addition, customer incivility’s also is a predictor of employees’ behavior such as retaliatory behaviors ( Gong and Wang, 2019 ), sabotage service ( Hwang et al, 2021 ), and turnover ( Bamfo et al, 2018 ). However, the negative factors of customers (e.g., customer verbal abuse, illegitimate complaint, disproportionate demand) are generally believed to be difficult to manage by the service firms.…”

“…For frontline employees who are expected to display positive emotions, experiencing negative involves devoting more resources to regulating their emotions. Furthermore, customer verbal abuse may reduce frontline employees’ self-esteem, confidence, and self-efficacy ( Sliter and Jones, 2016 ; Hwang et al, 2021 ). All of these are fundamental job resources for frontline employees.…”

“…Although service firms expect employees to try their best to meet customer demands, customers’ disproportionate demands (e.g., special treatment) are usually beyond frontline employees’ competence. To meet customers’ disproportionate demand, frontline employees have to take extra workload ( Hwang et al, 2021 ), which implies more physical effort devoting. Customer’s disproportionate demands, as a kind of job demands ( Ashtar et al, 2021 ), according to the job demand-resources (JD-R) theory ( Bakker and Demerouti, 2017 ), will increase frontline employees’ resource depletion.…”

Service staff encounters with dysfunctional customer behavior: Does supervisor support mitigate negative emotions?

“…Frontline service employees are often faced with a variety of unpredictable situations, which correspond to stressors, from which they are prone to experience emotional disorders or exhaustion in the workplace. This can adversely affect employee physical and mental health ( Hwang et al, 2021 ). Therefore, dysfunctional customer behaviors are one of the key predictors driving frontline service employee sabotage action ( Yagil, 2021 ), such as joking about customers or colleagues to please themselves, neglecting to comply with company rules and regulations, adjusting the speed of service according to one’s own emotions or personal needs, expressing hostility, anger, or frustration to customers, deliberately delaying service depending on employees’ moods and emotions, deliberately making inappropriate remarks or responses to customers, retaliating against customers in a rude manner, etc.…”