How can customers cope with cognitive demands of professional services? The role of employee coping support

Abstract

Even though researchers are increasingly acknowledging the dark side of customer participation (i.e., behavioral customer engagement), particularly in professional services with high cognitive demands that cause customer participation stress (i.e., negative psychological state resulting from the customer's overextension by required customer participation efforts), insights on how firms can effectively mitigate customer participation stress remains limited. Building on transactional stress theory, we investigate whether customers can effectively cope with the expected cognitive demands of professional services. Moreover, by introducing an adapted coping construct (i.e., coping support), we examine whether employees can provide coping support to help decrease customer participation stress. The findings of a time-lagged field study with customers of a large German bank (N = 117) suggest that customer coping before the encounter cannot mitigate the effect of anticipated cognitive demands on customer participation stress. Instead, the results of both the field study and a follow-up experimental study (N = 218) show that a certain set of employee coping support during service encounters is crucial. While focusing on action coping support is not ideal in situations with high cognitive demands, firms should advise their professional service employees to offer emotional coping support to attenuate the unfavorable effect of cognitive demands on customer participation stress.

Consumer engagement, stress, and conservation of resources theory: A review, conceptual development, and future research agenda

“…6. Garbas et al (2023) o The authors draw on transactional stress theory to explore whether customers are able to cope with the cognitive demands characterizing professional services. o Specifically, they examine whether employees can provide coping support to lower customer stress associated with their role-related behavioral engagement (participation).…”

“…Second, while we adopted Hobfoll's (e.g., 1989Hobfoll's (e.g., , 2011 CORT, alternate theoretical lenses may be used to explore the consumer engagement/stress interface, including stress appraisal theory (e.g., Keeling et al, 2022;Saarschmidt & Dose, 2023), stress theory (e.g., Kraimer et al, 2022), the theory of emotion (e.g., Leventhal, 1980;Moors, 2022), the theory of stress and coping (Folkman & Lazarus, 1985;Garbas et al, 2023), or resource depletion theory (e.g., Huizenga et al, 2013), to name a few. Specifically, future researchers may wish to examine the commonalities, and areas of departure, of their findings based on alternate theory (vs. the current CORTinformed analyses), permitting the development of further theoretical advances in this integrative topic area.…”

“…However, despite this emerging insight, the role, and effects, of consumers' engagement in the face of brand, or consumption, related stress remain tenuous (e.g., Garbas et al, 2023; Lunardo et al, 2022), exposing an important literature‐based gap. Specifically, the literature remains hazy regarding consumer engagement's (a) potential role as a consumer‐perceived stressor (e.g., through elevated self‐service requirements; Bulmer et al, 2018), and (b) potential insulating role against the formation, or development, of stress (e.g., by fostering perceived self‐efficacy, skills, or resilience; Crego et al, 2016), thus warranting further investigation.…”

“…For example, consumers' regular investments in their digital interactions are expected to build their technology literacy and -competence, in turn lowering their technostress (Kumar et al, 2022), illustrating engagement's parallel, pivotal role in stress management and alleviation (Anthony-McMann et al, 2017). However, despite this emerging insight, the role, and effects, of consumers' engagement in the face of brand, or consumption, related stress remain tenuous (e.g., Garbas et al, 2023;Lunardo et al, 2022), exposing an important literature-based gap. Specifically, the literature remains hazy regarding consumer engagement's (a) potential role as a consumer-perceived stressor (e.g., through elevated self-service requirements; Bulmer et al, 2018), and (b) potential insulating role against the formation, or development, of stress (e.g., by fostering perceived self-efficacy, skills, or resilience; Crego et al, 2016), thus warranting further investigation.…”