Understanding customers’ compliance behaviour to frontline employees’ fuzzy requests

Abstract

Purpose Due to interactive fluctuations during service encounters, fuzzy requests frequently occur from either frontline employees or customers. While such requests from customers have been drawn wide attention, there exists a lack of research on frontline employees’ fuzzy requests and possible outcomes (e.g. compliance or refusal). The purpose of this study is thus to identify the underlying mechanism and enacting variables that influence customers’ compliance behaviour (i.e. positive outcome) to fuzzy requests. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a sample of ten express service companies in southeast China. The proposed model was empirically tested among 309 customers and further analysed through structural equation modelling. Findings The results indicated that expected technical quality, perceived reasonableness and perceived convenience are positively associated with compliance behaviour, whereas the effects of inertia and negative emotional response on compliance behaviour are significantly negative. The findings also demonstrated that negative emotional response partially mediates the impacts of expected technical quality, perceived reasonableness and inertia on compliance behaviour. Originality/value This study investigates an under-researched phenomenon, namely, frontline employees’ fuzzy requests in the service context. The underlying mechanism of customers’ compliance behaviours to fuzzy requests is articulated through an integration of three beliefs with emotional response. As an early exploration of employees’ fuzzy requests, this study provides important theoretical and managerial implications.

The Antecedents and Consequences of Psychological Safety in Airline Firms: Focusing on High-Quality Interpersonal Relationships

“…The fundamental function of psychological safety is to uncover one's beliefs about the feedback of their coworkers and/or their organizations, when they disclose the service failures and errors that occurred during service transactions [28]. For example, those with a higher sense of psychological safety may feel confident about their decisions about confronting customers' diverse needs, rather than feel fearful about potential service failures [29,30]). Furthermore, those with a sense of fear about their service obligations are likely to experience unwanted negative outcomes [31].…”

Customer compliance with employee fuzzy requests in service encounters: a self-determination theory perspective

“…Fuzzy requests are made by both customers and employees. Li et al (2018) referred to employee fuzzy requests as techniques to increase work performance that are somewhat outside the normal service provision. By leveraging and integrating their own resources, customers' compliance with such requests improve the employees' service capacity and job achievements (Kasabov and Warlow 2010;Lin and Hsieh 2011).…”

“…Many employee requests lie somewhere between these types. Specifically, employees may propose requests that are slightly outside the normal service scope yet are not unacceptable or detrimental to customers (e.g., asking customers to provide positive feedback and recommend their services or products to others) (Li et al 2016(Li et al , 2018. These requests are referred to as "employee fuzzy requests" and are generally motivated by employees' desire to improve his/her work performance.…”

“…Employee fuzzy requests are widespread in service encounters (Li et al 2018). In practice, these requests can be viewed as solutions to certain situations.…”

“…Previous studies in relation to the factors that ensure customer compliance have focused on rational decision-making based on cost-benefit analysis (Dellande et al 2004;Lin and Hsieh 2011;Kostopoulos et al 2014). For example, following the rationality-based beliefs model, Li et al (2018) proposed that customer compliance is driven by several factors, including expected technical quality and perceived reasonableness. However, in real service settings, customers may not receive material benefits from the outcomes of their compliance, especially in one-time transactions (Li et al 2016).…”