Be Resilient and Learn: When Service Employees Speak up About Customer Mistreatment

Abstract

With much of the research highlighting the detrimental consequences of customer mistreatment, its functionality aspect is overlooked in the literature. Drawing from the failure and loss coping framework and resilience theory, we theorize that trait resilience functions to allow service employees to utilize customer mistreatment experiences as opportunities to learn, which further induces them to engage in voice behavior that benefits rather than harms the organization. Specifically, because resilience protects individuals from the immediate hindrances that interfere with learning, we argue that service employees with high trait resilience learn from customer mistreatment experiences, whereas those with low trait resilience do not. Further, we argue that service employees who learn from customer mistreatment experiences will speak up about the mistreatment to help others because learning provides the basis (e.g., knowledge and experience) for voice behavior. We test a theoretical model using experience-sampling data from a sample of hotel employees. The results show general support for the model. Our findings move beyond the perspective of viewing service employees as mere victims of customer mistreatment and acknowledge their active and pivotal roles in service improvement and organizational change.