Returning good for evil: A study of customer incivility and extra-role customer service

Abstract

This study investigates the conditions under which service employees can react positively after encountering customer incivility. Building on the work engagement theory, we hypothesize that customer incivility interacts with workplace social support (i.e., perceived supervisor and co-worker support) to influence work engagement, which in turn leads to extra-role customer service. We test our model within the context of hotels. The results of a two-wave survey with a sample of 198 frontline service employees provide support for most of the hypotheses. In particular, the findings show that employees encountering uncivil customer interactions provide extra-role customer service only when they have high (vs. low) supervisor support. Work engagement mediates the conditional effect of customer incivility on extra-role customer service. The results thus suggest that supervisors play a vital role in encouraging employees’ positive reaction toward customer incivility. This work has notable implications for hospitality management research.