Speaker: Assoc Prof Nichola Robertson, Deakin University
Title: The customer is often wrong: Investigating the influence of customer failures and apologies on frontline service employee well-being
Date: Tue, 9th May 2023
Time: 11:30am-1:00pm
Venue: Allan Barton Forum, Level 2, CBE Building 26C
Farshid KESHAVARZ is the host of this visit
ABSTRACT
A well-established research area is service failure and recovery. Nevertheless, the considerable service failures generated by customers, or customer failures, surprisingly remain relatively underexplored. Specifically, customer failures have a detrimental effect on frontline service employee well-being, which has not been investigated. We advance that a customer apology can alleviate this by customers taking the blame for their failures. We present three studies that investigate this phenomenon. In Study 1, applying the critical incident technique, we develop a taxonomy of customer failures and find evidence of their negative influence on (frontline) service employee well-being, which can be offset by customer apologies and perceived supervisor support. In Studies 2 and 3, using a scenario-based experiment, we triangulate the Study 1 results by testing the relationship between customer apology (Study 2) and its interacting relationship with perceived supervisor support (Study 3) on service employee well-being following a customer failure. While customer apologies have a positive impact on well-being, interestingly, when perceived supervisor support is lacking, this washes out the positive effect of a customer apology and similarly, perceived supervisor support nullifies the negative effect of the customer not apologizing for their failure. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
BIO
Associate Professor Nichola Robertson (PhD) is the Higher Degrees by Research Director for the Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin University. Nichola lectured in marketing at several Victorian universities prior to commencing work at Deakin and has also worked as a marketing consultant in the healthcare sector. Her research interests are in the field of Service Marketing, with a particular focus on dissatisfactory service experiences, service technologies, transformative service research and consumers experiencing vulnerability. Nichola's research has been published in various service and general marketing journals, including the Journal of Service Research, European Journal of Marketing, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Journal of Service Management, and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, among others. Her research findings have also been referred to in the trade press and mainstream media. Nichola has been the recipient of several awards for both her research and teaching. She currently serves on the Editorial Review Boards of Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, and Journal of Service Management.