Managing customer misbehavior:challenges and strategies

Lloyd C. Harris

Warwick Business School, Warwick University, Coventry, UK, and

Kate DauntCardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

AbstractPurpose – In this study the authors aim to explore the impact of customer misbehavior on frontline employees and managers and to elucidate themanagement tactics and strategies that managers employ in an attempt to minimize the impact of customer misbehavior on the workplace.Design/methodology/approach – Following a discussion of the research design and methodology employed, the findings of 88 in-depth interviewsare presented.Findings – These data suggest that customer misbehavior impacts on frontline employees, managers, and managerial strategies. Three main effects ofcustomer misbehavior on customer-contact employees are uncovered: physiological, cognitive, and attitudinal. These are connected with four mainmanagement challenges: conflicting pressures, recruitment and retention, counseling and motivation, and time expenditure. Finally, data analysis findsevidence of six main ways in which managers attempted to reduce or to alleviate harmful customer misbehavior: selective recruitment, changes totraining and induction procedures, enhanced rewards, work-team design, increase counseling, and alterations to the servicescape.Practical implications – The authors recommend that practitioners undertake a misbehavior audit that explores not only the extent of customermisbehavior but also the mechanisms, systems, and procedures the organization has for identifying, recording, and attempting to minimize the effectsof dysfunctional customer behavior.Originality/value – This study contributes insights into how customer-contact personnel and managers are both affected and cope with customermisbehavior. These insights are helpful for service managers faced with customer misbehavior and academicians interested in how employees respondto contemporary customers.

Keywords Customer misbehaviour, Customer deviance, Customer dysfunctional behaviour, Services marketing, Retail employees, Customers,Consumer behaviour, Retailing

Paper type Research paper

An executive summary for managers and executive

readers can be found at the end of this article.

1. Introduction

Management-based insights into the dark side of

organizational dynamics overwhelmingly focus on the

employee as “deviant” and responsible for perpetrating a

range of misbehaviors aimed at disrupting exchange and

organizational activities (Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly, 1998;

Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999; Thau et al., 2009; Greenberg,

2010). In this sense, employees are portrayed as

“perpetrators” while the organization and customers are

presented “victims” of such events (Edwards and Greenberg,

2010). This focus contrasts starkly with customer-focused

research that highlights the deviant activities of customers

(Fullerton and Punj, 2004; Fisk et al., 2010; Wirtz and

McColl-Kennedy, 2010). Such studies demonstrate that

customers regularly misbehave during exchange. Indeed,evidence suggests that, customers exploit the somewhat tritemantra of the “customer is king” and increasingly abuse theirand commonly intentionally abuse, threatened, or even attackboth employees and their organizations (e.g. Yagil, 2008).

The reported pervasiveness of such customer misbehaviorsis startling. For example, in the US, Grandey et al. (2004)uncover evidence of call center workers being exposed to, onaverage, ten episodes of customer aggression per day, withsome respondents reporting as many as 50 incidents perworking day. Further, Gettman and Gelfand (2007) revealthat 86 percent of female employees have personallyexperienced at least one incident of sexual abuse whilst atwork. Comparably, Hughes and Tadic (1998) find that almost70 percent of female retail workers are subjected to sexualharassment by consumers at work. Such incidents are notlimited to American consumers: focusing on British workers,the Union of Shop, Distributive, and Allied Workers (2010)reveal that during every minute of the working day a shopworker is verbally abused, threatened with violence, orphysically attacked.

Despite growing evidence of the frequency of customermisbehavior, understanding of the strategies and tactics used

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm

Journal of Services Marketing

27/4 (2013) 281–293

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]

[DOI 10.1108/08876041311330762]

Received 23 May 2011Revised 8 December 2011Accepted 12 January 2012

281

by managers and frontline workers to manage incidents of

such behaviors is underdeveloped in existing studies. Rather

(and arguably, understandably), the focus of extant literaturehas been on the consequences and coping mechanisms of

customer-contact employees. In this sense, the experience androle of managers has largely been neglected. Hence, to the

best of our knowledge, no previous research has directly

focused on the interplay between frontline workersexperiences of customer misbehaviors and the subsequent

challenges that arise for the managers of such personnel.Thus, no previous research has examined explicitly the

strategies and tactics that managers employ in an attempt to

maintain/regain a positive working environment when facedwith episodes of consumer deviance. The current paper is

designed to redress this gap. First, we aim to explore theimpact of customer misbehavior on frontline employees and

managers. Second, we aim to elucidate the managementtactics and strategies that managers employ in an attempt to

minimize the impact of customer misbehavior on the

workplace. In doing so, the current study is founded in callsfor research to examine the dynamics of deviance during

service exchange. For example, Fisk et al. (2010) highlight anexisting gap in the literature pertaining to our understanding

of the impact of customer misbehavior. Hershcovis and

Barling (2010) and Karatepe et al. (2009, 2010) alsoseparately call for research that uses multiple foci and

investigates the consequences of customer misbehavior drivenstressors on organizational actors. The article begins with an

overview of extant research that identifies and classifies the

varying forms of customer misbehavior. Next, studies whichoffer insight into the impact of and strategies associated with

customer misbehavior are reviewed. Following a discussion ofthe research design and methodology employed, the findings

of 88 in-depth interviews are presented. These data suggestthat customer misbehavior impacts on frontline employees,

managers, and managerial strategies. The paper concludes

with a discussion of the implications of the study findings fortheory, practitioners, and public policy.

2. Customer misbehavior

A review of existing literature reveals no single generally

accepted label, definition, or classification of customer

misbehavior. For reasons of clarity, the current paper adoptsthe term customer “misbehavior” to denote customer

behavior within the exchange setting that deliberatelyviolates the generally accepted norms of conduct in such

situations (Fullerton and Punj, 1993). Additional labels usedinterchangeably within the literature include “deviant” (Mills,

1981), “aberrant” (Fullerton and Punj, 1993),

“dysfunctional” (Harris and Reynolds, 2003) and “jay”(Lovelock, 2001) customer behavior. The primary focus of

past research centers on examining the dynamics of individualtypes of customer misbehavior. For example, Wirtz and

McColl-Kennedy (2010) investigate one form of customer

misbehavior which they label fraudulent claiming behavior.Here, consumers opportunistically inflate their insurance

claims for financial gain. Examining a different individual typeof consumer fraud activity, Rosenbaum et al. (2010)

investigate what the authors term “unethical retail

disposition,” wherein consumers intentionally purchase anduse an item, later returning it to the store in a fraudulent

capacity. Focusing on abusive customer behaviors, Patterson

et al. (2010) identify situations in which consumers verbally

and/or physically attack employees or organizational property,

while Yagil (2008) adopts a different approach and notes thefrequency and different varieties of aggressive and sexually

abusive customer behaviors against frontline organizational

personnel. Additional identified individual forms of consumermisbehavior include; grudge holding (Aron et al. 2007),

purchasing counterfeit goods (Bian and Moutinho, 2009),vandalism (Fisher and Baron, 1982), resistance (Cherrier,

2009), shoplifting (Tonglet, 2002), and internet deviance

(Tuzovic, 2010).In an effort, theoretically and practically to clarify the

disjointed literature on the individual types of customermisbehaviors, a group of scholars attempt to classify and

categories the varying forms in a meaningful way. For

example, Grove et al. (1989) categorize multiple forms ofcustomer misdemeanors based on the stage of consumption in

which the misbehavior occurs. First, misbehavior for“acquisitive” gain includes activities such as store-based

theft and illegal downloading. Second, “usage” denotes deeds

of claimant fraud and intentional wastage. Third,“dispositional” misbehaviors encompass vandalism and

illegitimate waste disposal. Offering an alternative

perspective, Lovelock (2001) distinguishes between six typesof anecdotally derived service jaycustomer which are termed

“the thief” who sets out to steal goods, “the rule breaker”who purposely ignores established rules and codes of conduct,

“the belligerent” who voices threats, obscenities, and insults

at employees and fellow patrons, “the family feuders” whomargue between one another, “the vandal” who intentionally

rips, burns, and damages organizational property, and “the

deadbeat” who consumes service without intending to pay.In contrast to Lovelock’ (2001) classification which centers

on identifying forms of customer misbehavior that occurduring the service encounter and point of service exchange,

Fullerton and Punj (2004) offer an contrasting categorization

that forwards five varieties of externally directed and visiblecustomer misbehaviors. Identifying the intended target and

thus victim of the misdeed, Fullerton and Punj (2004)distinguish between acts that intend to wrong employees

(e.g. physical abuse), patrons (e.g. queue jumping),

organizational merchandise (e.g. shoplifting), organizationalphysical and electronic property (e.g. arson), and the firm’s

financial assets (e.g. warranty fraud). Adopting a differentperspective, Harris and Reynolds (2004) confirm that

customer misbehaviors can include both covert and overt

behaviors. Categorizing the different types of data-derivedcustomer misbehavior on two axes (visibility and motive), the

authors distinguish between eight forms of data derived

customer misbehaviors. Harris and Reynolds (2004) forwardcategories of “oral abusers”, “physical abusers”, “undesirable

customers”, “vindictive customers”, and “sexual predators”,highlight the often disheartening experiences of frontline staff

who must deal with such misbehaviors on a daily basis in a

face-to-face manner, while the identified categories of“property abusers”, “service workers”, and “compensation

writers” that emphasize the strain that customer misbehaviors

places on organizational property and systems.

3. Effects of customer misbehavior

Aligned with literature that attempts to categorize the various

forms of customer misbehavior are studies that examine the

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effects of such misdeeds. The authors note that research in

this area almost exclusively investigates the consequences ofaggressive and sexually abusive customer behaviors on

frontline employees. For example, Hughes and Tadic (1998)reveal that sexually deviant behaviors by patrons result in

negative outcomes for frontline workers including increasedintention to quit, loss of interest in their work, withdrawalfrom customer interactions, and reduced job performance.

Offering a broader view via amalgamating previous researchon this area within service contexts, Yagil (2008) classifies the

outcomes of sexual harassment on frontline employees intothree groups. First, “emotional reactions” include negative

effects on employees’ mood states (e.g. anger), depression,and stress disorders. Second, “work related attitudes andbehaviors” describe employees suffering from reduced job

satisfaction, morale, and motivation as a result of enduringsexually abusive behavior by patrons. Third, “physical harm”

depicts injury to the employee’s body and personal property.Recognizing the consequences of aggressive customer

behaviors, multiple authors draw a link between differinglevels of customer violence and employees’ physical andmental well-being. This is demonstrated by Grandey et al.(2004) who link the frequency of verbal aggression to elevatedlevels of employee emotional exhaustion within the context of

call center workers. Investigating a different service context,Karatepe et al. (2009) forwards comparable findings for

frontline hotel staff. Specifically, Karatepe et al. (2009) findstatistical support for the relationship between experiencedverbal aggression and employee emotional dissonance,

exhaustion, and turnover intentions. Distinguishing betweendirect and indirect forms of customer aggression, Dormann

and Zapf (2004) provide evidence of a link between customer-related social stressors and employee burnout, wherein

individuals experience feelings of depersonalization andreduced sense of personal accomplishment. Employeeburnout is also the focus of Ben-Zur and Yagil’s (2005)

study in which evidence of the relationship between highlevels of customer aggression (including the use of offensive

language, verbal threats, and physical attacks) and employeeburnout is found to uphold across multiple service settings.

Divergent to research that examines the outcomes ofaggressive and sexually abusive customer behavior onfrontline employees, Fullerton and Punj (2004) consider,

conceptually, the outcomes of multiple forms of customermisbehavior. Specifically, the authors theoretically distinguish

between the psychological and financial costs of customerdeviance to both frontline personnel and business entities.

Complementary empirical research, derived from qualitativeinterviews with frontline hospitality workers is offered byHarris and Reynolds (2004). Investigating varied forms of

customer misbehavior, the authors forward three categories ofconsequences. First, Harris and Reynolds (2004) note

organizational consequences, which encompass the directand indirect financial costs associated with cleaning up and

compensating the victims of customer misdeeds. Second,positive and negative consequences for fellow customers arehighlighted. Specifically, the authors reveal evidence of

patrons who copy the misbehaviors of fellow customers forgain and those who experience spoilt consumption effects.

Third, discussion of the impact of customer misbehavior onfrontline employees is offered. Identified consequences

include, eroded morale, physical scarring, post-traumaticstress, emotional harm, and emotional labor.

Emotional labor is just one of a number of coping strategies

that are identified by a small group of studies. Here, scholarsattempt to understand how frontline employees make sense of

and cope with incidents of customer misbehavior. Forexample, derived from their qualitative and quantitative

studies, Bailey and McCollough (2000) reveal that emotionallabor is the most commonly adopted coping strategy byfrontline workers faced with disruptive customers. Additional

responses uncovered by Bailey and McCollough (2000, p. 60)include; over compensating and being “extra nice” to

customers, avoiding serving new customers, and ventingwith others behind the scenes. Behind the scenes coping

mechanisms are also acknowledged by Bishop et al. (2005)who in adopting an interpretivist approach, uncover skills thatfrontline workers use to cope with episodes of violent

customer behavior. These include, anger displacement,blaming other frontline workers, and swapping stories with

fellow colleagues in order to try and make light of thesituation.

Empirical support for the existence of socially-derivedcoping mechanisms is also forwarded by Reynolds and Harris(2008). Investigating how 64 frontline bar, hotel, and

restaurant employees manage interactions with misbehavingpatrons, the authors promote three time-orientated categories

of employee tactics labeled; pre-incident, during the incident,and post-incident. First, pre-incident tactics depict

employees’ engagement in mental preparation for work,altering clothing, observing patrons, and consumingintoxicating substances. Second, during-incident tactics

uncovered include ignoring customers, bribing customers,altering speech patterns, exploiting sexual attractiveness,

manipulating items within the servicescape setting, andemploying emotional labor (typically, surface acting)

techniques. Third, identified post-incident frontlinepersonnel tactics comprise talking to colleagues, individualisolation, venting emotions, and attempting to gain revenge

over the offending customer. Later, Yagil (2008) analyses andsynthesizes the work of Harris and Reynolds (2003) and

others and distinguishes between employee’s coping tacticsthat are problem-solving, escape-avoidance, or support-

seeking focused. For example, problem-solving focusedstrategies involve the employee reducing the stressassociated with dealing with sexually abusive customers

through planning, analysis, and effort, while escape-avoidancestrategies includes attempts to try and trivialize the incident.

Finally, support-seeking strategies embrace the use of humorin group contexts as a means to dissipate the upset caused bycustomer misbehavior.

Aligned with literature which recognizes the impact ofcustomer misbehavior is a small group of texts which offer

prescriptions recommending how employees should deal withmisbehaving customers. Typically, such studies are found in

practitioner-based literature. For example, identifying ninetypes of “customers from hell” Belding (2000), prescribes

“L.E.S.T.E.R.” to employees on the interface of customermisbehavior. Focusing on the tactics that frontline employeesshould adopt while interacting with misbehaving customers,

Belding (2000) recommends, listening, echoing,sympathizing, thanking, evaluating, and responding as

(somewhat subservient) customer interface tactics.Concentrating on the activities of “unfair customers”, Berry

and Seiders (2008) contemplate what managers can do aboutcustomer misbehavior. Discussed approaches include firing

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undesirable customers, preparing for rude customers through

learning from past episodes, and responding to customers’

unfairness in a firm manner so not to reward misbehavior.This small group of studies contrasts markedly in size with a

much broader and developed body of literature that identifies

managerial tactics for dealing with misbehaving employees(see Ackroyd and Thompson, 1999; Thomlinson and

Greenberg, 2010; Neuman and Keashly, 2010). In this

sense, the focus of previous research on managerial strategiesand tactics with relation to deviant behaviors has almost

exclusively concentrated on the management of deviantemployees. This focus is to the detriment to our

understanding of managerial strategies and tactics associated

with customer misbehavior. Thus, the authors identify apertinent gap in the literature.

To summarize, a review of extant literature reveals that, todate, research that attempts to offer insight into the impact of

customer misbehavior has focused almost exclusively on the

experience of the frontline employee within contexts of violentand sexually aggressive behaviors. This focus has been to the

detriment of research that examines the experience of

frontline workers and managers within organizations whofrequently and at times simultaneously, encounter multiple

forms of customer misbehavior. In this sense, no previous

studies have garnered empirical data that offers insight intothe proactive and reactive strategies and tactics that managers

employ when dealing with misbehaving customers within theirfirm. The current study intends to contribute to this identified

research gap.

4. Research methods

Given the relatively poorly understood nature of the effects

and management implications of customer misbehavior andthe paucity of studies into this phenomenon (see Reynolds

and Harris, 2009), an exploratory research design was

deemed appropriate to elucidate the core issues and todevelop insights into the dynamics of these concepts.

Accordingly, we undertook an in-depth, one-to-one,

interview-based study which allowed informants to describecontext-specific events in their own language and jargon while

allowing the researchers to explore interesting events and toprobe informants for interpretations and reflections.

The setting for the study was the retail sector. The retail

sector was deemed appropriate for a variety of reasonsincluding labor intensity, frequency of customer-contact, and

size/economic importance. Organizations were selected at

random from a directory of retail firms. Initial telephonecontact with Corporate of Head Offices requested that an

outlet and individual manger be selected at random. In store,one in every two outlets visited were requested to select a

random frontline employee. The employing organizations of

informants ranged from firms with five branches tomultinational organizations with many thousands of outlets.

Outlet size varied from branches with as few as 12 employees

to outlets with hundreds of members of staff.In the current study, the interviews largely focused on the

asking of open-ended questions which allow respondents todescribe their experiences, actions and motivations. This

approach is argued to generate rich and real data whilst

capturing “true” depictions of events and feelings from theinformants’ perspective (Stauss and Weinlich, 1997).

Typically, interviews lasted between 45 and 60 minutes

(although some lasted as long as two hours). In total, 88

interviews were conducted in 57 firms during 2009-2010; 64

with retail managers and 24 with frontline employees (whoseroles were primarily customer-contact). Different interview

schedules were developed for both managers and front-line

workers with the interviews of managers concentrated on theimpact of customer behavior on their role and on their

employees while interviews with front-line employees focusedon their interpretations of customer misbehavior. In both

case, interview schedules were flexible to permit detailed

discussion of interesting phenomena and were amended asinsightful issues were uncovered. Most of the informants were

female (57), the average age of those interviewed was 34, theaverage length of tenure in the current firm was 3.1 years,

with an average industry experience of 7.2 years.Each interview began with the collection of socio-

demographic information, and a discussion regarding the

nature of customer misbehavior. Each interview was audio-record and later transcribed verbatim by the research team.

Informants were verbally probed through a set of open-ended

questions to provide a verbal account(s) of their work andtheir experiences of customer misbehavior. Thereafter,

rationales, motives, interpretations, and explanations for

behavior were discussed. As recommended by Lindolf(1995) the researchers seized appropriate opportunities to

follow potentially worthy lines of inquiry in order toencourage elaboration.

Data analysis focused on the systematic evaluation of the

transcripts of interviews coupled with interview notes. Tostructure this process we employed a variation of the iterative

analysis process originally designed by Turner (1981) andadvocated by Reynolds and Harris (2006) as especially

appropriate for analyses of consumer misbehavior. Following,

well-established protocol, our data analysis approach involvedcoding data into theoretically derived categories in terms of

the variety of themes and sub themes that emerged (see

Glaser and Strauss, 1967). We then subjected these themes tocritical evaluation, resulting in fewer themes and sub themes.

This process continued until the point of theoreticalsaturation, wherein no new insights were gained (see Strauss

and Corbin, 1990). Coding themes were first undertaken by

the lead investigator (and data collector) and subsequentlyindependently by the second author. Results were compared

and broad agreement found in all but the labeling of two sub-themes. These two codes were jointly discussed leading to

hybrid theme labels and the resulting analysis and codes

approved by a neutral, non-participating academician. Togauge further the veracity of our analysis, our coding

procedures and themes were reviewed by two academicians

and our themes and findings were critically evaluated by fivesenior executives with extensive experience in the field.

Following agreed ethical protocol, to maintain the anonymityof individuals and organizations, identifying details (such as,

names) have been changed.

5. Findings

Interviews with frontline, customer-contact employees andmanagers suggested that their attitudes and behaviors were

heavily affected by customer misbehavior. All of the

customer-contact staff involved in the study stated thatmisbehavior by customers was a routine, unremitting,

everyday experience. Indeed, consistent with the contentions

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of Fullerton and Punj (2004), seven frontline employees

argued that customer misbehavior was so usual that non-

deviant customer behaviors were atypical and rare. Although

the managers interviewed commonly experienced less

customer-contact, they also universally argued that customer

misbehavior affected both them personally and their work. In

this regard, this study confirms earlier studies that claim that

customer misbehavior is pervasive and profoundly impactful

(Fullerton and Punj, 1993; Reynolds and Harris, 2006; Fisk

et al., 2010).The findings of our study are presented to two main

sections. First, the impacts and challenges that customer

misbehavior raises for both frontline employees and managers

are discussed. Second, we discuss the coping strategies that

managers employed to minimize or reduce the impacts of

regular customer misbehavior.

5.1 Customer misbehavior

Data analysis revealed that customer misbehavior raised a

number of challenges and a range of consequences for

frontline employees and managers. To guide our discussion,

these are presented in summary form in Figure 1.

5.1.1 Customer misbehavior and frontline employeesFigure 1 depicts three main effects of customer misbehavior

on customer-contact employees; physiological, cognitive, and

attitudinal. These impacts merit further discussion.First, customer-contact employees universally claimed that

deliberate customer misbehavior was a considerable cause of

stress in their working lives which many described in

physiological terms. For example two employee talk of the

effect of customer misbehavior on them:

You know they’re lying, you know that trying to get something for nothing; afast and easy buck. But, we’re paid to stand there like a smiling robot while

some jerk yells at you. Your heart is beating faster than a train, your blood

pressure is rocketing sky-high but you stand there, hour after hour. It’s allstress, all pressure (customer service worker, 11 years experience in

retailing).

The stress can be too much. You can really feel your heart rate racing. Imean, this is real stress – physical, felt stress – not just a bit of “oh, I’ve too

much work to do”. Real, tangible stress, that’s all down to some damn guy

pushing his weight around – trying to be the “big man”, the “top dog”!(customer service worker, 4 years experience in retailing).

Such stress was believed by most of the employees to be

detrimental to their physical and emotional health. Indeed,

many employees argued that misbehavior by customers

eroded their emotional strength and negatively affected not

only their mood during such episodes but also their

temperament afterward. One employee discusses the affect

of an incident on themselves, her team, and her family:

Last week this woman complained to John (the store manager) about the way

I had spoken her. I saw the letter – it was total fiction – complete and uttergarbage. What she wanted was “compensation” – free money. Stuff like that

gets you down, gets everyone down, and really weighs on you and your team.

You don’t mind if they’re (the customers) fair but they’re not – for them it’sdollars in the hand. They (the customers) ddon’t think about how these

things affect us, they don’t care if it’s true, they don’t care if we worry about

it, if it goes on our records, if it stops us sleeping at night [. . .] to them it’sjust money, money, money (customer service worker, 6 years experience in

retailing).

Figure 1 also presents customer misbehavior as affecting the

emotional state of customer-contact employees. Such was the

Figure 1 Customer misbehavior: impacts, challenges, and management strategies

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prevalence of such affects that employees considered

emotional distress caused by customer behavior to be

entirely normal and an everyday occurrence that was part of

their working days. Two employees comment:

I don’t care what anyone says – nobody can just shrug-off what somecustomers will do, what they say. You get upset. You feel down. It is alwayspersonal (customer service worker, 8 years experience in retailing).

The physical work isn’t hard. Tiring sometimes but not hard labor oranything! But you do get to feel that, well, emotionally it can be tough here –everyone gets distressed at some point – everyone has a trigger that hurtsthem (customer service worker, 7 years experience in retailing).

Emotionally, employees felt that customer behavior was a key

source of frustration, anger, guilt, irritation, anxiety, sadness

and even depression. As such, employees’ emotional response

to episodes of customer misbehavior were monotonous

negative. In all of the interviews, not one employee found

customer misbehavior to affect their emotional state in a

position way.Third Figure 1 depicts customer misbehavior as linked to

employee work-related cognitions. Unsurprisingly, given the

perceived stress such behaviors are thought to cause;

employees cited repeated customer misbehavior as a source

of motivation and job satisfaction erosion. More experienced(and arguably, more cynical) customer-contact employees

claimed that exposure to perpetual misbehaving customers,

reduced their trust in customer honesty and ethical behavior,

and acted as a significant counterpoint to management

exhortations to maximize service quality. For example:

After a while you get cynical about all that “the customer is king” crud. Youcan’t tell me that customers are anything other than lying, cheating SOBs! Itdoesn’t matter what management spout – you can’t trust customers to doanything other than yank your chain (customer service worker, 10 yearsexperience in retailing).

You ever seen “house” (a popular television show)? House says “everybodylies”. He right – in our case it just should be “every customer lies, cheats,and is darn rude about it too” (customer service worker, 8 years experiencein retailing).

While many customer-contact employees claimed to like their

job, without exception, they stated that customer-contact with

misbehaving customers was the worst element of their role

and constituted a key source of job dissatisfaction. One

employee stated:

You get so many of them doing what you call misbehaving [. . .] (snorts) [. . .]I call it plain rude. This job would be great without them (the customers) butthey’re so many that somebody normal, like me, is rare. It’s by far the worstpart of the job – some days it feels like the only part (customer serviceworker, 5 years experience in retailing).

More experienced employees were more fatalistic regarding

such effects. However, recently hired employees were

shocked, not only by the level of customer misbehavior, but

also the impact such episodes had on their personal and group

satisfaction. For instance:

I’d always thought that most people, most customers, were okay. A day herecured me of that! I’m amazed just how horrible some customers are – somean, so sneaky. They (the customers) do not see the impact they have. Itturns a good day into a bad one – a good job into a misery (customer serviceworker, three months experience in retailing).

Linked to impacts on employee cognitions, were effects onemployee attitudinal predispositions. Two main issues clearly

emerged. First were the links to employee affective

commitment (see Meyer et al., 1993). Predictably, given the

stress, de-motivation, and dissatisfaction linked to customer

misbehavior, many front-line employees argued that their

commitment to remain in post and/or with their employingorganization was severely limited. For example:

Do I want this job with these customers for ever? No way. Not this job –people are just too unpleasant for words. Any other job will do (customerservice worker, 3 years experience in retailing).

I’ve already told them (the management), I’ll do any job off the shop floorbut I’m not staying here to be abused everyday (customer service worker, 2years experience in retailing).

Interestingly, nearly three-quarters of the frontline employeesinterviewed blamed both the customer and the organizationfor the behavior of customers. For instance:

Yes, the customers can be total idiots but you can’t blame them alone. Ifmanagement do nothing to stop it, why stop? I blame the managers here asmuch as the customers (customer service worker, 6 years experience inretailing).

While these views of the organization may not be entirely fair(see later), such opinions were common.

The second employee attitudinal predisposition affected bycustomer behavior appeared to be negative reciprocal norms.Based on the earlier work of Gouldner (1960), Eisenbergeret al. (2004, p. 788) define a negative norm of reciprocity ascomprising “a unitary set of beliefs favoring retribution as thecorrect and proper way to respond to unfavorable treatment.”Although norms are relatively stable, evidence emerged thatlonger-serving frontline employees tended to hold negativereciprocal norms much more strongly than less-experiencedor long serving employees. For example, the opinions of along serving and a newly-appointed employee markedlycontrast:

Long experience has taught me to treat customers as they treat me. Theymess with me, I’ll get them back – like the Good Book says – “an eye for aneye” (customer service worker, 16 years experience in retailing).

I know some of the older guys react it but just ’cos customers are rude,doesn’t mean I should respond the same way [. . .] even when the managersaren’t looking (Customer Service Worker, three months experience inretailing].

This finding appears to suggest that the attitudes of customer-contact employees are affected by long-term exposure tocustomer behaviors.

5.1.5 Customer misbehavior and management challengesFigure 1 also depicts a number of management challengesarising from customer misbehavior. Data analysis reveals thatthe four main management challenges are conflictingpressures, recruitment and retention, counseling andmotivation, and time expenditure. These are discussed inturn below.

First, managers were keenly aware that persistent customermisbehavior placed them under conflicting pressures.Frontline employees, frequently vociferously, complained ofdeviant, boorish, and unscrupulous customer behaviors whilesenior management guidelines, often enshrined in induction,recruitment, and training procedures, extolled the merits (andindeed, enforced) customer orientation and high servicequality standards. These dual pressures generated strain andtensions for managers. Two explain:

On the one hand we push our variation on “the customer is always right” butin the back of your mind you’re thinking “No, their not – they’re fraudsters,con-artists, and a pain in the butt!” It’s not quite a simple as that but that’show you feel sometimes (manager, six years experience in retailing).

Well, there’s the company line – you know – it’s right, that’s how thingsshould be! However, the reality is not so ideal, not so black and white. Theway Head Office thinks about these things is just not real – it’s not the same.It’s the ideal versus the real, real world. And the real world, and real

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customers are not very nice sometimes, however much you want them to be!

(manager, nine years experience in retailing).

Similarly, HR Managers recognized the conflicting pressures

of customer orientation to misbehaving customers with their

professional duty of care to their employees. For example:

I’ve got sixteen-seventeen year olds on the shop floor – the same age as my

daughters. Would I want my kids exposed to some of the things that

customers say and do? No way! We’ve a duty to protect them from that sort

of thing. It’s a balance between get the staff out there that we need to run the

business and making sure that our people don’t get hurt in the process

(manager, 16 years experience in retailing).

In particular, managers expressed concerns regarding the

employment of part-time (often weekend-only) staff who were

often very young. Indeed, three managers argued that such

was the pervasiveness of customer misbehavior in their outlet,

that potentially vulnerable employees should not be employed

and exposed to such behavior (in part on moral grounds but

also because of fear of ensuing legal action for lack of care).Managers also stated that the existence of customer

misbehavior raised challenges during recruitment and

retention of customer-contact employees. Two mangers

discuss their recruitment concerns:

If we did personality profiles for these jobs, they’d definitely be a type that

fits. Some types just will not put up with it – cann’t take it. Others who’re

quieter but, well, tougher, can (manager, ten years experience in retailing).

Some people don’t have the spunk for it. It takes a certain kind of strength to

put up with somebody lying to you face and just smiling and saying “sorry”.

You can see that during interviews. Nice, good people – just the wrong sort

for the job (manager, 16 years experience in retailing).

In this regard, most managers argued that their interview

process sought out employees with the social skills and

character traits best able to cope with misbehaving

consumers. Nevertheless, nearly three-quarters of those

managers interviewed claimed that, in their experience, a

key source of employee turnover was either individual

episodes of extreme customer misbehavior or turnover

triggered by incessant and unremitting consumer abuse.

One noted:

Some of them get ground down by the day-to-day, constant hassle and

trouble. Others, well, something sets them off – a really, really, really bad

customer, one insult too many and that’s it. They can’t take any more – it

doesn’t matter what we do (manager, six years experience in retailing).

In this sense, managers observed that the poor behavior of

customers was a central concern in both their recruitment

approaches and their retention strategies (see later).Another challenge arising from customer misbehavior

centers on an increased need for counseling and motivating

staff. Many of the managers interviewed stated that one of

their key roles was in the informal counseling of employees to

improve individual and collective morale. For example:

In terms of morale abusive customers are a big problem. I make it part of my

day to talk to as many people as I can. You know – ask them “how are

things?”, “is everyone okay?”, “what’s the news?”. That way, you keep in

touch and you get to pick them up a bit – cheer them up, keep them “on

song”. Nothing formal – just talking things through can make a big

difference (manager, 16 years experience in retailing).

I’d say a lot of what I do is counseling of a sort. A problem shared is halved.

If they can get it off their chest then they’ll feel better, work harder. Simple

stuff raises morale – improves their motivation. Showing that you care about

them, make their job a little less rough [. . .] it makes it easier for them to

shrug off a bad day, a bad customer (manager, 12 years experience in

retailing).

Interestingly, many of the less experienced managers noted

that this counseling role was something that they had not

expected but had been passed on by more experienced

managers. One observed:

I think that when you start the job, you’ve got so much theory and strategy inyour head that you miss the nitty gritty stuff. A lot of the things we do, we

learn on the job – the guy that trained me here, spent a lot of his dayshowing me that talking to people was way more effective than “grand

strategies”. If you’ve spent two hours listening to people trying to returnobviously used and broken goods and lying through their teeth, talking about

it helps! (manager, one years experience in retailing).

However, analysis of data indicated an element of gender bias

in informal counseling. Typically, male managers were

involved in less counseling activity. Indeed, in branches with

male managers, informal counseling roles were most

commonly undertaken by the predominately female HR

assistants (who were typically part-time, middle-aged

females). Nevertheless, each outlet had at least one person

who took it upon themselves to “talk through” episodes of

customer misbehavior, often with the formal approval of store

management:

Joan [the HR Assistant] is our “agony aunt”. At the end of a bad day, she’ll

pick you up, feed you chocolate, and set you right! Everyone talks to her. I

tell all the new staff to talk to Joan (manager, 12 years experience inretailing).

Finally, all the interviewed managers mentioned the amount

of time they spent dealing with customer misbehavior. Often

managers undertook roles as duty/store managers on a rotated

basis. In such positions, these managers were directly involved

at the customer interface and frequently noted the time

dedicated to customer misbehavior:

Sometimes an entire shift is sorting out the fallout. One incident with anabusive customer can last for hours. You’ve got to placate the customer while

not enraging your staff, do the paperwork, counsel upset staff, re-arrangeshifts [. . .] it knock any plans you’ve had right out. You spend the rest of the

day trying to get things back on track (manager, 17 years experience in

retailing).

Similarly, managers argued that many of their activities were

either directly or indirectly related to the extent of customer

misbehavior. One manager claimed:

It’s in the back of your mind for so much of what we do. Whether it’s

recruiting, induction, training, morale – whatever. You just got to keep it in

mind. In terms of time – I’d say it’s difficult to say because it just one ofthose factors you need to think about. You certainly can’t ignore it!

(manager, six years experience in retailing).

In summary, analysis of interview data strongly demonstrated

that managers were faced with a range of challenges arising

both directly and indirectly from customer misbehavior.

Varying from conflicting pressures to recruitment procedures,

such challenges placed significant demands on the time of

managers.

5.2 Customer misbehavior: management strategies and

tactics

Having explored the impact of customer misbehavior on

frontline employees and the challenges it raises for managers,

the remainder of this paper focuses on the strategies and

tactics adopted by management to minimize such impacts and

challenges. During data collection, evidence emerged of six

main ways in which managers attempted to reduce or to

alleviate harmful customer misbehavior (see Figure 1). These

six strategies and tactics are discussed in turn below.

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First, as suggested earlier, managers attempted to counter

the impact of customer misbehavior through employing

employees with personalities and attitudinal characteristics

best suited to exposure to, sometimes, unpleasant, rude, and

deceitful customers. All of the managers interviewed accepted

that certain types of employees were best suited to customer-

contact work and consequently were highly-rated and

regarded during employment interviews. Two managers

comment:

Most of the customer-contact staff fall into a certain type. It’s really pre-selection – the one’s that can cope stay and the one’s who can’t leave. Theproblem for us are the ones who leave and try and join us. If they can’t copesomewhere else, there’s no way on earth that they can cope here – at least onthe shop floor – off the floor it’s a different matter (manager, seven yearsexperience in retailing).

Getting staff of the right type is better for all concerned. Better for theemployee, better for us in that we hold on to them, better for the company inthat they’re robust enough to fend off some of the jerks that try to rip us off,and even better for customers who get handled better (manager, 22 yearsexperience in retailing).

In this sense, the managers interviewed argued that judicious

selection of appropriately tempered and suitably disposed

customer-contact employees, reduced the impact of customer

misbehavior both on the employee themselves but also on the

broader organization.Two customer-contact employee characteristics were

particularly valued; (especially, verbal) social skills, and

public self-confidence. Good social skills were deemed

advantageous in contributing to a customer orientation but

also beneficial when dealing with often discourteous (and

sometimes, dishonest) complaints. One manager explains:

Working with the public you need a good set of social skills – you need to beable to communicate well. Some applicants look great on paper but whenyou interview them, their social skills are poor – they can’t talk to peoplewithout sounding false or ummm, well sycophantic. When the customer is“playing up” and “yanking your chain”, you’ve got to be able to talk to them(manager, six years experience in retailing).

Public self-confidence was also highly valued by prospective

employers. Public self-confidence refers to the extent to which

employees’ have a disposition that focuses on how their

actions are perceived by others (Buss, 1980; Marquis and

Filiatrault, 2002). Managers argued that employees with high

public self-confidence had the psychological “strength” to

cope with misbehaving customers without succumbing

(unnecessarily) to their unfounded complaints or claims.

For example:

They’ve got to be spunky in their attitude. Happy to talk up – not be over-ridden by a customer who just wants to shout them down. A bit of backbonegoes a long way! (manager, two years experience in retailing).

While managers acknowledged that not all the customer-

contact employees they hired had highly developed social

skills and high public self-confidence, they universally agreed

that such employees were the targets of the recruitment and

retention strategies.Second, managers had altered their induction and training

procedures and systems to account for customer misbehavior.

In larger organizations, customer misbehavior was

acknowledged in some formal induction and training

procedures (although, typically, the focus was on placating

customer “misunderstandings”). However, in smaller

organizations, customer misbehavior was neglected in

formal procedures. Consequently, managers closer to the

customer interface had altered their induction and training

systems to reflect a more “realistic” (albeit unpleasant) stance.

Two managers comment:

Here we’ve added on to the company induction procedures. We need it – thecompany line is a bit too idealistic – we needed to temper that with thereality for us in this neighborhood. Here things aren’t “ideal” and we need tomanage the expectations of new staff. The customer may well be “King” butnobody said that kings are nice! (manager, 16 years experience in retailing).

I would’t stay that we’re different in our training just a bit more balanced. Ifwe’re training up on customer service we add in a few scenarios about thecustomer being wrong or rude or shouting or something (manager, eightyears experience in retailing).

During induction sessions and customer service training,

managers adopted a range of different techniques, designed toimprove employees’ interaction with misbehaving customers.Approaches included role play, footage or recordings of actualcustomers, surface emotional labor, and the provision and

discussion of statements designed to control the exchangewith the customer.

In most of the organizations studied, informal guidelines

existing regarding unacceptable customer behavior. Formalguidelines were comparative rare. Moreover, such tolerancelevels varied considerably (even within organizations). A

manager comments about her experience:

I was shocked when I came here. In my old store – any aggression and thatwas it – out. Here, there were customers throwing things and nothing beingdone! For me, “no way”, cross the line and that’s it – our people don’t haveto put up with that! (manager, 17 years experience in retailing).

In most organizations, tolerance was gauged via language

(such as, use of expletives) or via aggressiveness. Employeeresponses to violations of such levels ranged from verbalwarnings, to the escalation of the issue to managers, to (in oneorganization) the contacting of the onsite security staff.

The third strategy adopted by managers to counter theeffects of customer misbehavior center on altered employeeremuneration. Most of the frontline, customer-contact

employees were paid on an hourly rate. Many managersincreased this rate for roles which involved extensive orprolonged exposure to customer misbehavior, such as, rolesinvolving customer complaints or goods returning. In part,

such enhanced remuneration reflected market realities. Amanager explains:

There are, there have to be, different rates for different roles. For example,we pay our customer service staff more than the fillers (shelf stackers), morethan the checkout operators. It’s a matter of role stress – they get so muchgrief from customers that we have to pay them more or they won’t do it –they’d all swop jobs if the pay were the same! (manager, five years experiencein retailing).

In larger organizations with less flexible remuneration rates

and (arguably) more sophisticated procedures, managersaltered shift patterns to reward those employees exposed tocustomer misbehavior. Such alterations to shifts and hours

worked included allocating employees overtime and holidayshifts (both with added pay and sometimes additional leaveentitlements) as well as allowing employees who worked inparticular roles during especially different shifts (such as

Saturday afternoons) to choose other shifts which wereparticularly sought after. For example:

We have quite rigid rates of pay that we have no control over. So, I rewardpeople by giving them the shifts they want or overtime if they want it – somewant to work holidays. It’s kinda a form of indirect reward (Manager,twenty-two years experience in retailing].

In addition to manipulating employee financial remunerationas a form of compensation for customer misbehavior,

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managers also recognized the important of non-financial

remuneration. Indeed, many of the managers interviewed

used praise and stressed improved promotion prospects

during interactions with employees post customer

misbehavior episodes.Particularly in larger organizations, managers sensitively

designed work teams to minimize the impact of customer

misbehavior. Partly, out a duty of care to (potentially)

vulnerable employees, managers were notably meticulous in

their design of teams for both existing staff but also during

recruitment of new staff (see earlier). Two managers outline

their approaches:

The team is very important. Different mixes work differently. All young menis a bad mix. Too much horseplay – too little work! Too much testosterone

to deal with awkward customers! We think very carefully about the mix ofemployees in each team. I talk through all team changes with the teamleaders and experiment with different mixes to see what works (manager, 11years experience in retailing).

Although team designs varied from context-to-context, many

managers believed that customer misbehavior was minimized

by the presence of particular types of employees. In particular,

middle-aged female employees were frequently viewed as

diplomatic, good communicators, and fair; all skills viewed as

advantageous when placating misbehaving or unfairly

complaining customers. For instance:

It’s a stereotype but certain types are much better with difficult customers.

Not only do they handle them better but I’d say some types put people offtrying. Middle-aged, mums with a cynical eye are difficult to fool. I guessmost folks“ll stop themselves kicking off in from of someone that looks liketheir Mom! [manager, 17 years experience in retailing).

Indeed, consistent with Harris (2008), 40 percent of

managers claimed that successful instances of fraudulent

returning fell by as much as fifty percent (and as little as ten

percent) when returns desk were staffed by certain employees

(often, but not exclusively, middle-aged, long-serving, female

employees).The fifth tactic employed by managers, to reduce the

impact of customer misbehavior, centered on counseling

frontline, customer-contact managers and staff. Such

counseling was both formal and informal in nature. For

example:

Informal chats with people are probably more common. I guess it’scounseling but it’s really good man-management, umm, people-management. Some customer can really get to you and we need to help;

lift them back up – get them on-side again (manager, 16 years experience inretailing).

Formal counseling is rarer but equally important. We need to help peopletalk these things through. If we don’t, they’ll leave and we’ll have lost a good

employee that we can ill-afford to lose. Just talking things through over ahalf-hour can make a real difference to how people think about things(manager, seven years experience in retailing).

Moreover, recipients of counseling included both employees

and managers exposed to customer misbehavior. Data

analysis suggests that such counseling was more common

amongst less experienced employees and for all staff exposed

to particularly stressful instances of customer misbehavior.Although empirical evidence is somewhat limited,

consistent with Reynolds and Harris (2006), both recipients

of counseling and the HR managers themselves all believed

that talking about customer misbehavior with colleagues

reduced the negative affects of such episodes.Finally, data analysis suggested that some managers at both

store and support center levels, strategically altered store

servicescapes in an effort both to minimize occurrences ofcustomer misbehavior and to reduce the potentially damagingaffects of such episodes. One manager describes herorganization’s policy regarding the reduction of customerrage incidents at customer service/returns desks:

When we were re-furb’ed (a store refurbishment), made the customer servicedesk wider. It makes more of a barrier you see? That and the reinforced glassdoor. They (the staff) can’t be got, at you see? Apparently they’re doing thiseverywhere. I guess they’re scared of being sued if a customer turns nasty!(manager, six years experience in retailing).

Similarly, a number of managers referred to (often, store-level) regulations regarding staff uniform designed to reducethe impact of physical attacks on staff. While changes tolayout and uniforms were comparatively rare, the use of highlyvisible surveillance (either video-based or via securitypersonnel) were commonly used, in part, to reducecustomer misbehavior. The rationale for such changes isexplained by a store manager:

Much of our surveillance is, by definition, “covert” but we use highly visiblecameras for trouble “hot spots”. In essence, customers are much less likely todo something stupid if they know that we’re recording their every move!(manager, 12 years experience in retailing).

Although, managers argued that such changes were widelybelieved to reduce the likelihood of the more extreme formscustomer misbehavior, many frontline staff claimed that while“visible” forms of surveillance reduced the severity of suchevents; the frequency of misbehavior was unaltered.

6. Conclusions and implications

The first contribution of the study centers on the data-grounded insights gained into the pervasiveness of the impactof customer misbehavior. Although previous studies havedocumented a range of (often extreme) acts of customermisbehavior and their impact on frontline employees, theeffects and challenges for managerial staff have been largelyneglected. In this sense, customer misbehavior has often beendisregarded as the abnormal, aberrant acts of atypicalconsumers that merely affect the small number of unluckyor unfortunate frontline employees. In contrast, our studyfinds that customer misbehavior has a profound and pervasiveimpact on both frontline employees and managers. Indeed,some of those interviewed argued that non-deviant customerswere atypical rather than the norm while all of the managersincluded in the study felt that customer misbehavior affectedboth them personally and their work. Thus, these findingsstrongly endorse the view that disregarding customermisbehavior as simply an occasional tactical issue for certainemployees is both unwise and naıve. Conversely, poorlybehaving customers are sufficiently endemic that theconsequences of their behavior are both direct and indirectand therefore must be considered as a management issue thatrequires strategic and tactical attention.

While previous studies have generated interesting andvaluable insights into the consequences of customermisbehavior, their initial focus (understandably) has beenon “extreme” or “severe” acts. However, our researchsuggests that, although extreme acts are destructive andharmful to victims, more common are comparatively minor,and yet everyday incidents that erode the morale, jobsatisfaction, and self-esteem of organizational personnel. Inthis regard, although severely misbehaving customers have aprofound effect on certain employees; the affected victims are

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relatively easily identified and the consequences (less easily)

managed. However, “lower grade”, less shocking

“misdemeanors” by customers are less documented but

more frequent; accruing more victims and rendering

management reactions more difficult. Whether employees

are exposed to severe acts or corrosive customer

“misdemeanors”, our study finds a range of physiological,

cognitive, and attitudinal effects that negatively impact on

personnel. These effects strongly undermine effective human

resource management through eroding affective commitment,

motivation, and emotional health while promoting stress and

negative reciprocal norms.This study also contributes grounded evidence of the range

of management strategies and tactics adopted to minimize or

dissipate the impact of customer misbehavior. To date,

scholarly attention to such issues has been extremely limited

and more often restricted to indirect observations derived

from studies of managing workplace employee deviance

(Kidwell and Martin, 2005; Greenberg, 2010). This

inattention contrasts vividly with the practice uncovered in

our study that details six management strategies employed to

counter or reduce the effects of customer misbehavior. In this

sense, scholarly attention seems significantly behind

contemporary management practice. Moreover, many of the

documented strategies were informal practices adopted by

branch management in an attempt to pragmatize the idealized

prescriptions of senior management. In this sense, top

management appears somewhat divorced from the harsh

realities of branch practice. Interestingly, practitioners appear

to have utilized both reactive and proactive strategies. Post-

event informal and formal counseling reacts to incidents of

customer deviance while proactive strategies such as selective

recruitment and work-team design proactively attempt to

minimize dysfunctional customer behavior. While the focus of

our study has been on elucidating management strategies

(rather than directly on the effectiveness of such approaches),

data analysis strongly supports the view that the managers

adopting these strategies continue to do so, as they see such

strategies as an effective and efficient means of reducing the

impact of customer misbehavior.The findings of the current study also highlight the

significant strain that episodes of customer misbehavior pose

for organizations. That is, although our focus was to explore

the managerial strategies employed to manage customer

misdemeanors, our findings reveal a number of direct and

indirect costs associated with dealing misbehaving customers.

The study findings indicate that customer misbehavior

represents a considerable financial burden for firms ranging

from the direct costs associated with clearing up broken and

destroyed firm property and servicescape artifacts, to the

indirect financial costs linked with loss of time and resources.

Moreover, findings which indicate the adoption of reciprocal

norms by employees suggest significant costs for the long-

term profitability of organizations through undermining

customer satisfaction and retention. The study findings also

show that organizational personnel also incur costs

individually through increased levels of stress, job

dissatisfaction, and reduced levels of morale. Given the

reported pervasiveness of customer misbehavior, collectively

the identified costs suggest that misbehaving customers are

detrimental to both the day-to-day functioning of

organizations and their ultimate bottom line.

The findings of the current study identify a need for the

inclusion of the impacts, strategies, and tactics relating to

customer misbehavior into management frameworks. That is,

our findings reveal that head office strategies frequently

neither acknowledge nor prescribe means of dealing with

customer misbehavior, thus requiring branch managers to

improvise and submit informal strategies and coping tactics.

Rather, in acknowledging the “dark-side” of customer

behavior, organizational frameworks should be developed

accordingly. In this sense, organizational dynamics should not

be strategized from a solely positive perspective. Rather, in

acknowledging and incorporating an understanding of

customer and employee misbehavior, firms’ management

frameworks will reflect modern-day business environments.

Consequently, both academic theory and practitioner

strategies should adapt and reflect the contemporary

business environment.In addition to improving manager’s awareness and

responsiveness to customer misbehavior, branch

management should consider the implications of customer

misbehavior in their organization. We recommend that

practitioners undertake a misbehavior audit that explores

not only the extent of customer misbehavior but also the

mechanisms, systems, and procedures the organization has for

identifying, recording, and attempting to minimize the effects

of dysfunctional customer behavior. This audit often reveals

numerous but non-universal, informal strategies and tactics,

many of which are effective at preventing customer

misdemeanors or reacting to instances of severe customer

acts. The process of collating such grounded procedures is

often illuminating for senior management whose position

often obscures a clear view of the unpleasant customer

interface. However, the formalization and dissemination of

the most effective and efficient strategies and tactics often

proves especially useful for branch-level managers, all of

whom are aware of the difficulties but frequently need

direction in customer misbehavior management. While an

organizational-wide improved recognition of customer

misbehavior may improve morale and assist managers in

improving affective commitment and job satisfaction, the

formalization of misbehavior-sensitive recruitment, induction,

and training procedures are likely to contribute to

misbehavior reduction (or, at least, a reduction in the harm

caused). Nevertheless, is seems unrealistic to assume that

customer behavior can be entirely eliminated; merely, to some

extent, managed.As with all studies, our research findings and implications

are limited by the research design and methods we employed.

Two limitations suggest potentially fruitful avenues for future

study. First, our focus was on the retail sector. Future

research is needed to explore the extent to which our findings

and implications can be generalized to other contexts. While it

seems likely that the impacts of customer misbehavior are

similar in differing contexts, context idiosyncrasies are likely

to evolve distinct tactical and strategic responses. Second, to

improve the external validity of our findings, a future survey-

based approach with a longitudinal design is needed that

could evaluate the effectiveness of strategies and tactics as well

as exploring the causal links between customer misbehavior

frequency, severity and its consequences.

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Lloyd C. Harris and Kate Daunt

Journal of Services Marketing

Volume 27 · Number 4 · 2013 · 281–293

290

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About the authors

Dr Lloyd C. Harris is a Head of the Marketing Group and

Professor of Marketing at Warwick Business School. His main

research interests include the marketing-organizational

behavior interface, market orientation, dysfunctional

behavior during consumption, e-loyalty and organizational

culture. His work has been published in the Journal ofRetailing, Journal of Services Research, Journal of the Academy ofMarketing Science, Journal of Management Studies, Journal ofBusiness Research, Journal of Services Marketing, and LongRange Planning. Lloyd C. Harris is the corresponding author

and can be contacted at: Lloyd.Harris@wbs.ac.ukDr Kate Daunt (nee Reynolds) is a Senior Lecturer in

Strategic Marketing at Cardiff Business School. Her main

research interests include: customer complaining dynamics,

dysfunctional customer behaviors, dysfunctional behavior at

work, and servicescapes. Previously, her work has appeared in

the Journal of Retailing, Journal of Service Research and the

Journal of Services Marketing.

Executive summary and implications formanagers and executives

This summary has been provided to allow managers and executivesa rapid appreciation of the content of this article. Those with aparticular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in

toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of theresearch undertaken and its results to get the full benefits of thematerial present.

Whoever came up with that corporate cliche “The Customer

is King” has a lot to answer for. It has been attributed to

marketing pioneer John Wanamaker (the same guy who said

half the money he spent on advertising was wasted – the

trouble was he didn’t know which half) but, witty quotes

apart, some kings were pretty awful people. And so are some

customers – including those who go into a store with that

“customer is king” attitude and treat front-line employees

despicably.The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which

represents British employees in those sectors, reported that a

worker is verbally abused, threatened with violence, or

physically attacked every minute of the working day. In the

US an investigation at call-centers found workers there being

exposed to, on average, 10 incidents of customer aggression a

day. Attacks on and threats to staff are intolerable but they are

not the only ways that customers reveal their dark side.

Inflating insurance claims is common. So too is buying an

item – possibly clothing – and taking it back for a refund after

it has been used. Then there is vandalism and, of course,

theft.Strategies for minimizing the impact of customer

misbehavior include deliberately choosing front-line staff

who are thought to have the self-confidence and disposition to

diffuse difficult or potentially dangerous situations. So too is

extra remuneration for staff who come into contact with

errant customers. It follows therefore that bad behavior from

customers affects the employee on the receiving end, the

manager and the management strategy.In their study “Managing customer misbehavior: challenges

and strategies” Lloyd C. Harris and Kate Daunt note that

customer-contact employees universally claimed that

Managing customer misbehavior

Lloyd C. Harris and Kate Daunt

Journal of Services Marketing

Volume 27 · Number 4 · 2013 · 281–293

292

deliberate customer misbehavior was a considerable cause of

stress in their working lives which many described in

psychological terms. Such stress was believed by most

employees to be detrimental to their physical and emotional

health. Indeed, many said customer misbehavior eroded their

emotional strength and negatively affected not only their

mood during such episodes but also their temperament

afterwards.Managers have hired employees with personalities and

attitudinal characteristics best suited to exposure to

unpleasant, rude, and deceitful customers. They have also

altered their induction and training methods to account for

customer misbehavior. In larger organizations, customer

misbehavior was acknowledged in some formal induction

and training procedures (although, typically, the focus was on

placating customer “misunderstandings”). However, in

smaller organizations, customer misbehavior was neglected

in formal procedures. Consequently, managers closer to the

customer interface had altered their induction and training

systems to reflect a more “realistic” (albeit unpleasant) stance.

Another strategy centers on remuneration – i.e. extra pay for

roles which involve extensive or prolonged exposure to

customer misbehavior (“returns” or “complaints” counters

for example).The study finds that customer misbehavior has a profound

and pervasive impact on both front-line employees and

managers. Indeed, some of those interviewed argued that

non-deviant customers were atypical rather than the norm

while all of the managers included in the study felt that

customer misbehavior affected both them personally and their

work. This endorses the view that disregarding customer

misbehavior as simply an occasional tactical issue for certain

employees is both unwise and naıve. Conversely, poorly

behaving customers are sufficiently endemic that the

consequences of their behavior are both direct and indirect

and therefore must be considered as a management issue that

requires strategic and tactical attention.

Although extreme acts are destructive and harmful tovictims, more common are comparatively minor, and yeteveryday, incidents that erode the morale, job satisfaction,and self-esteem of organizational personnel. These “lowergrade” and perhaps “less shocking” misdemeanors bycustomers are less documented but more frequent, accruingmore victims and rendering management reactions moredifficult. Whether employees are exposed to severe acts orcorrosive customer misbehavior, the study found a range ofphysiological, cognitive, and attitudinal effects that negativelyimpact on personnel. These strongly undermine effectivehuman resource management through eroding affectivecommitment, motivation, and emotional health whilepromoting stress and negative reciprocal norms.

Customer misbehavior represents a considerable financialburden for firms ranging from the direct costs associated withclearing up broken and destroyed firm and servicescapeartifacts, to the indirect financial costs linked with loss of timeand resources. Personnel also incur costs individually throughincreased levels of stress, job dissatisfaction, and reducedlevels of morale. Given the reported pervasiveness ofcustomer misbehavior, collectively the identified costssuggest that misbehaving customers are detrimental to boththe day-to-day functioning of organizations and their ultimatebottom line.

There is a need for the inclusion of the impacts, strategies,and tactics relating to customer misbehavior intomanagement frameworks. Head office strategies frequentlyneither acknowledge nor prescribe means of dealing withcustomers. The “dark side” of customers should berecognized in such strategies. By acknowledging andincorporating an understanding of customer and employeemisbehavior, firms” management frameworks will reflectmodern-day business environments.

(A precis of the article “Managing customer misbehavior:challenges and strategies”. Supplied by Marketing Consultantsfor Emerald.)

Managing customer misbehavior

Lloyd C. Harris and Kate Daunt

Journal of Services Marketing

Volume 27 · Number 4 · 2013 · 281–293

293

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