Customer responses to frontline employee complaining in retail service environments: The role of perceived impropriety

Jennifer A. Locander, Allyn White and Christopher L. Newman

Journal of Business Research, 2020, vol. 107, issue C, 315-323

Abstract: Substantial research recognizes the importance of understanding employee-customer interactions in order to optimize the customer experience. While most retailing and services research focuses on frontline employees' handling of customer complaints, the present studies take an inverse approach by examining a relatively unexplored phenomenon: customers' perceptions of frontline employee complaining. First, a pilot study confirms two commonly overheard types of employee complaints - complaints about the company and customers. Next, Study 1 provides empirical support for the effects of overhearing employee complaining on relevant customer outcomes and identifies perceived impropriety as the mediating mechanism underlying these effects. The results of Study 2 indicate that soliciting customers' feedback about their experience attenuates the indirect effects of one type of employee complaint - complaints about the company. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and provide practical suggestions to retailers and service providers for reducing the harmful effects of overheard employee complaints.

Keywords: Retailing; Frontline employee complaining; Customer experience; Dual threshold model; Impropriety; Customer feedback (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296318305174
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:107:y:2020:i:c:p:315-323

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.10.036

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().