Conflict-solving as a mediator between customer incivility and service performance

Seigyoung Auh, Bulent Menguc, Frauke Mattison Thompson and Aypar Uslu

The Service Industries Journal, 2024, vol. 44, issue 5-6, 342-377

Abstract: The customer incivility literature has primarily focused on emotional exhaustion and burnout as emotion-focused mediators that channel the effect of customer incivility. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, the current research proposes a new problem-solving-focused mediator, namely, conflict-solving behavior. The authors test the mediating role of conflict-solving behavior between customer incivility and customer service performance while controlling for emotional exhaustion and employee incivility as parallel mediation mechanisms. The results from three studies provide strong support for a negative relationship between customer incivility and conflict-solving behavior and for conflict-solving behavior as a full mediator between customer incivility and customer service performance. Furthermore, the negative effect of customer incivility on conflict-solving behavior is mitigated when customer service employees are promotion-focused and as investment in customer relationship building increases. The findings extend the scope and generalizability of customer incivility research from the business-to-customer to the business-to-business context. Managerial implications for employee training and hiring as well as the importance of cultivating customer relationships as a buffer to dampen the effect of customer incivility are discussed.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/02642069.2022.2094916

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The Service Industries Journal is currently edited by Eileen Bridges, Professor Domingo Ribeiro, Ronald Goldsmith, Barry Howcroft and Youjae Yi

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