Is Customer Incivility a Threat to Employee Wellbeing

Abstract

Service organisations have become the focal points for the rising epidemic of customer incivility. Organisational policies requiring employees to make customers happy, even in situations where customers are indulged in uncivil behaviours, have exerted a negative impact on the employees’ outcomes. The research has reflected that it hinders the growth of frontline employees, which leads to employee turnover. Employee turnover continues to be one of the significant challenges faced by present-day organisations. Customer incivility is regarded as one of the phenomena impacting employees’ intention to stay with the organisation. Applying the conservation of resources theory, the present study develops a research model that examines the relationship between customer incivility, employees’ psychological wellbeing and turnover intentions of the employees. The paper empirically studies employees working in banking sector as they interact with customers on a daily basis. The aim of the paper is to help managers develop effective strategies for employees to deal with uncivil behaviour of customers and reduce employee turnover.

Keywords: Incivility, Customer Incivility, Wellbeing, Psychological Wellbeing

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