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Employee/customer interface in a service crisis: Impact of senior management attributes and practices on customer evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Nell Kimberley  and
Charmine EJ Härtel
Nell Kimberley
Affiliation:
Department of Management, Monash University, Caulfield East VIC, Australia
Charmine EJ Härtel
Affiliation:
Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University, Caulfield East VIC, Australia
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Abstract

Customer power is an ever-increasing phenomenon, particularly in relation to service failure. Service failures not only elicit strong emotional reactions from disgruntled customers, but may ultimately lead to a severing of the service provider–customer relationship. A significant but overlooked area of research relates to the behavioural processes which shape customers' perceptions of service failure and recovery. As front-line staffare frequently the customer's only contact in the service encounter, they act as the key referent point in the literature with regard to service quality, speed and convenience. However, it is asserted that as employees of the organisation, senior management also plays an important role. This conceptual paper draws from research in the field of services marketing and organisational behaviour to provide evidence which suggests that customer responses to a service crisis are likely to be affected by perceptions of senior management behaviours and character attributes as generally just. We propose a cumulative effect of these justice perceptions on customer emotions and trust. In the wake of exceptional service failure, we argue, these factors play a vital role in shaping how customers may respond to such events.

Keywords

services marketingservice failureservice recoveryemotionstrustjustice
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 207 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2008

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