Abstract
Two studies were conducted to test the impact of customer dissatisfaction and social status on service performance. Study 1 was a scenarios study showing that the negative impact of customer dissatisfaction on self-esteem was stronger for high-status customers compared to low-status customers. Study 2 was a field experiment involving 50 telephone service interactions with retail clothing store employees. Results show that the negative impact of dissatisfaction on civility was stronger for high-status customers compared with low-status customers. The results highlight the gap between organizational policies regarding the management of customer dissatisfaction and front-line employees’ actual reactions to informal expressions of dissatisfaction, as well as the impact of social status on the quality of service provided to customers.
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Yagil, D., Medler-Liraz, H. The effect of customer social status and dissatisfaction on service performance. Serv Bus 13, 153–169 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-018-0375-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-018-0375-8