Dealing with customer misbehaviour : Employees’ tactics, practical judgement and implicit knowledge

• Much current research fails to provide in-depth explanations as to how and with what resources frontline employees deal with incidents where customers display dysfunctional behaviour. By drawing on theory of implicit knowledge and practical judgement this paper aims to explain this and conceptualize inherent structures and sub-mechanisms, central to service marketing. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews and narratives from four different industries, each representing service provision wherein customer misbehaviour is found to be frequent. The results display linkages between the central dimensions of dealing with customer misbehaviour. When incidents of misbehaviour occur they are met by tactics ranging from routinized action to more analytical and strategic approaches. These tactics are guided by underlying mechanisms in the form of practical judgements based on rules, balanced adjustment or reflection, with the judgements in turn being informed by implicit knowledge based on norms, schemes, or multi-perspective thinking. The study reveals patterns of linkages between these.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Customer misbehaviour

dysfunctional service encounters

frontline employees

implicit knowledge

practical judgement

practice theory

tactics

Services marketing

Business and IT

Handel och IT

Företagsekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)