Although much has been said and made
about the unacceptable level of service rendered by frontline employees, all
too often, we also find customers competing with such staff to be rude and
uncooperative. Some `ugly' customers are reluctant
to adhere to rules and norms, which dictate that they behave in a certain manner
when a service is rendered.
In the US, service workers fall victims to episodes of customer aggression 10
times a day. In the UK, frontline store assistants are subject to verbal abuse once every
3.75 days, threatening behavior every 15 days and acts of violence every 31 days.
Such dysfunctional customer behavior has been referred to as aberrant or deviant. They
range from more "white-collar" deviations
such as inflating or faking insurance claims to
more "blue-collar" ones such as verbal or
physical abuse of the service provider.
There are several situational and personality factors motivating
such misbehaviors including potential material gain, opportunity to cheat, perceived
injustice, external pressure, and
machiavellianism. What are the consequences of
deviant customer behavior? Dysfunctionally, raging customers can undermine the
service experience of other customers.
Misbehaviors, such as theft, also increase prices of products. |
