問題顧客行為與服務人員應對策略之研究

Abstract

For well over a decade a growing number of service marketing researchers and practitioners have been exploring the phenomenon of the problem customer and its consequences for frontline employees, other customers and the firm. The motivators for problem customers and the various forms of deviant customer behavior have been documented and categorized. Previous research has also delved into the coping mechanisms and problem solving techniques which frontline service personnel employ while attempting to provide quality service when the customer is dysfunctional in his or her role in the service encounter. Existent research into problem customers has focused on specific sectors of the service industry thus resulting in substantial differences between the types of problem customer behaviors and coping techniques reported. Utilizing previous literature in problem customer behavior and coping mechanisms of frontline employees as a basis for the investigation, this study examines the extent to which previously discovered problem customer behaviors and frontline employees’ coping strategies exist in a more diversified sample group. With the critical incident technique, the researchers identify 9 specific types of problem customer behavior from 204 critical incidents reported in a wide range of service industry sectors. A variety of innovative frontline employee tactics employed by a highly geographically and demographically diverse sample group are also discovered. The author concludes with a discussion on the implications of the investigation for researchers, managers and the frontline employees themselves.