Strategies to mitigate customer incivility and enhance job efficiency for frontline staff

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Abstract

Customer incivility not only directly impacts the psychology and motivation of employees, but can also lead to a decrease in service quality and loss of customer loyalty (Mehmood et al., 2023). The goal of this study is to understand the impact of customer incivility on in-role and extra-role performance, under the mediating effect of work-family enrichment. The model was developed based on the addition of previous studies to propose management implications to help increase in-role and extra-role performance. Research data includes 486 samples collected from frontline staff at airports in Vietnam. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was used. The results show that customer incivility has a negative effect on in-role and extra-role performance and has a positive effect on work-family enrichment. The relationship between customer incivility and in-role and extra-role performance was mediated by work-family enrichment. The findings develop deeper theories about the relationships between customer incivility and in-role and extra-role performance. The study also contributes to the literature by examining the mechanism underlying customer incivility and how it affects in-role and extra-role performance. In an effort to reduce the negative consequences of uncivil customers and boost staff efficiency, suggestions for management implications have been made since then.

Keywords: Customer Incivility, Work-Family Enrichment, In-Role Performance, Extra-Role Performance

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — N.C.T.; Methodology — T.M.S.; Software — T.M.S.; Formal Analysis — T.M.S.; Investigation — N.C.T.; Resources — N.C.T.; Data Curation — T.M.S.; Writing — Original Draft — T.M.S.; Writing — Review & Editing — N.C.T.; Visualization — T.M.S.; Supervision — N.C.T.; Project Administration — N.C.T.; Funding Acquisition — N.C.T. and T.M.S.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: C83, L20, M10

Received: 20.06.2024
Revised: 12.08.2024; 19.09.2024; 06.02.2025
Accepted: 03.03.2025
Published online: 06.03.2025

How to cite this paper: Tri, N. C., & Sang, T. M. (2025). Strategies to mitigate customer incivility and enhance job efficiency for frontline staff [Special issue]. Corporate & Business Strategy Review, 6(1), 361–369. https://doi.org/10.22495/cbsrv6i1siart12