A Different Thought

I found this funny picture and thought I would share it with everyone! Most of the signs and ads we see in restaurants or public places endorse the customer being right and having the power in a service encounter, while the employee bows down and does as instructed. I read Marina’s post and I began to think about the opposite point of view: what happens when the employee has all the power and the customer is put in the difficult situation? Understandably, one would assume he/she could leave the store and not shop there again. However, what if they were not able to easily escape the situation? Would their personalities influence their actions?

In class, we read articles about personalities such as extroversion, neuroticism, and self-monitoring (Hopp et al (2010); Bono and Vey (2007)) and how they effect an employees’ physiological state as well as their job performance. I began to question what neurotic customers would do in situations when the employee became overpowering and out of control. Would they just duck their heads and walk away? Would an extroverted individual become enraged and fight back due to their strong personality? Would a self-monitoring person be polite and simply try to tough it out? Even though further studies examining customers rather than employees might result in similar data, I still think it would be worthwhile to study to further understand the customer’s perspective.

Furthermore, the studies examined in class examined surface and deep acting (Grandey 2003) and the detrimental affects they had on employees. On the contrary, how would a customer act when they were put in an exceptionally stressful situation, much like what an employee has to endure on a daily basis? I would find it interesting to study the physiological effects of deep and surface acting of customers throughout a service transaction. Additionally, in the Hopp et al (2010) article, service employees were asked to deal with a rude and angry customer. Half of them were asked to be friendly (emotional dissonance) towards the customer and the other half were told they could show authentic feelings and act in whichever way they deemed necessary (no emotional dissonance). I would be inclined to know more about “display rules” and emotional dissonance experienced by customers when dealing with an unruly employee.

I thought it was interesting to wonder about the relationship from a different perspective, rather than explicitly from an employee.