When Service Employees Should Not Go the Extra Mile: The Interaction Between Perceived Employee Effort and Customer Misbehaviour Severity

The prevalence of customer misbehaviour challenges managers and employees to apply the right strategy to deviant customers while keeping other customers satisfied. Although a high level of employee effort is deemed best in most service literature, the present research questions the overall effectiveness of such effort. A study with two service contexts confirms that the effect of employee effort on other customers’ satisfaction is greatly influenced by the severity of the observed customer misbehaviour. Indeed, a customer’s severe misbehaviour demands a greater effort from the employee, whereas if the customer’s misbehaviour is less severe, the effectiveness of the employee’s effort significantly decreases, such that a moderate, but never low, level of effort by the employee is required. The effect of employee effort is explained by other customers’ justice perceptions. In addition, the service context in which the customer misbehaviour occurs also determines the effectiveness of customer misbehaviour. Implications and opportunities for future research are discussed.