Reactions and Underlying Mechanisms of Customer Mistreatment: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Service sector employees often deal with mistreatment in their interactions with the customers. Mistreatment during the service interaction varies in severity and intensity ranging from incivility to bullying. However, the current reviews in this domain focus only on certain aspects of mistreatment, rather than looking at customer mistreatment as a holistic phenomenon encompassing a wide range of behaviors. This review provides a thematic synthesis of the literature on customer mistreatment outcomes on employees, identifies boundary conditions of these relationships as well as explains the underlying mechanisms. The review advances the customer mistreatment literature by providing a conceptual framework to explain how reactions towards mistreatment lead to various employee outcomes. Further, the review highlights significant methodological issues and gaps in the existing literature by organizing the customer mistreatment literature and providing agendas for future research.