Serving Like an Organization: How Foodservice and Retail Workers Interpret Their Interactions With Customers

Abstract

How do customers affect the job quality of frontline workers? This paper draws on over 15,000 observations from two datasets of 10 foodservice and retail companies, conducting qualitative, quantitative, and computational text analysis in order to address this question. Findings suggest that frontline workers evaluate customer interactions in three ways: As an inescapable occupational hazard or benefit, as a source of intrinsic satisfaction, or as the result of organizational strategies. Additionally, frontline workers’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions are more highly associated with agreement or disagreement with organizational strategies regarding customers than other common ways of theorizing customer interactions.