Customer incivility toward frontline employees (FLEs) is a widespread phenomenon within tourism and hospitality industries, severely depleting the psychological resources of FLEs and delivered customer service. Drawing on the job demands-resources and conservation of resources frameworks, the current research compares the effects of the two most common forms of customer incivility on FLEs’ psychological responses and behavioral intentions (study 1). Moreover, this work explores the degree to which supervisor leadership style can mitigate the depleting effects of these two forms of customer incivility on FLEs (study 2). Findings demonstrate that FLEs’ responses to customer incivility episodes remain contingent upon supervisor’s leadership style and acknowledge that an empowering (vs. laissez-faire) leadership style can better mitigate the depleting effects of both customer incivility forms on FLEs’ role stress, rumination, retaliation and withdrawal intentions. The implications of these findings for tourism and hospitality theory and practicing managers are discussed.

Introduction

Chick-fil-A restaurant, Washington D. C, September 2018: A customer verbally attacks an order taker in front of other customers and other members of staff; the shift manager intervenes kindly asking the yelling customer to leave the restaurant. In response, the customer escalates into a fight with the employee, with other customers becoming involved, resulting in the shift manager physically attacking the perpetrator. Customer-captured videos of the event go viral, undermining Chick-Fil-A’s long-standing reputation as the most friendly fast-food restaurant chain across the US (The Washington Post, 2018). As the above incident showcases, customer incivility, defined as “the low-quality interpersonal treatment that employees receive from their customers during service interactions” (Koopmann, Wang, Liu, & Song, 2015), can have detrimental effects on employees, customer service experience, and the overall reputation of the brand. Customer incivility is a global phenomenon with a national survey of fast food workers in Australia revealing that 87% of them have been treated uncivilly by their customers (ABC News, 2018). Likewise, the 2017 Gallup survey among employees in the US, places mistreatment in the workplace by managers, coworkers and customers as the number one cause of burnout (Gallup, 2018), whereas Porath and Pearson (2012) report from a sample of thousands of employees surveyed over 14- years, an astonishing 98% has repeatedly experienced uncivil behaviors.