Interactive service work and social alienation

Service work often requires the contribution of the service recipient. Control at work then not only refers to the employee but also to the service recipient. In an empirical study in a call centre in the financial services customer control was studied. Results show the special relevance of one form of control that we call interactive control. Interactive control describes the attempt to influence customer's action in the course of service interaction. Employees often find themselves in the dilemma of having to practice both control and customer orientation. They have to struggle to meet targets concerning the quality of advice on the one hand and deal with clearcut restrictions on call times on the other hand. In the tradition of Hochschild's research attempts at customer control may be linked to the problem of alienation. It is hypothesized that interactive service work mainly entails the danger of one specific form of alienation, social alienation.