The effect of customer social status and dissatisfaction on service performance

Two studies were conducted to test the impact of customer dissatisfaction and social status on service performance. Study 1 was a scenarios study showing that the negative impact of customer dissatisfaction on self-esteem was stronger for high-status customers compared to low-status customers. Study 2 was a field experiment involving 50 telephone service interactions with retail clothing store employees. Results show that the negative impact of dissatisfaction on civility was stronger for high-status customers compared with low-status customers. The results highlight the gap between organizational policies regarding the management of customer dissatisfaction and front-line employees’ actual reactions to informal expressions of dissatisfaction, as well as the impact of social status on the quality of service provided to customers.