The Effects of Customer Anger Slides and Papers Available at Arik Cheshin Rellie Derfler Dorit Efrat Ella Glickson Amir Erez Sharon Lubasch Ella Miron-Spector Shy Ravid Ravit Rozillio Orit Schwartz Anat Rafaeli Technion Israel Institute of Technology

“30% of British Workers experience encounters with bullies on at least a weekly basis” “27% of workers in a representative sample … in Michigan … experienced mistreatment by someone in the workplace.” Professor Anat Rafaeli - Technion, ISRAEL 2

Slides and Papers Available at Implicit Assumption: Displaying Anger to CSR’s Gets Them to Do More for us … But is this true?

4 Effects of Customer Anger on Employee Rewards Organizational Policy (IV*) Role Instructions Customer Complaint (IV**) Customer Reward (DV) Independent Variables Organizational policy (service / profit) Anger intensity (High / Low) Time Dependent Variable Reward (discount, compensation)

Employees Reward Customer Anger

Customer Service Policy Rewards Customer Anger Service Policy: "It is very important for us to keep customers satisfied" Cost Policy: "It is very important for us to keep company profitability"

Slides and Papers Available at What Happens to the Employees Who Encounter the Anger Displayed by Customers?

8 Beal and Weiss et al (2005) Episodic Process Model of Affective Influence Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) Affective Events Theory Emotions Are Tasks that Require Resources

Slides and Papers Available at Baumeister (1998) Cookies or Radishes? Active self is a limited resource Gross, Richards (1999, 2005) Concealing bad feelings requires resources Bad Emotions Can Deplete Resources Social Psychology Findings about Individual Emotion Effects

General Argument: Emotions are Social Influence Agents Hareli, S. & Rafaeli, A. (2008) Research in Organizational Behavior

Slides and Papers Available at Customer Hostile Emotions Available Research is about Effects of Own Emotions! Employee’s Resource Depletion 

Slides and Papers Available at Customer request Employee Task: Handling details. Multiple folders Customer Contact Center

Slides and Papers Available at Angry – Rude CustomerPolite Customer It’s such a nightmare to reach you! Your service is just horrible. Update my home phone to George Ashley My home phone number changed. Need to update it please. My number is Thank you very much, George Ashley. I am sick and tired of your lousy service. Move me to the weekend deal. Password is "Friends". Josh. Hi please note my request to move me to the weekend deal. My password is "Friends". Thank you, Josh. Customers Convey Anger/Rudeness

Slides and Papers Available at Data Undergraduate Students Training (15 minutes; rules, tools). Practice (6 minutes; no pay). Real Work 15 minutes; up to 40 customers. pay for correct work.

Slides and Papers Available at Task Performance SDMN Angry Requests Affect Free Requests t = -2.05, p <.05 % requests handled correctly

Slides and Papers Available at SDMN Angry Requests Affect Free Requests t = 2.71, p <.01 Reported exhaustion (1-7 scale) Employee Fatigue after Customer Anger

Another Test … Auditory anger  Recall of details Auditory anger  Recall of details

Anger or Arousal? Performance with Angry and Overly Positive Angry: “Can you fix my account? I can’t believe your service is so slow and lousy! Neutral: “Please fix my account. There is an extra charge that need to be fixed” Overly Positive: Please fix my account. Your service is always so amazing and superb!” Customer Statement :

Could it be Arousal? Performance with Angry and Overly Enthusiastic Performance success rate (cumulative average) Anger – Neutral: p <.001 Anger – Positive: p <.01

Slides and Papers Available at What Have We Learned? Some One Displays Anger Focal Person Fatigue Performance of Work Tasks

Anger of Different Customers? Simulation: Some tasks are more important …valued more ($1.00 vs. 25 cents) Slides and Papers Available at e.g., VIP vs. Regular Customers?

Others’ Anger Hurts Ability to Prioritize Slides and Papers Available at

Recovery? Anger and Cognitive Processing? Slides and Papers Available at Memory? Weaker after others’ anger? Longer after others’ anger?

Slides and Papers Available at Method Employees Read Transcripts of Hostile / Non-Hostile Customers.

Slides and Papers Available at Affect-FreeHostile Customer: I am having reception problems with my phone. Employee: Perhaps you have a problem when you are in an area with no reception? Customer I don’t know but I think it happens all the time. I am in all sorts of areas. There should not be such reception problems. It seems to be anywhere I happen to be. Customer It happens all the time! I need to know your problems? I am in all sorts of areas. Your phones are bad quality; your technicians are lousy. Every time a new problem pops up? Others’ Hostility

Slides and Papers Available at 26 When did the person previously call? Last week. Two weeks ago. Three weeks ago Four Weeks ago What was the name of the caller? Eric. George Dan Sam. What hour of service was caller promised? 09:00 – 10:00 10:00 – 11:00 11:00 – 12:00 12:00 – 13:00 Measures: Recall of Details

Slides and Papers Available at Number of Angry Others Influences Ability to Recall (F(3,140)=15.94, p<.000) NMSD 0 angry calls angry call angry calls angry calls Mean Number of items recalled (1-9)

© Rafaeli Recovery of Depleted Employees ? Please wait. I need to recover. I am temporarily depleted from the previous customer

... Need to Press Enter... (A Test of Relief Time)

... Relief Time in Between Requests... Idle Time ( average in seconds ) Customer Request Number Enthusiasm Neutral Anger

Slides and Papers Available at How Long Does Effect of Customer Anger Last? Help! Effects on Problems Not Related to Customer ?

Performing Unrelated Task After Another Person’s Hostility Ten (10) Raven’s matrices; 8 minutes; After encounter with anger Resource Depletion Suggests Weaker Performance on Subsequent Tasks

Slides and Papers Available at SDMN Anger Condition Neutral Condition t = -2.22, p <.05 Others’ Anger Depletes Focal Person of Resources for Subsequent Task Mean Number of items Solved (1-8)

Effects on A Different Task? Creative Thinking Tasks:

Solution to Creative Task

P= Creative Task N=36 N=36 Accurate Performance  Angry  Non-Angry

Slides and Papers Available at What Have We Learned? Some One Displays Anger Performance of Work Tasks Performance of Unrelated Tasks Focal Person Fatigue and Resources

A Note … Slides and Papers Available at This must mean … VERY powerful effects with strong anger Powerful effects with very benign anger!

Slides and Papers Available at How Do We Manage all of This?

Slides and Papers Available at Turnover / Carryover Issues

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