Employee Interactions and Customer Incivility

Customer incivility represents low‐intensity deviant behaviour by clients that conveys disrespect or a lack of regard for service employees. Such interactions range from dismissive remarks and raised voices to subtle non‐verbal cues that undermine dignity. Repeated exposure to incivility elevates employees’ stress, erodes job satisfaction and contributes to exhaustion, potentially leading to turnover. Frontline workers in retail, hospitality, healthcare and social care are especially vulnerable, as direct contact with clients amplifies the emotional labour required to manage personal feelings and maintain professional composure. Organisations now recognise that preventing or mitigating incivility demands both structural interventions—such as workload management and supportive supervision—and investments in personal resources, including resilience training and emotion regulation skills. Understanding how customer behaviour, organisational support and individual coping strategies interact is critical for promoting employee well‐being, sustaining service quality and reducing costs associated with absenteeism and attrition. Emerging evidence highlights the global relevance of these dynamics and underscores the practical benefits of fostering respectful environments for both employees and customers.

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Employee Interactions and Customer Incivility publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in employee interactions and customer incivility across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Customer incivility: Low‐intensity rude or disrespectful customer behaviours that violate norms of mutual respect.

Emotional exhaustion: A chronic state of physical and emotional depletion resulting from excessive work demands.

Surface acting: Displaying emotions that are not genuinely felt in order to meet organisational display rules.

Job demands–resources model: A framework linking workplace stressors (demands) and supports (resources) to employee outcomes.

Conservation of resources theory: A theory positing that individuals strive to acquire and protect resources, and that resource loss leads to stress.

References

1. Customer deviance in retailing: Managers’ emotional support and employees’ affective wellbeing. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (2023).
2. A systematic review and bibliometric analysis of the dark side of customer behavior: An integrative customer incivility framework. Journal of Business Research (2023).
3. Mistreated but Still Resilient! Unraveling the Role of Servant Leadership in Mitigating the Adverse Consequences of Care Recipients' Incivility. Human Resource Management (2024).