Hold the Phone! Can Customer Role Conflict Compromise a Service Encounter?

Abstract

The authors of this exploratory study propose customer role conflict as a possible explanation for why customers may not fully perform the customer role during a routine service encounter. Two levels of customer role conflict (present and absent) are used to examine how customer role performance may be influenced by customer role conflict and in turn, how customer role performance influences both customer and service employee satisfaction with a routine service encounter. Findings suggest that customer role performance is a significant predictor of customer and service employee satisfaction with a routine service encounter. Results also suggest that an absence of customer role conflict is associated with higher evaluations of customer satisfaction, service employee satisfaction, and perceived customer role performance.