Crafting a proactive civility climate: enhancing customer civility impacts employee performance through the moderating role of job coaching

Purpose The global prevalence of customer incivility complexity negatively affects employee performance, which demands establishing an effective civility climate. Drawing on social exchange theory based on its nature of reciprocations, this study advances the knowledge by investigating how customer civility, shaped by civility climate, improves employee performance and how job coaching strengthens the relationship between customer civility and employee performance. Design/methodology/approach A systematic random sampling was employed within the Pakistan hospitality industry and approached 379 employees, 69 supervisors and 304 customers. A multilevel modeling technique was used to analyze the association between variables. Findings The findings reveal that a proactive civility climate significantly enhances customer civility, which boosts employee performance. Customer civility significantly mediates the relationship between civility climate and employee performance. While job coaching generally affects employee performance, its interaction with customer civility diminishes it in a scenario with high customer civility. Originality/value This study’s contribution lies in its proactive approach to mitigating customer incivility by fostering a positive civility climate rather than relying on reactive strategies. It highlights the reciprocal cycle of social exchanges in the workplace. It uniquely examines the mediating role of customer civility and the moderating effect of job coaching on the relationship between civility climate and employee performance.