Exploring the antecedents and consequences of customer mistreatment in service failures

Purpose When faced with mistreatment from customers, employees may find it difficult to focus on their tasks and may divert their attention away from service tasks, increasing the likelihood of service failure. However, current research still neglects to address the direct impact of mistreatment from customers on service failure. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to try to clarify and fill the gaps in the study of service failure within a paired research setting. Design/methodology/approach The questionnaire design followed the method of psychological isolation (with hidden meaning and information for the questionnaire items), with 217 validly matched questionnaires for service personnel and customers were distributed in this study; PROCESS for SPSS was used to test all hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that service workers’ deep acting plays a crucial role in buffering the negative effects of customer mistreatment. By genuinely modifying their emotional responses rather than merely suppressing them, employees experience lower emotional exhaustion, which in turn reduces the likelihood of service failure. This finding aligns with emotional regulation theories and conservation of resources theory, highlighting that deep acting serves as a protective mechanism against the emotional depletion caused by customer mistreatment. Moreover, a mediation moderated model confirmed that deep acting moderates the indirect relationship between customer mistreatment, emotional exhaustion and service failure. Originality/value The current research is the first study to utilize the stressor – emotion model and a longitudinal design to investigate the relationships between customer mistreatment and service workers’ emotional exhaustion and service failure. Additionally, this study explores whether emotional labour can mitigate the effects of customer mistreatment. This analysis has not been previously documented in the hospitality literature.